Attitudes to drugs

[snakey1]

To answer Snakies snide remarks - Oxygen is freely available WHEREVER you are and therefore NOT classified as a drug. Marijuana, Heroin and others of that ilk are! If you APPROVE of these so called "harmless" drugs (in which I include Alcohol), I dare you to go and stand outside the ambulance entrance of the A&E department over a weekend!!

I had a friend who died of alcohol poisoning and I had another that was reduced to a cabbage in intellect and looking after himself after taking meth-amphetamine! Look at the amount of stabbings where the culprit has pleaded leniency because he "was under the influence of drugs" at the time!

Most of them stated afterwards that they were all smoking pot when an argument happened and the person was stabbed.

We've all tried it - some stayed and some didn't - that's the argument!

Actually oxygen in concentrations as sold in "Oxygen bars" isn't available everywhere hence why they can sell it and (I have to admit i'm unsure of the law in the UK here) in the United States, the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act defines any substance, used for breathing and administered by another person, as a prescription drug. Melvin Szymanski, a consumer safety officer in the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, has explained that at one end of the hose is a source of oxygen, so the individual providing the hose and turning on the supply is dispensing a prescription drug.

 

Although oxygen bars that dispense oxygen without a prescription violate FDA regulations, the agency applies regulatory discretion to permit individual state boards of licensing to enforce the law of dispensing oxygen.

 

The point i'm making is nobody suggested that the only other option was for all drugs to be made legal on prescription only (I believe that was your viable alternative) just that the current situation obviously isn't working. IMHO a system along the lines of that outline by Steve Walker seems a much more sensible and workable option than either the current situation or your ridiculous extreme KB.

 

As for loads of arguments between pot smokers ending in stabbings, well if you had said that of drinkers i would have agreed with you, but pot smokers?? heres a quote taken from one report on its use

"In contrast to the ability of amphetamines to enhance muscular performance and to increase physical activity (Weiss and Laties, 1962; Tinklenberg and Stillman, 1970), marihuana has been found to decrease the inclination toward physical activity and to actually reduce both physical exertion and activity (Mayor's Committee on Marihuana, 1944; Hollister, et. a]., 1968; Hollister, 1971), thereby decreasing the probability of inciting the user to assaultive behavior.

 

Although marihuana has been found to reduce inhibitions in some persons, it has not been shown to exaggerate extant aggressiveness to any appreciable degree; in some instances it has, in fact, been shown to reduce aggressiveness, and to induce timidity, fear and passivity in the user (Bromberg) 1934,1939; Chopra and Chopra, 1939; Allentuck, 1942; Chopra, and Chopra, 1942; Charen and Perelman, 1946; Carstairs, 1954; Blumer, et. al., 1967; National Institute of Mental Health, 1970, 1972). "

 

Oh yes just done a bit of mooching around and I'm afraid your wrong again KB the MHRA (the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, formally the MCA Medicines Control Agency in the UK) technically classify oxygen as a drug.

Edited November 4, 2009 by snakey1

[GlennB]

Marijuana, Heroin and others of that ilk are! If you APPROVE of these so called "harmless" drugs (in which I include Alcohol), I dare you to go and stand outside the ambulance entrance of the A&E department over a weekend!!

 

Nobody here has 'approved' of heroin. Nobody has called it 'harmless'.

So - what are the dangers of illegal heroin use? Let's list a few, in no particular order :

 

1. Overdose and poisoning. Caused by unpredictable quality of illegally supplied H.

2. Infection, from HIV to plain sepsis. Caused by shared and dirty needles. Often associated with poverty-stricken 'lifestyle'.

3. Crime and violence. Funding an overwhelming addiction costs money. User,family,friends, and society as a whole all suffer.

 

Wealthy, careful heroin addicts can live to a ripe old age by avoiding the above. And they do. Contrary to popular belief, H is not a killer drug in itself. It's the lifestyle that kills.

 

Legalise heroin under controlled conditions and the damage this drug causes (and the profit that goes to producers and traffickers) would be slashed immediately.

 

Now - if everybody would benefit from controlled legalisation of H, it would take a nutter to oppose it. In my view. Regrettably it's also my view that we're governed by a succession of nutters whose primary objective is gaining and keeping their job, rather than doing a good job. There are few votes in 'druggie hugging' but a fair few votes in playing the hard man wielding the big stick.

[Emma two]

I tend towards the belief that a person's body is his own, to do with as he wishes, and that it's none of the government's damned business what a consenting adult puts in it.

 

 

Exactly. Educate the people as to the possible implications of putting anything into their bodies. Food, drink, (even lightbulbs ets!) and the substances which we label 'drugs'. Then their choice will be informed, from then on it's personal responsibility, and the government can get on with what they are supposed to do.

[Jim Roper]

I suppose some people might say that it would be acceptable to get enough tax out of recreational drugs to pay for the medical care that is needed by users.

Some people have always brought up the subject of the amount of tax that smokers contribute.

I just don't see how a country can be better off by importing thousands of tons of a vegetable material, processing it into fags and then setting fire to it.

[kleinboet]

Those of you who are saying "it is up to the person" - If only this was so!!

 

I couldn't care one fig if somebody thinks so little of their body that they fill it with poisons BUT What about the INNOCENT people who are possibly walking by and killed "because he looked at me funny" or whatever else their drug filled deluded brain imagines!! Why must ordinary people have to live in fear of being attacked, as it is now more and more becoming part of the norm!

[poledark]

Down down down....ever downwards. I have never taken pot or any other of the so called social drugs, never felt the need to get **** up on booze, and gave up smoking years ago.

 

I stopped smoking when it became obvious that it would probably shorten my life. A simple decision.

 

Now, if we were to get back to the time of Sir Walter and could have forseen the number of deaths that nicotine was destined to cause, would you agree that a prudent and wise government would have been right to ban the import and use? Even if one "expert" advised that it was less harmful than Gin?

 

Goverments job is to govern, often making decisions unpopular with some people, many of these people "on the fringe of society" and I suspect that this govn'ts decisions are based on what is good for the majority, normal, clean living population. On that basis, I applaud them for not sticking their heads in the sand and giving way to a vociferious minority.

 

Den

[kleinboet]

Best thread so far!

[Emma two]

Goverments job is to govern, often making decisions unpopular with some people, many of these people "on the fringe of society" and I suspect that this govn'ts decisions are based on what is good for the majority, normal, clean living population. On that basis, I applaud them for not sticking their heads in the sand and giving way to a vociferious minority.

 

Den

 

Perhaps some of you are happy to acknowledge and celebrate your subservient place and to allow a group of other people to decide what is best for you, and to nationalise and decide on your behalf what you should do with your own body? Maybe you would welcome the thought police chip planted into the brain too?

 

Are these politicians who you are so eager to allow control of your very flesh and blood the same ones who are so sorley critisied in these very pages?

Edited November 4, 2009 by Emma two

[Emma two]

Those of you who are saying "it is up to the person" - If only this was so!!

 

I couldn't care one fig if somebody thinks so little of their body that they fill it with poisons BUT What about the INNOCENT people who are possibly walking by and killed "because he looked at me funny" or whatever else their drug filled deluded brain imagines!! Why must ordinary people have to live in fear of being attacked, as it is now more and more becoming part of the norm!

 

 

Define 'ordinary'.

 

The only way to stop people being killed by others would be to ban practically everything. A childhood friend of mine was killed by a fat lass who ran over him on a bike. Motor vehicles kill lots of 'innocents'. We don't ban everything, it's life and bad things happen. Perhaps we have become so entrenched into a soft society that we shriek and run from anything remotely scary? or it is that we increasingly belive that we have a right to live forever, or at least to such an age that we become so feeble as to need spoon fed and have our arse wiped?

[Sportsman]

Down down down....ever downwards. I have never taken pot or any other of the so called social drugs, never felt the need to get **** up on booze, and gave up smoking years ago.

 

I stopped smoking when it became obvious that it would probably shorten my life. A simple decision.

 

Now, if we were to get back to the time of Sir Walter and could have forseen the number of deaths that nicotine was destined to cause, would you agree that a prudent and wise government would have been right to ban the import and use? Even if one "expert" advised that it was less harmful than Gin?

 

Goverments job is to govern, often making decisions unpopular with some people, many of these people "on the fringe of society" and I suspect that this govn'ts decisions are based on what is good for the majority, normal, clean living population. On that basis, I applaud them for not sticking their heads in the sand and giving way to a vociferious minority.

 

Den

 

 

I agree Den

Ironically if you discovered alcohol, tobacco and cannabis tomorrow as three brand new substances, the only one you would have a chance of legalising would be cannabis. The other two are much too dangerous.

 

personally it wouldn't bother me if all recreational drugs disappeared tomorrow as I don't use any of them (including tobacco and alcohol) but the fact is that they are not going to disappear, whatever you, I or the government wish, so surely we have to start thinking of ways that we can minimise the harmful effect these drugs are having on individuals and society.

You may see this a a lapse in moral standards, I see it as common sense.