What is your stance on drugs? Should we legalise/control them or not?

[Froozy]

I was reading and came across this

http://uk.news.yahoo....banned-011919288.html

I've done some research and these legal highs the kids are taking can be pretty lethal and no one knows the long term effects of them, one i was reading about even brings on Parkinsons disease!

In Holland and Portugal i believe that casual drug laws have made crime figures decrease so should we adopt a more liberal stance?

Should we legalise them so that our kids can safely do drugs where they know exactly what's in it, know the dosage and cut out the evil drug dealing middlemen?

I would prefer my kids to buy clean drugs from the government rather then off some shady criminal in a dangerous area where they could be taking a lethal cocktail, wouldn't you?

(By kids i don't mean children)

[jno]

you think Ibuprofen isn't a drug, em? That would be news to the drugs companies that make them. They're pills you take when you want to change the way you feel. Any reason why the pills you want to take are okay and the pills other people want to take are not?

[Zeuhl]

There's a saying isn't there?

Keep doing what you're doing and keep getting the results you're getting

So our current strategy will:

increase drugs availability, cause increased deaths through product contamination, immeasurable death and destruction from criminal activity and growing prosperity for cartels and gangster distributors

[emmie]

We know what happens when you ban something, everyone wants it, like alcohol in US, they had prohibition, which brought in gangs, big money and crime by the bucketload. So perhaps it is time the people in power had a serious think over this issue because it isn't going away.

[emmie]

jno, for heavens sake i know it a drug, it's not one i take that often as it gives me bad stomach aches, but it has properties that can help people.

[jno]

so are you standing by your original claim about people not taking any drug at any time, or what?

[Old_Geezer]

I tend to think it is worth a try at legalizing them.
Soma for everyone I say.

[LazyGun]

As it currently stands, drugs presents society with a massive, ongoing, tragic problem - it promotes serious crime, it promotes drug lords and massive profits, and it promotes addiction and squalor.

I would far rather exchange those sets of largely insoluble and incredibly expensive problems with the other set of problems that legalising the drugs would have - namely, how to cope with those people who misuse them, or overdose on them etc.

I would apply the same logic to prostitution, for similar reasons.

The war on drugs and eliiminating prostitution are both losing positions. We should recognise that and amend the law accordingly.

Unfortunately, I do not think any mainstream party is likely to take up these issues, because they are perceived as vote losers, and that seems a shame to me.Successive governments have struggled to find an evidence based coherent strategy for drugs - look what happened to Prof. David Knutt when he offered the evidence - and successive governments could be viewed as hypocritical for legalising alcohol and tobacco, whilst outlawing others.

[emmie]

i will rephrase it for the person who thinks i meant ibuprofen,
I would not advocate taking cocaine, heroin, crack cocaine, cannabis, E,
these i believe are banned, illegal substances, but it is more or less ok to take ibuprofen, that of course is subject to whether you are allergic to it.

[friedgreentomato]

People get addicted to ibruprofen

[EDDIE51]

em10, I repeat, 80% of ALL crime is drug related. If not actually supplying/selling/taking it then stealing goods, cash , committing fraud to get cash for drugs. Make drugs free at treatment centres and you kill 80% of crime at a stroke.

[emmie]

Eddie then petition the PM to do it.

[emmie]

fgt, do they, i haven't heard of that, is it a banned, illegal substance? if not, then it's not what this post is supposed to be about.

[friedgreentomato]

Fine dismiss my valid point em thank you

[237SJ]

Ibuprofen`s not mind altering. It doesn`t change your behaviour. I don`t see how anyone can make an analogy between that and heroin etc.

[Zeuhl]

actually em

the original post is also about legal (none banned) substances

<these legal highs the kids are taking can be pretty lethal and no one knows the long term effects of them>

[ummmm]

em - you are not the only one to have watched people destroy their life with drugs. Wouldn't you rather know what was in them?

[EDDIE51]

People are addicted to nicotine which chemically is virtually identical to Heroin , but there is no serious suggestion to ban it.

[mazie]

They would EDDIE if it didn't mean losing £10 Billion per annum on Tax

[Zeuhl]

237

you might distinguish ibufropen as 'medicine'

but then so is marijuana for some conditions

and i seem to recall in student days people keeping stomach medicine long enough for the active ingredients (morphine?) to settle at the bottom.