O/T Four Heroin Deaths in Barnsley

As far as I'm concerned you can take what you want as long as you don't get the money to pay from it by stealing from other people, and don't keep ending up in the hospital costing the NHS money.

Cocaine and opium were legal in Victorian times and I bet we had a lot fewer drug addicts than we do today.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-overdose-in-portugal/?utm_term=.c499d9edd1eb

Nonsense. Works in Portugal very well according to my Portuguese friend and you'll be shocked to know when it was decriminalised he didn't immediately run off to buy some heroin

 

Pretty rare I end up agreeing with Gloria...

I think it was only 1971 where heroin possession was made illegal.

I would have said things have taken a nose dive from there myself.

I'm not making light of drug use btw, but remember nearly every one of our great poets, painters, jazz, soul & rock musicians of the sixties were all opiate users to some degree & they are national heroes.

It is complicated & it does need talking about.

Most of these people, (in recent times say Keith Richards), but could have been Byron, Keats, etc kept a productive life, just like a guy who works hard & likes a few pints / glasses of vino to wind down. We jumped on a US policy, just like when we invaded Iraq & we are now as fecked as they are.

 

I have to say I disagree with much of what you say there . Whilst not an expert , I have been involved in a rehabilitation centre ....but I accept others may disagree .
I fully support the criminalisation of ( particularly class A ) drugs .....authorities have a duty to protect its citizens , and if criminalisation deters some people from getting involved then it's worthwhile......but the results are unquantifiable .
If you were to make these substances legal , you really are risking letting the genie out of the bottle , no one can know where that would end ....but what would be the benefits gained ? As I see it you are risking producing generations of people unable to work or function normally .
There is much criticism regarding the current methods used in the war on drugs....people saying it's not working , but how does anyone actually know ? It can only be pure speculation , every shipment seized keeps the price up , I realise that brings another set of problems , but cheap and readily available is the worst scenario .
As for the Govt buying it , it's not a thought out suggestion...if anyone guaranteed to buy any product the whole world would begin growing it and shipping the newly legalised product here .
I understand why you say it's hypocritical to accept alcohol but not drugs but alcohol has been socially accepted since time began , and the vast bulk of people can handle work , life and drink , that can't be said for

It's debatable to say it's nonsense when you actually read the article , the drugs themselves are still illegal , the debate earlier was around making the drugs legal and freely available..I applaud any improvement but the article does not say what the position was before....one swallow doesn't make a summer and as the article says "Drug use and drug deaths are complicated phenomena. They have many underlying causes. Portugal's low death rate can't be attributable solely to decriminalization. As Dr. Joao Goulao, the architect of the country's decriminalization policy, has said, "it's very difficult to identify a causal link between decriminalization by itself and the positive tendencies we have seen."
Amsterdam went down a similar route and found different results , and to say your friend didn't immediately run off to buy some heroin is a ridiculous comment .

 

and so we get nowhere

 

If Donald Trump in't a smack head then my pricks a blota.

 

He's up at 3am tweeting with a line. It's so obvious, it's unreal.

 

Generally, continued drug (or alcohol) use affects the ability to do the job - through increased absence and decreased concentration levels. Long term, this can cause people on drugs to lose their job and find it harder to gain new work. Addiction can also lead to the addict becoming obsessed with their next fix/drink and lead them to spend any spare money to satiate their needs, until the point where they need to commit further crimes to get the money.

In addition to crimes committed by addicts, the rewards available to suppliers encourages them to commit further crimes, including those of violence and weapons (knives in the UK, guns in the USA). Somewhere in the region of 25% of our prison population is sentenced for drug related offences (second largest group of the prison population by crime), with another chunk of those committing violent acts against another person (largest group in prison) being involved with the distribution of illegal drugs. We could either reduce the prison population by around 25-30% or use the spaces to punish criminals convicted of other crimes. This would save a significant chunk of the budget or allow us to retrain and reform prisoners for a more productive return to society.

If the government was to import the drugs, and distribute those through a "clinic" in each town with medical supervision available it would save lives. Whether it is free, or at cost, it would undercut any smuggler, making it uneconomical for them to continue in that trade. Removing the "dark glamour" associated with the drugs would also help to keep the next generation of kids off it. It would also reduce the need for addicts to commit crimes to fund their habit.

It might work. It might not work, but in 2015, nearly 2,500 people died in the UK from illegal drugs only. Another 1,100 died from a combination of legal and illegal drugs. That is the highest ever recorded level of death through drugs. What we are doing now is not only not working, but we are letting over 3,600 people die each year as a result as the current policies. Making something illegal (legal highs) or tinkering with the sentencing (what class is marijuana now?) is not working, so we need to try something different.

 

Asked my Portuguese pal his opinion on this out of curiosity find attached

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...dly-anyone-dies-from-overdosing-10301780.html

Was interested to see what Portugal did. Fascinating results! We will only start to tackle to issues caused by drugs when we change our approach to law, support and education.

can understand peoples loathing for drugs and the havoc they cause, plus some of the associated crime. But stigmatising it further, policing it harder, driving it further underground, as has been the policy for the last 30 years, has failed spectacularly. Perhaps a different approach will help.

 

Another 3 deaths in town due to contaminated heroin http://www.itv.com/news/calendar/20...ation-over-contaminated-heroin-is-stepped-up/