Sure, alchohol and cigarettes kill thousands of people every year, far more than those taking illegal drugs, problem is you rarely hear stories of drinkers and smokers committing mindless acts of violence in order to get their next drink or smoke...
The negative social effect of drinkers and smokers far outweigh the negative effects of drug users but eversince the banning of Opium a couple of centuries ago, the use of narcotic drugs in British society has always been a major political issue that no government have willingly or effectively been able to tackle...
Taking the thread title literally "moral question" the answer has to be no.
It is immoral to exploit vulnerable people by encouraging them to become dependent on ultimately harmful substances whether you are a government or a scumbag dealer in a tower block somewhere.
Whether legalising drugs as a pragmatic solution to the problems caused in society by them is a different debate.
However morally the answer has to be no in my view and that was the question.
[cite]Posted By: RedZed333[/cite]Sure, alchohol and cigarettes kill thousands of people every year, far more than those taking illegal drugs, problem is you rarely hear stories of drinkers and smokers committing mindless acts of violence in order to get their next drink or smoke...
I take it you're never out past 11 oclock then?!
I see mindlass acts of violence becasue of alcohol the majority of times I go out in towns.
where as in the 'druggiest' of proper clubs iv been to and spent half my teenage yrs in bairly have I even seen harsh words, no matter a fight or any mindless acts of violence!!
Very sad that people feel the need to abuse their body by filling it with all kinds of chemical sh*t! Yeah, yeah know all the arguments about fags & booze but as has already been stated two wrongs don't make a right.
I have a nephew who is a herion addict (life totally F'ked up and endless misery for his parents and costing the taxpayer a fortune) and frankly the b'tds that introduced him to it should have their balls cut off!
[cite]Posted By: kigelia[/cite]I don't buy the undercut argument at all.
If cocaine was manufactured on an industrial scale then the price would drop.
As it stands you have a small holding farmer in Bolivia with a small plot of land (needs to be small so its not spotted), who then takes his cocoa leaf to a hidden location where its processed, then walked through miles of jungle to a small hidden airstrip and flown, along with a few other bundles to a slighter larger airstrip where it joins a few other bundles and is then smuggled, normally hidden in something, to the country of destination.
All this drives the price up.
Now think of an industrial size operation in Bolivia that grows thousands of tons of cocoa leaf per annum, refines it in a purpose built facility and ships it in a number of 24 ton containers on a commercial vessel headed for Southampton Docks.
Its rather like saying what's cheaper? To grow an individual banana, pick it and ship / post it individually to you from Honduras or for you to buy a banana in Tesco that's been one of 500 / 600 tons of bananas that landed at Newport Docks last week?
That’s my view on it anyway.
Wait - chocolate is illegal? WTF?
LOL! Thats what Ive been telling the wife.....
That'll teach me not to read what Ive written before posting
[cite]Posted By: RedZed333[/cite]Sure, alchohol and cigarettes kill thousands of people every year, far more than those taking illegal drugs, problem is you rarely hear stories of drinkers and smokers committing mindless acts of violence in order to get their next drink or smoke...
I take it you're never out past 11 oclock then?!
I see mindlass acts of violence becasue of alcohol the majority of times I go out in towns.
where as in the 'druggiest' of proper clubs iv been to and spent half my teenage yrs in bairly have I even seen harsh words, no matter a fight or any mindless acts of violence!!
That's my point, you see it but you very rarely read about it, druggies on the other hand seem to get all the bad press. In our local park the local chavs are pissing it up every night and nothing is ever said or done about it, one needle is found in the bushes and the local bill step up patrols and roust everyone in sight and it's on the front page of the Echo in no time....
Brixton got pretty scuzzy (or even more scuzzy, depending on your point of view) when the police went soft on drugs there a couple of years back. I'm pro legalization, but only if other countries are doing so at the same time. Otherwise we become a magnet for everyone else's drug users with a consequent increase in social problems and expenditure. Also, how would it work if we were negotiating imports of Bolivia's finest while the CIA are trying to burn it all down?
If we could get international consensus (which we won't) then the tax, law & order and health arguments would be overwhelming however.
Another benefit is it would shut up all the puritans masquerading as moral guardians. One day someone will invent a drug that is very safe and that also gets you very high. In fact I expect it could probably be done now. How will they justify outlawing that?
[cite]Posted By: 24 Red[/cite]Brixton got pretty scuzzy (or even more scuzzy, depending on your point of view) when the police went soft on drugs there a couple of years back. I'm pro legalization, but only if other countries are doing so at the same time. Otherwise we become a magnet for everyone else's drug users with a consequent increase in social problems and expenditure. Also, how would it work if we were negotiating imports of Bolivia's finest while the CIA are trying to burn it all down?
If we could get international consensus (which we won't) then the tax, law & order and health arguments would be overwhelming however.
Another benefit is it would shut up all the puritans masquerading as moral guardians. One day someone will invent a drug that is very safe and that also gets you very high. In fact I expect it could probably be done now. How will they justify outlawing that?
i see that 3 areas of England ran a test where drugies were given drugs in a "controled" environment. They say street crime went down greatly in these areas. What they werent so big on saying was it cost £15,000 per adict, which is over 3 times higher than any other form of treatment. The other thing is the groups that carried out this test must have broken laws , as they not only brought the drugs they supplied em ?
[cite]Posted By: Goonerhater[/cite]i see that 3 areas of England ran a test where drugies were given drugs in a "controled" environment. They say street crime went down greatly in these areas. What they werent so big on saying was it cost £15,000 per adict, which is over 3 times higher than any other form of treatment. The other thing is the groups that carried out this test must have broken laws , as they not only brought the drugs they supplied em ?
Are there any costs involved in policing crime, or running prisons, or victim support, CCTVing the streets and so on that come with the present system of dealing with heroin use. (I believe it was about heroin...the controlled experiments)....maybe it is cost neutral, or even actually a cost benefit to society as a whole....then again it may also be a more expensive approach to the issues around drugs.
When you see the police camera programmes where they deal with binge drinkers (druggies) in towns of an evening, it looks like a costly exercise to me....then again they may indeed get paid by the TV companies when they supply the footage of what they have filmed.
We have to face the reality that we have lost the war on drugs. Take the crime out of it and the criminals will be left high and dry (no pun intended). We need to regulate it and tax it and put those resources into trying to combat addiction by other means. Without doubt there are some difficult moral questions, however.
Is it better to give a smackhead his daily fix on the state, or pay to clear up the mess when he mugs, robs and burgles his community to pay for it? Not to mention the individual human costs of the victims....
Whatever happens, something definitely has to change and we should be open to a completely different approach to the problem.
Another benefit is it would shut up all the puritans masquerading as moral guardians. One day someone will invent a drug that is very safe and that also gets you very high. In fact I expect it could probably be done now. How will they justify outlawing that?
You can already buy legal 'drugs' all over the country that are designed to mimick the same effects as:
Cannabis
Cocain
E
The problem is, although they are not illegal, in many cases they can in fact be more dangerous than their illegal counterparts.
Was an interesting programme about it on BBC3 not that long ago.
[cite]Posted By: 24 Red[/cite]
but only if other countries are doing so at the same time. Otherwise we become a magnet for everyone else's drug users with a consequent increase in social problems and expenditure
Maybe not, Holland are currently trying to change their drug laws regarding cannabis to outlaw it's use for tourists, meaning that it's sale and consumption would only be legal fo dutch nationals, having said that, there is a good arguement that this would be a huge breach of EU law, so may never happen.
So taxing drugs is a good idea? How many more junkies would we have and how many of them are able to support themselves to be able to pay for it? I would think hardly any of the heroin or crack addicts can pay for the drugs anyway so where will they get this from? The state, there will be no tax windfall from legalising a drug that makes a user disabled, unless you want to give them more in benefits for disability and claim that this is a good economic argument. The only country I am aware of where drugs are not a big problem is Singapore, where a clear death to trafficers policy is adhered to. Why are so many people in favour of increasing the chances of their or other peoples childrens dependance and ultimate early death? Seems a bit daft really. Smugglers should be put down to save them killing others. Discuss.....
Of course we would have to give up on the human rights charter first, but if the Tories have any balls that is the first act they will repeal anyway as the only rights it seems to help are those of the wrong uns.
And another thing, legalising cannabis doesn't work either. The mild cannabis most of us tried when we were younger was probably no more harmful than tobacco, but it leads, as do most drugs to the need for a bigger and better hit, especially amongst the young that don't understand the impact of their decisions at the time, it is not long before they want skunk, or move onto hard drugs, I cannot believe people on here think encouraging the young to try drugs and see how it goes are thinking straight. I don't mind admitting trying cannabis, cocaine, ecstacy and acid in the past but along with alcohol I was just strong enough to realise the future implications of the next time and with each I wanted more, with the exception of acid, which though a great trip scared me rigid as I lost control completely and took 24 hours to come down, the thought of a bad trip doing the same was enough for me never to touch it again. I was lucky that apart from acid I tried them when I was a bit more mature and understood that my decisions might impact my future life, if we legalised drugs then the 16 or 18 year olds who took that route are not aware enough of the consequences and might not be so clued up. RANT OVER for now.
Got back from Amsterdam last week. One of my mates (a policeman) said it certainly opened his eyes to the amount of time they waste enforcing Cannabis as a Class C drug. The only argument against it seems to be the mental health issues. If you are doing it all day every day then, of course, you are going to experience some problems. But that's just the same as drinking alcohol, smoking tobacco, eating chocolate or watching porn.
I'm really not for the legalisation of Heroin and the like. The Dutch government's rationale for cannabis is that it acts as a distraction from obtaining and using Class A drugs. Why are you going to go and buy skag off some nutter in a dark alley when you can sit in a coffee shop and buy top-quality, clean weed over the counter.
As Steve Dowman says, legalising heroin and making it much easier to obtain would most certainly not act as a distraction but almost an incentive for those who are using and especially for those who haven't tried it. As for legalising weed, there are very few convincing arguments against. Walk around anywhere busy in Amsterdam at half one in the morning and tell me it doesn't have social benefits.
Oh yeah, just one more thing, the only reason we are on here discussing this is that none of us are debilitated by drugs and can. How many of those saying legalise are heroin or crack etc users? How many of you have been through this or seen its effects first hand? Try speaking to the family of those who are and see what they think about what great ideas they are. time to take my prescription anger reducing tablets I think.
Alcohol is something of a red herring since it is already legal and has been for many years. The same can be said of tobacco.
I doubt very much that either would be legalised if hypothetically speaking they were discovered today.
The question is not whether certain legal drugs are more or less harmful than certain illegal drugs but whether it is right to legalise harmful illegal drugs.
Yes some legal drugs are undoubtedly harmful if misused but as I was frequently asked when young do two wrongs make a right?
The argument for legalising and taxing the 'less harmful' drugs is a no-brainer.
But if we condone smack and crack use by legalisation, would that send out the right message? It certainly isn't anything to aspire to...
However, as long as it is illegal, criminals will make enormous sums of money from it and the state gets nothing (and old ladies get mugged in greater numbers). That clearly isn't good either.
[cite]Posted By: LenGlover[/cite]Alcohol is something of a red herring since it is already legal and has been for many years. The same can be said of tobacco.
I doubt very much that either would be legalised if hypothetically speaking they were discovered today.
The question is not whether certain legal drugs are more or less harmful than certain illegal drugs but whether it is right to legalise harmful illegal drugs.
Yes some legal drugs are undoubtedly harmful if misused but as I was frequently asked when young do two wrongs make a right?
Bear in mind that alcohol and tobacco are heavily regulated, both how and to whom they can be sold and the ingredients etc, plus the alcohol and tobacco companies have a lot of political clout.
I wouldn't legalise Class A drugs because of the harmful effects on users - they aren't drugs but poisons, so it isn't in my eyes a moral/ethical/libertarian question, but one of common medical sense.
That said there are addicts who commit crime to get their next fix and controlling their intake takes crime off the streets,identifies users/addicts, and money spent now will save money and time later in jailing these people and chasing them through the legal system etc. However they'd have to be registered addicts and be under treatment to get them off the stuff.
I think the leagalisation of something like ganja would be ok if we did it over here the same way the Dutch have in Holland. Other drugs i dont think should be leagalised theough class A's are to hardcore to legalise.
Comments
The negative social effect of drinkers and smokers far outweigh the negative effects of drug users but eversince the banning of Opium a couple of centuries ago, the use of narcotic drugs in British society has always been a major political issue that no government have willingly or effectively been able to tackle...
It is immoral to exploit vulnerable people by encouraging them to become dependent on ultimately harmful substances whether you are a government or a scumbag dealer in a tower block somewhere.
Whether legalising drugs as a pragmatic solution to the problems caused in society by them is a different debate.
However morally the answer has to be no in my view and that was the question.
I take it you're never out past 11 oclock then?!
I see mindlass acts of violence becasue of alcohol the majority of times I go out in towns.
where as in the 'druggiest' of proper clubs iv been to and spent half my teenage yrs in bairly have I even seen harsh words, no matter a fight or any mindless acts of violence!!
I have a nephew who is a herion addict (life totally F'ked up and endless misery for his parents and costing the taxpayer a fortune) and frankly the b'tds that introduced him to it should have their balls cut off!
LOL! Thats what Ive been telling the wife.....
That'll teach me not to read what Ive written before posting
If we could get international consensus (which we won't) then the tax, law & order and health arguments would be overwhelming however.
Another benefit is it would shut up all the puritans masquerading as moral guardians. One day someone will invent a drug that is very safe and that also gets you very high. In fact I expect it could probably be done now. How will they justify outlawing that?
What an interesting post.
Are there any costs involved in policing crime, or running prisons, or victim support, CCTVing the streets and so on that come with the present system of dealing with heroin use. (I believe it was about heroin...the controlled experiments)....maybe it is cost neutral, or even actually a cost benefit to society as a whole....then again it may also be a more expensive approach to the issues around drugs.
When you see the police camera programmes where they deal with binge drinkers (druggies) in towns of an evening, it looks like a costly exercise to me....then again they may indeed get paid by the TV companies when they supply the footage of what they have filmed.
Is it better to give a smackhead his daily fix on the state, or pay to clear up the mess when he mugs, robs and burgles his community to pay for it? Not to mention the individual human costs of the victims....
Whatever happens, something definitely has to change and we should be open to a completely different approach to the problem.
You can already buy legal 'drugs' all over the country that are designed to mimick the same effects as:
Cannabis
Cocain
E
The problem is, although they are not illegal, in many cases they can in fact be more dangerous than their illegal counterparts.
Was an interesting programme about it on BBC3 not that long ago.
Maybe not, Holland are currently trying to change their drug laws regarding cannabis to outlaw it's use for tourists, meaning that it's sale and consumption would only be legal fo dutch nationals, having said that, there is a good arguement that this would be a huge breach of EU law, so may never happen.
I'm really not for the legalisation of Heroin and the like. The Dutch government's rationale for cannabis is that it acts as a distraction from obtaining and using Class A drugs. Why are you going to go and buy skag off some nutter in a dark alley when you can sit in a coffee shop and buy top-quality, clean weed over the counter.
As Steve Dowman says, legalising heroin and making it much easier to obtain would most certainly not act as a distraction but almost an incentive for those who are using and especially for those who haven't tried it. As for legalising weed, there are very few convincing arguments against. Walk around anywhere busy in Amsterdam at half one in the morning and tell me it doesn't have social benefits.
I doubt very much that either would be legalised if hypothetically speaking they were discovered today.
The question is not whether certain legal drugs are more or less harmful than certain illegal drugs but whether it is right to legalise harmful illegal drugs.
Yes some legal drugs are undoubtedly harmful if misused but as I was frequently asked when young do two wrongs make a right?
And much harder to roll properly
But if we condone smack and crack use by legalisation, would that send out the right message? It certainly isn't anything to aspire to...
However, as long as it is illegal, criminals will make enormous sums of money from it and the state gets nothing (and old ladies get mugged in greater numbers). That clearly isn't good either.
It's not an easy call to make.
Bear in mind that alcohol and tobacco are heavily regulated, both how and to whom they can be sold and the ingredients etc, plus the alcohol and tobacco companies have a lot of political clout.
I wouldn't legalise Class A drugs because of the harmful effects on users - they aren't drugs but poisons, so it isn't in my eyes a moral/ethical/libertarian question, but one of common medical sense.
That said there are addicts who commit crime to get their next fix and controlling their intake takes crime off the streets,identifies users/addicts, and money spent now will save money and time later in jailing these people and chasing them through the legal system etc. However they'd have to be registered addicts and be under treatment to get them off the stuff.
Seeing Johnson squirm was better than any snort/hit/blast etc for me.