spindrift Posted August 17, 2010 Share Posted August 17, 2010 Prescribed heroin has been trialled in the UK: In Liverpool, during the early 1990s, Dr John Marks used a special Home Office licence to prescribe heroin to addicts. Police reported a 96% reduction in acquisitive crime among a group of addict patients. Deaths from locally acquired HIV infection and drug-related overdoses fell to zero. But, under intense pressure from the government, the project was closed down. In its 10 years' work, not one of its patients had died. In the first two years after it was closed, 41 died. http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2001/jun/14/drugsandalcohol.socialsciences The war on drugs is lost. Time to find a better solution. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mj.scuba Posted August 17, 2010 Share Posted August 17, 2010 we as a nation spend 1.5 billion a year on stopping 2% of the drugs they want in getting in, what a waste of time and effort. make them legal make them free. 50% of crime stops. imagine that. And at the same time make it a criminal offence to light up a cigarette Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spindrift Posted August 17, 2010 Share Posted August 17, 2010 The Swiss, for example, in 1997 reported on a three-year experiment in which they had prescribed heroin to 1,146 addicts in 18 locations. They found: "Individual health and social circumstances improved drastically ... The improvements in physical health which occurred during treatment with heroin proved to be stable over the course of one and a half years and in some cases continued to increase (in physical terms, this relates especially to general and nutritional status and injection- related skin diseases) ... In the psychiatric area, depressive states in particular continued to regress, as well as anxiety states and delusional disorders ... The mortality of untreated patients is markedly higher." They also reported dramatic improvements in the social stability of the addicts, including a steep fall in crime. Ibid. Addicts are given a supply of clean, uncontaminated heroin. They no longer have to nick my car radio to get a fix, and a major source of funding for criminal gangs is cut off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted August 18, 2010 Share Posted August 18, 2010 And at the same time make it a criminal offence to light up a cigarette That'll never happen - they need the tobacco tax money! If they did, they would have to think about - Legalising drugs and tax them at the same rate as tobacco. Also tax alcohol at the same rate as tobacco - it causes far more trouble anyway. Remove all the pool tables, TV's etc in prisons so that they no longer resemble holiday camps and no one wants to go there in again. Daft ideas? - well, not quite as daft as mj.scuba's Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tipex Posted August 18, 2010 Share Posted August 18, 2010 I think it's worth a try atleast. It'll stop the wannabe gangsters when it's easy to come by. I think even teenagers would think it's less cool to smoke weed if it became legal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mj.scuba Posted August 18, 2010 Share Posted August 18, 2010 That'll never happen - they need the tobacco tax money! If they did, they would have to think about - Legalising drugs and tax them at the same rate as tobacco. Also tax alcohol at the same rate as tobacco - it causes far more trouble anyway. Remove all the pool tables, TV's etc in prisons so that they no longer resemble holiday camps and no one wants to go there in again. Daft ideas? - well, not quite as daft as mj.scuba's Lol I was jesting mate. Smokers will soon be forced to buy cigs from dodgy looking shops whilst having to wear a long mac and carry the cigs out in brown paper bags, have to smoke them in speak-easies or smoke as far away public places you'd think they're lepurs. Just think it would be ironic to relax on drug laws whilst being ultra tough on smokers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PC Brigade Posted August 18, 2010 Share Posted August 18, 2010 Then tax it! You'd put pretty much ever drug dealer out of business in one foul swoop. I don't think i'd be in favour of total legalisation of every drug, but certainly some of the class B & C ones which are no more harmful than cigarettes or alcohol. That's pretty much EVERYTHING then! Drug Classification has nothing to do with risk or harm - its purely political. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyclone Posted August 18, 2010 Share Posted August 18, 2010 http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tomchivers/100046076/another-top-doctor-has-backed-a-rethink-of-drug-policy-maybe-its-time-to-listen/ In the national news yesterday. It's like he'd been reading this thread! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PC Brigade Posted August 18, 2010 Share Posted August 18, 2010 Yeah, look at all those low life bankers and celebrities taking cocaine in London. Most of them barely have a million to their name. Dont forget the hundreds of thousands of young people who go clubbing each week and prefer to take something other than booze. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crookesey Posted August 18, 2010 Share Posted August 18, 2010 I've advocated this for years, but it's never going to happen. There is an army of jobsworths out there that make a damned good living out of other peoples vulnerability. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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