A sensible discussion about current drugs policy.

[Alien]

Look now people, he can see sense.

 

A fairly simple licensing system: all drugs would need a licence to sell and a license to buy.

For relatively harmless drugs like alcohol and hash, it need not be much more complicated than the alcohol licenses they currently issue to teenagers (the age ID cards).

For the nasty stuff like heroine & crack, then you can use biometric data, and monitor the licensee as carefully as necessary.

For the in betweens, like skunkweed & speed, then some measure in between.

 

Where users abuse the privilege of their licence, appropriate steps can be taken.

 

Workhouses (not entirely the same as the Victorian ones) can be provided for those that need them: food, shelter and drugs can be provided in exchange for work.

 

And to those who would say that is taking jobs away from honest (if eastern European) workers, I would point at all the dereliction and waste in this country: there is no shortage of work to be done.

 

Have I missed anything?

Well, I never claimed to be any kind of expert... Experts can easily be hired. Sensible people don't pack them just because their advice doesn't tally with their preconceptions.

 

 

Yes..you best be careful you have "hairy" in your user name. He'll be telling you next your a hippy, and if you're a hippy then you're a lefty, and if you're a leftie then you're a tree hugger..and if you're a tree hugger you're a loon..

[*_ash_*]

Cheap labour is already swamping this country and causing mass unemployment, at least the prisoners wouildn't be sending any money out of the country.

 

What was it you said earlier?

 

I've never been in favour of the two wrongs make a right approach

[hard2miss]

Well considering you've had so much contact with and spent so much time in the sleazy world of drug/substance abuse and all its horrors I'm surprised that you want to make readily available to all and sundry.

What a fine example.

The fact I have experience of people who have taken drugs has not turned me hell bent against those people, just against the system that keeps them and there addiction and us as a society prisoners of our own doing. The system of keeping all this lot under one neat rug and pretending it does not happen is not working, you can live in your ideal utopian world where there is no drug addiction you cannot combat by throwing money at it, but its all in your head.

The difference between these people being scum and medicated citizens is all just semantics. They are scum because of the illegality of what they take.

 

Oh and I do know about the horrors of drug addiction, remember I was once addicted to Benzodiazepams given to me over a long period of time for a medical condition and had to fight it without all the fancy expensive help that is available to self abusers.

When I took Benzodiazepams it wasn't known to be or admitted to be addictive.

And I was once bitten by a dog when I was about 10 but I don't call to ban dogs or have them all put down.

You have opened up now some what and I can see your anger and where it stems from. The fact that you got yourself an addiction and a bad experience with the taking of drugs is not your fault, you can stop blaming yourself and others for it, you was betrayed only a lack of knowledge by those who prescribed to you. It is ok to let go of the hurt and suffering.

Because you feel forced and made to be an addict you resent those who seemingly take them for kicks. But these peoples life's are not connected to your experience and they too need understanding as you once did, its is up to society how it treats people on drugs, either with compassion or with disdain. Imagine if you were treat as a criminal even though you were on medically prescribed drugs, imagine if the boundaries had changed so no understanding was available to you and you were outcast, forced to take your addiction underground, rob and steal to keep up the only life you knew at the time, forced into being beholden to criminals and their prices to feel normal, ending up incarcerated in a life with little hope of escaping.

 

I think if you let go of some of that hate from your past you could easily imagine yourself on the other side of this argument, yourself with your experience could easily give you enough reasoning to champion a change in the law to get these people out of the darkness and call to help and accept them back into society, saving the rest of society the pain and cost of having to deal with our own rules and short comings.

[hard2miss]

Just put 'em all in Broadmoor they are off their heads!

 

To be honest the crap they pump into them there...they'd love it and it would ease the suffering of their family, neighbours & (once) friends!

You don't believe that. you were on the 'crap' and although you may not like yourself as you were back then you can relax now, now your through it. You are a fine example that being a drug habit does not mean society should strike you off.

You gained the strength from within yourself to get over it and make something constructive of your life, you cannot wish to write anyone off and not give them the chance to turn it around.

Don't resent people for not having your strength or finding it yet, society could help them through it by making the ordeal of there addictions easier until they are ready or strong enough instead of out casting them and hindering their rehabilitation.

Your addiction being a medical addiction meant that society did not ostracise you but helped you, if you would have been frowned upon and criminalised for your addiction then you could still be there in that hell.

[*_ash_*]

The fact I have experience of people who have taken drugs has not turned me hell bent against those people, just against the system that keeps them and there addiction and us as a society prisoners of our own doing. The system of keeping all this lot under one neat rug and pretending it does not happen is not working, you can live in your ideal utopian world where there is no drug addiction you cannot combat by throwing money at it, but its all in your head.

The difference between these people being scum and medicated citizens is all just semantics. They are scum because of the illegality of what they take.

 

And I was once bitten by a dog when I was about 10 but I don't call to ban dogs or have them all put down.

You have opened up now some what and I can see your anger and where it stems from. The fact that you got yourself an addiction and a bad experience with the taking of drugs is not your fault, you can stop blaming yourself and others for it, you was betrayed only a lack of knowledge by those who prescribed to you. It is ok to let go of the hurt and suffering.

Because you feel forced and made to be an addict you resent those who seemingly take them for kicks. But these peoples life's are not connected to your experience and they too need understanding as you once did, its is up to society how it treats people on drugs, either with compassion or with disdain. Imagine if you were treat as a criminal even though you were on medically prescribed drugs, imagine if the boundaries had changed so no understanding was available to you and you were outcast, forced to take your addiction underground, rob and steal to keep up the only life you knew at the time, forced into being beholden to criminals and their prices to feel normal, ending up incarcerated in a life with little hope of escaping.

 

I think if you let go of some of that hate from your past you could easily imagine yourself on the other side of this argument, yourself with your experience could easily give you enough reasoning to champion a change in the law to get these people out of the darkness and call to help and accept them back into society, saving the rest of society the pain and cost of having to deal with our own rules and short comings.

 

This is perhaps one of the most reasoned and best posts in this thread so far.

 

 

 

 

 

 

(apart from all of my posts of course )

[Alien]

You don't believe that. you were on the 'crap' and although you may not like yourself as you were back then you can relax now, now your through it. You are a fine example that being a drug habit does not mean society should strike you off.

You gained the strength from within yourself to get over it and make something constructive of your life, you cannot wish to write anyone off and not give them the chance to turn it around.

Don't resent people for not having your strength or finding it yet, society could help them through it by making the ordeal of there addictions easier until they are ready or strong enough instead of out casting them and hindering their rehabilitation.

Your addiction being a medical addiction meant that society did not ostracise you but helped you, if you would have been frowned upon and criminalised for your addiction then you could still be there in that hell.

 

 

In effect what you're saying is...basseman is advocating everything he despises.

 

Madness.

[hard2miss]

I think bassman has gone through and come through a bad experience with drugs and is miss directing the anger for that episode in his life towards people who seemingly take them for pleasure because deep down he still blames the person he once was for ever been weak enough to have become an addict.

 

The thing is that drug addicts in general are also weak. People turn to drugs for all sorts of reasons, sometimes because they need them medically, sometimes because they are not strong enough to deal with the pressures in there life's and seek some form of escape and sometimes for recreation.

What ever the reasons you have to take into account the physical and psychological impacts drugs have and you cannot blame people for those.

 

I think bassman is misguided into thinking that he was weak back then for succumbing to drugs, he looks to blame, and as he nor the people who proscribed them at the time knew of the addictive properties there is no one to blame and the result is it directed at drug use in general.

[Bassman62]

The fact I have experience of people who have taken drugs has not turned me hell bent against those people, just against the system that keeps them and there addiction and us as a society prisoners of our own doing. The system of keeping all this lot under one neat rug and pretending it does not happen is not working, you can live in your ideal utopian world where there is no drug addiction you cannot combat by throwing money at it, but its all in your head.

The difference between these people being scum and medicated citizens is all just semantics. They are scum because of the illegality of what they take.

 

And I was once bitten by a dog when I was about 10 but I don't call to ban dogs or have them all put down.

You have opened up now some what and I can see your anger and where it stems from. The fact that you got yourself an addiction and a bad experience with the taking of drugs is not your fault, you can stop blaming yourself and others for it, you was betrayed only a lack of knowledge by those who prescribed to you. It is ok to let go of the hurt and suffering.

Because you feel forced and made to be an addict you resent those who seemingly take them for kicks. But these peoples life's are not connected to your experience and they too need understanding as you once did, its is up to society how it treats people on drugs, either with compassion or with disdain. Imagine if you were treat as a criminal even though you were on medically prescribed drugs, imagine if the boundaries had changed so no understanding was available to you and you were outcast, forced to take your addiction underground, rob and steal to keep up the only life you knew at the time, forced into being beholden to criminals and their prices to feel normal, ending up incarcerated in a life with little hope of escaping.

 

I think if you let go of some of that hate from your past you could easily imagine yourself on the other side of this argument, yourself with your experience could easily give you enough reasoning to champion a change in the law to get these people out of the darkness and call to help and accept them back into society, saving the rest of society the pain and cost of having to deal with our own rules and short comings.

You have completely missed my point of view, I'm not angry, but I would have been had they known that benzodiazepams could and would become addictive.

But the idiots who start taking known addictive substances for kicks, in my opinion, deserve no sympathy whatsoever.

And if you people are naive enough to believe that rationing will work an that these fools will stick with the rationend amounts then I fear for the future generations with fools of this nature in control.

 

All druggies start on small doses for their kicks the trouble is the small doses soon become too small.

[melthebell]

 

All druggies start on small doses for their kicks the trouble is the small doses soon become too small.

druggies maybe..................but theres plenty of people from all walks of life who enjoy a dabble on a weekend and leave it well alone, it depends on the person not just the drug

[Bassman62]

I think bassman has gone through and come through a bad experience with drugs and is miss directing the anger for that episode in his life towards people who seemingly take them for pleasure because deep down he still blames the person he once was for ever been weak enough to have become an addict.

 

You see that is the kind of person who we're dealing with here.

Utterly misquoting what I've written

Forum mods should read back and see where I said I felt weak or where I implied I'd done anything to feel weak about by taking a prescription drug that at the time wasn't recognised as being addictive.

 

That must be one of the most disgusting pieces of misquoting and mischief making so far but this person is not the only one.

Lose the argument start lying as usual because you assume other gonks will only read your lying post and form the wrong opinion.