Sheffield Madness Over Xmas

[dave_the_m 61]

5 hours ago, Organgrinder said:

Perhaps you will explain this drugs user's Utopia for us?

Who is going to be making? Who is going to be selling? and who is going to be regulating these drugs.

Will this also guarantee that the drugs bosses who exist today are going to relinquish their lucrative businesses and take proper jobs instead.

That all sounds rather like a fairy tale to me and I still think that those who want to legalise drugs have a motive for doing so.

I don't expect to see many drug dealers stocking shelves in Tesco's any time soon.

I'm not suggesting it's a utopia. I'm suggesting the current system isn't achieving the desired goals and can be made less worse.

 

In the US during Prohibition, organised crime took over alcohol production and sales. After the end of Prohibition, the US moved back to a system where legal breweries and distilleries made the stuff, and was sold in liquor stores with heavy regulation, and organised crime had very little to do with it.

 

You do know that pharmaceutical grade Heroin is still manufactured in the UK, right?

 

And yes you've rumbled me - its true, I secretly want to spend all day shooting up Heroin while making millions from selling it legally. You were so wise and insightful to see through my deception.

 

 

[hackey lad 3,980]

5 minutes ago, dave_the_m said:

I'm not suggesting it's a utopia. I'm suggesting the current system isn't achieving the desired goals and can be made less worse.

 

In the US during Prohibition, organised crime took over alcohol production and sales. After the end of Prohibition, the US moved back to a system where legal breweries and distilleries made the stuff, and was sold in liquor stores with heavy regulation, and organised crime had very little to do with it.

 

You do know that pharmaceutical grade Heroin is still manufactured in the UK, right?

 

And yes you've rumbled me - its true, I secretly want to spend all day shooting up Heroin while making millions from selling it legally. You were so wise and insightful to see through my deception.

 

 

So , whats your answer and how will it work ?

[dave_the_m 61]

11 minutes ago, hackey lad said:

So , whats your answer and how will it work ?

I don't have a full answer - I would leave that to experts in the field. Some obvious choices are the Portugal approach of decriminalisation, or revert to the pre-60's UK approach of regulation, with doctors able to prescribe narcotics. Frankly I think making drugs completely legal (with strong controls on the quality of manufacture) would likely cause less harm than the current arrangements.

[Organgrinder 1,946]

3 hours ago, dave_the_m said:

I don't have a full answer

 

I thought not

 

- I would leave that to experts in the field.

 

And who would they be?

 

Some obvious choices are the Portugal approach of decriminalisation, or revert to the pre-60's UK approach of regulation, with doctors able to prescribe narcotics. Frankly I think making drugs completely legal (with strong controls on the quality of manufacture) would likely cause less harm than the current arrangements.

 

Sounds like a mish mash of arrangements simply designed to make drugs more easily available and save everybody getting a criminal record and would cause less harm to WHO?

None of that answers the points I made and it's never going to happen because the majority in this country have more sense.

 

[dave_the_m 61]

The experts would be people like the criminologists. health workers, sociologists, the government's advisory panel on drugs etc. You know, people who actually study these things.

 

It would cause less harm to drug users, and less harm to society. There would be a reduction in burglaries etc as people would no longer need to steal to feed their addition.

 

What point(s) of yours haven't I answered?

 

It's never going to happen because most people in this country don't know what they're talking about, as evidenced by this thread.

 

 

[Alextopman 1,429]

7 hours ago, dave_the_m said:

The experts would be people like the criminologists. health workers, sociologists, the government's advisory panel on drugs etc. You know, people who actually study these things.

 

It would cause less harm to drug users, and less harm to society. There would be a reduction in burglaries etc as people would no longer need to steal to feed their addition.

 

 

It's never going to happen because most people in this country don't know what they're talking about, as evidenced by this thread.

 

 

How would they pay for their drugs?.

Do you think it would prevent the antisocial behaviour in our cities, 

Parts of the city centre resemble a Zombie film, do you think legalising drugs will alter that and if so in what way.

What jobs would these addicts of legal drugs do to pay for their habit?.

Don't you think the experts you mention may have already done those studies and maybe decided legalising isn't the way to go?.

 

 

 

 

Edited January 1, 2022 by Alextopman

[Organgrinder 1,946]

6 hours ago, dave_the_m said:

The experts would be people like the criminologists. health workers, sociologists, the government's advisory panel on drugs etc. You know, people who actually study these things.

 

It would cause less harm to drug users, and less harm to society. There would be a reduction in burglaries etc as people would no longer need to steal to feed their addition.

 

What point(s) of yours haven't I answered?

 

It's never going to happen because most people in this country don't know what they're talking about, as evidenced by this thread.

 

 

Who is going to be making these drugs and who is going to pay them for this? 

Who is going to be selling them and storing them safely so that the drug gangs don't break in and steal them every night?

Who is going to be regulating them as British governments don't have a very good track record on regulation.

(They also don't have a good track record on making things readily available as with PPE and Covid tests)

Will this also guarantee that the drugs bosses who exist today are going to relinquish their lucrative businesses and take proper jobs instead?

 

I will accept that my knowledge of the narcotics industry is  very slight BUT, my knowledge of human nature is quite extensive and this more than makes up for it.

The  best way for drugs to cause less harm to drug users is for them not to have any drugs.

You will say that the drug trade cannot be stopped but almost all of the illegal cigarette trade was stopped.

It just needs the authorities to clamp down properly instead of half heartedly

 

[cuttsie 1,091]

The title is Sheffield madness over Xmas ,welcome to the asylum.

[Alextopman 1,429]

19 minutes ago, cuttsie said:

The title is Sheffield madness over Xmas ,welcome to the asylum.

We've been in it a long time.

Went in Bottom of the Lane on Thursday I didn't see any old faces, just empty seats where a lot of good lads used to sit but have now passed away.

[dave_the_m 61]

52 minutes ago, Organgrinder said:

Who is going to be making these drugs and who is going to pay them for this? 

Who is going to be selling them and storing them safely so that the drug gangs don't break in and steal them every night?

Who is going to be regulating them as British governments don't have a very good track record on regulation.

(They also don't have a good track record on making things readily available as with PPE and Covid tests)

Will this also guarantee that the drugs bosses who exist today are going to relinquish their lucrative businesses and take proper jobs instead?

 

I will accept that my knowledge of the narcotics industry is  very slight BUT, my knowledge of human nature is quite extensive and this more than makes up for it.

The  best way for drugs to cause less harm to drug users is for them not to have any drugs.

You will say that the drug trade cannot be stopped but almost all of the illegal cigarette trade was stopped.

It just needs the authorities to clamp down properly instead of half heartedly

 

I've already pointed out that pharmaceutical grade heroin is already manufactured in the UK. The people paying for them will be either the NHS or the end users depending on circumstances. They're cheap to manufacture (for comparison the AZ SARS-CoV-2 vaccine costs about $3.50 per dose).

 

Why would drugs gangs break in and steal them? There wouldn't be drugs gangs any more, and they'd be effectively worthless - I've already demonstrated this in the example of the end of Prohibition in the USA. There are similar examples to be found in the legalisation of pot in some US states.

 

The UK government has a very good track record on regulation. When you buy a medicine at a pharmacy, you have a very high confidence that it contains the right amount of the active drug and and is completely free of contaminants. When you buy spirits from an off-licence, you have a very high confidence that it doesn't contain toxic methanol or other side effects of illegal distilling, and that the correct duty has been paid on it.

 

The PPE/Covid test comparison is irrelevant - that required going from nothing to huge quantities overnight in a panic.

 

Again, I've given examples where drugs bosses were taken out of the loop post-legalisation.

 

Like you, I would prefer that users didn't take drugs. But I look around and see that in the Western world, 50 years of an ever-toughening "war on drugs" doesn't seem to have stopped people who want drugs from taking them. But as a side-effect of that criminalisation, a whole lot of bad things have happened - organised crime taking over, gang turf wars, addicts going on burglary crime sprees or resorting to prostitution to pay for their habit, physical wrecking of addicts' bodies due to all the crap the drugs have been cut with, and overdose deaths because addicts can't know the exact strength of the heroin they just bought. Given all that, I think it's time to stop just assuming that making prison sentences even longer will somehow fix the problem and start looking at the issue properly.

 

The cigarettes example is irrelevant - that's just about people avoiding duty on products that are otherwise mostly freely available.

 

In the US they haven't clamped down half-heartedly: their prison population is, per capita, 5 times the UK size, the majority of whom are in for drug or drug-related offences; yet the US still has around 100,000 opiate overdoes deaths per year.

 

In summary - it's not working, lets try something different.

[blackydog 40]

@dave_the_m

You make some reasonable points. And I agree with your conclusion that poor quality is the biggest threat.

What does bother me though, is that making narcotics  available legally, would open the market to many new users, many of them that may not have tried them when they were illegal.

I don't think I'm ready for my son and daughter, to be able to purchase smack from Tesco.

There is a huge issue with prescription opioids in America because of their easy availability. 

Credit for making the effort though. 

[onewheeldave 22]

31 minutes ago, blackydog said:

@dave_the_m

You make some reasonable points. And I agree with your conclusion that poor quality is the biggest threat.

What does bother me though, is that making narcotics  available legally, would open the market to many new users, many of them that may not have tried them when they were illegal.

I don't think I'm ready for my son and daughter, to be able to purchase smack from Tesco.

There is a huge issue with prescription opioids in America because of their easy availability. 

Credit for making the effort though. 

That is a strawman- Tesco won't be selling heroin and no has has suggested it would be.

2 hours ago, Alextopman said:

How would they pay for their drugs?.

 

 

 

 

 

They pay for their drugs now, yes?

With a legal and regulated source the drugs would have to be the same price or less, obviously, as otherwise the users would tend to continue buying the toxic stuff from the criminals.