CS: Misc-Drugs
From: Jonathan Spencer, [EMAIL PROTECTED] We are WAY off topic here, and this thread should be killed (but not before I chuck in 2p's worth). From: "David Rovardi", INTERNET:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Last year it was estimated that 20% of all hospital admins and upto 45,000 deaths where caused due to legal drugs. Globally? On Radio 4 this morning I heard someone (I think he was called Serle, possibly a police spokesman) said there were 250 drug overdose cases per month in England Wales (3,000 p.a.) but compared to car accidents this is a lot of people. And there are 3-4,000 deaths in road traffic accidents p.a., and ten times that number of serious injuries. (A serious injury includes "any fracture".) So 3,000 drugs overdoses (not necessarily fatal, just overdoses) and 3-4,000 fatalities on the roads. --Jonathan Spencer, firearms examiner "Justice is open to everybody in the same way as the Ritz Hotel." Judge Sturgess, 22 July 1928 Cybershooters website: http://www.cybershooters.org List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ T O P I C A http://www.topica.com/t/17 Newsletters, Tips and Discussions on Your Favorite Topics
CS: Misc-drugs
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't dope (marijuana, cannabis, grass) banned in the USA in 1937 within twelve weeks because Philip Morris, the ciggie makers,and others had formed a cartel and started market research to market 'reefers' nationwide? As Jonathan has suggested, the Government's action was based on the fact that dope was used a lot by black people and there was a general perception that marijuana caused sexual promiscuity among otherwise chaste, save it for marriage-type, Bible Belt white girls. I've read this at some time, but I don't recall where. Sory, it's way off topic, but--if true-- it does seem to have been the knee-jerk stuff we all know about. Barry W. Cybershooters website: http://www.cybershooters.org List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ T O P I C A http://www.topica.com/t/17 Newsletters, Tips and Discussions on Your Favorite Topics
CS: Misc-drugs
From: "Tim Jeffreys", [EMAIL PROTECTED] . One thing I do want to say here is that gun crime may have not been a problem pre-1920, but heroin abuse was, why was it banned in the first place? Why did the Chinese go to war to stop it being imported? If I recall my agricultural and medicinal chemistry course unit correctly, heroin was developed much later (40s?) to be a more effective analgesic - and with the intention of being less addictive - than morphineoops. Opium was what the chinese were trying to restrict. Tim (still pedantic) -- Heroin nowadays is extremely pure stuff. I don't know how it compares with simple opium or the 1940s stuff, but it can be smoked and so was opium. Steve. Cybershooters website: http://www.cybershooters.org List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ T O P I C A http://www.topica.com/t/17 Newsletters, Tips and Discussions on Your Favorite Topics
CS: Misc-drugs
From: "John Daragon", [EMAIL PROTECTED] I said : These things are *directly* the result of proscription and absolutely *nothing* to do either with the pharmacological affect of the drugs nor of the rave culture. That no-one in mainstream politics or the Civil Service appears to be able to extract any meaningful lesson from Prohibition in the US leaves me gobsmacked. "IG" said : Naivety in the extreme. Thanks. Have you ever seen the results of drug taking? I've seen a broad spectrum of the results of a broad spectrum of drugs. My guess is that I have seen fewer of the people who don't cope than you do, and that you have seen fewer of the people who do cope than I have. I may be wrong. I suppose the 47 people that have died as a result of Heroin overdoses this year in one small town near where I live are the result of proscription ? Almost certainly. When opiates were legally obtainable, of known concentration, and it was possible to administer them hygenically there were very few fatalities associated with their use. And I believe they really were quite heavily used before the 1920 Act. Of the fatalities that *were* recorded, a fair proportion involved babies who had opium administered to stop them crying when they were teething. I don't advocate this. Are you seriously, with a straight face, trying to tell me that these deaths would have been avoided if heroin was legally available to them ? I believe so. If I remember correctly we had relatively few deaths when diamorphine was available on prescription, and I believe this is the currrent experience in juristictions where this is still the case. I'm sure you'll correct me if I'm wrong. That the deaths have nothing to do with the pharmacological effect of the stuff? Some of them obviously occur as a direct result of the respiratory depression caused by opiates. I suspect that most people who don't wake up again after taking these drugs don't do this on purpose. Those who do could OD on paracetamol more conveniently and cheaply, and I don't think theres any mileage in public policy to attempt to deter the committed suicide. My experience (and I have quite a bit of it in this area) is that it can't be done. That leaves those who OD in error. I think it's much easier to do this when the concentration of a drug is unknown. The deaths from septacaemia, AIDS, hepatitis c appear to be secondary to insanitary administration in the main. Both of these latter brands of morbidity are directly related to proscription. That they would have continued to lead useful and fulfilling lives if they had got the stuff at a shop as opposed to a dealer? I believe there to be evidence to support the view that it's possible. Famously, William Halsted (he was the first Professor of Surgery at Johns Hopkins) used morphine for over 50 years and no-one complained about his operating ability. I presume he had a reliable supply. Then there were Keats, Byron, Shelley, Scott, deQuincey, Coleridge and (I think) Dickens. Queen Victoria (IIRC) used cannabis and cocaine. There will always be people capable of screwing up thier lives with or without what we're encouraged to describe as "drugs". Are you on drugs or what! Only caffeine. The trouble with the tonelesness of text is that I can't tell whether that was supposed to be rude or funny. jd -- If heroin was so benign, why was it banned? Bearing in mind in most countries I am aware of it was banned in the 19th century or the 1900s, way before socialism took a grip. Why did the Chinese stop a ship entering a port full of the stuff, thereby giving the UK an excuse to invade Hong Kong? I just don't buy the argument that heroin use was not a problem before it was banned. Cannabis, yes, but not heroin. Steve. Cybershooters website: http://www.cybershooters.org List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ T O P I C A http://www.topica.com/t/17 Newsletters, Tips and Discussions on Your Favorite Topics
CS: Misc-drugs
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] even in places like Switzerland where heroin use was effectively decriminalised for some time. But you said it yourself in an earlier post, decriminalisation is not the point as it dosen't remove the dodgy characters and their crappy products. Establishing a proper statutory system of controls that can be regulated is a different story alltogether. Jonathan Laws -- I'm convinced with heroin at least it wouldn't make a blind bit of difference, with cannabis it would. Heroin is addictive, most of the crime is indirect in that people thieve to support their habit, rather than the crime being directly caused by the drug dealers. Sean arguing about the cost of drugs is also not accurate, drugs are inexpensive, but people still steal to support their habit because if you have that habit you cannot support yourself. Legalisation of non-addictive drugs makes some sense provided the drug itself is not very harmful, but legalisation of addictive drugs that are also harmful would not help, IMO. Tobacco and caffeine are addictive, but they are not very harmful, so there is not much of a problem. Ecstacy can be harmful, but it's not addictive. It's where you have the two characteristics together that you have a problem that would not be solved by legalisation, because the cost/benefit analysis doesn't hold up. Steve. Cybershooters website: http://www.cybershooters.org List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ T O P I C A http://www.topica.com/t/17 Newsletters, Tips and Discussions on Your Favorite Topics
CS: Misc-drugs
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] I don't want to take a position which supports absolute freedom to take any substance I do. Free Life Commentary, Issue Number 17 10th May 1998 Nothing New, but Still Worth Sending Out: Another 1400 Words Against Drug Prohibition by Sean Gabb I notice I have not written about drugs for several years. There is nothing in the news that prompts me to write about them now. I simply feel inclined to see how well I can express what has become a huge argument in a small number of words. And so here are my thoughts on why the sale and use of recreational drugs ought not to be illegal. Let us begin with the libertarian argument. People should be regarded as having the right to do with themselves as they please. This necessarily includes the right to do things that others think stupid or distasteful or immoral. If I want to, I have the right to join an odd religious group, and give it all my wealth; to have tattoos put all over my body, and to have parts of my body pierced in artistic ways; to devote myself to the poor in Africa; to be hung up on hooks and be flogged within an inch of my life by someone wearing a leather mask; and of course, to consume whatever mood-altering substances take my fancy. No one else automatically has the right to interfere with my choices. If you think I am doing wrong, you can persuade me. You can get down on your knees and beseech me to better behaviour. You can threaten me with exclusion from your company and that of your friends. Beyond that, you have no right to go any further, unless you can prove that what I am doing involves the use of force or fraud against another person, or that it is the sort of act - like selling defence plans to an enemy in arms - that threatens the dissolution of the entire community. Taking one's own drugs in consenting company is not an act of the first kind - it causes no one else the sort of harm against which they can legitimately demand protection. Nor is it an act of the second kind. We are told endlessly that drugs are a danger to social stability - that they lead to crime and degradation and so forth. There is no evidence for this claim. The British past provides a compelling example. Until 1920, drug use was uncontrolled. Between 1827 and 1859, British opium consumption rose from 17,000lb to 61,000lb. Workmen mixed it in their beer. Gladstone took it in his coffee before speaking. Scott wrote The Bride of Lammermoor under its influence. Dickens and Wilkie Collins were both heavy users. Cannabis and heroin were openly on sale. There was no social collapse. There were few deaths from taking drugs. Most deaths involving opium were individual accidents, and even these were negligible - excluding suicides, 104 in 1868 and thereafter to 1901 an annual average of 95. Hardly anyone even recognised that a problem might exist. The claim that drugs are bad for a society is a lie. The truth is the opposite. It is the criminalisation of drugs that is bad. All the ills that are now blamed on the availability of drugs are more accurately to be blamed on the illegality of drugs. When drugs are illegal, only criminals will supply them. And when criminals are allowed to dominate an entire market, they will be able - indeed required - to form extended, permanent structures of criminality that could never otherwise exist. They will then make drugs both expensive and dirty. Drugs will be expensive because bribes, transport inefficiencies, rewards of special risk, and so forth, all raise the costs of bringing drugs to market. Therefore much of the begging, prostitution and street crime that inconvenience Western cities. As many as two-thirds of American muggings may be to finance drug-use. Drugs will be dirty because illegal markets lack the usual safeguards of quality. When a can of beer is stamped "8 per cent alcohol by volume", this does not mean anything between 0.5 and 30 per cent. Nor will caustic soda be used to make it fizzy. Brewers have too much to lose by poisoning or defrauding customers. Drug dealers can afford to be less particular. Therefore frequent overdosing. Therefore poisonous additives. Therefore, the frequent transmission of aids even today by the sharing of dirty needles. Moving from the costs of the crime resulting from illegality, we come to the costs of enforcement. These also are massive. In the first place, the Police need to become a virtual Gestapo if they are to try enforcing laws that create no victim willing to complain and help in any investigation. They need powers to stop and search people and to search private homes that would never be necessary to stop things like burglary and murder. They need to get involved in entrapment schemes. They are exposed to offers of bribes frequently too large to be turned away. In one way or another, the War on Drugs leads to the corruption of every enforcement agency sent into battle. And that War cannot be won. The British
CS: Misc-Drugs
From: "David Rovardi", [EMAIL PROTECTED] Last year it was estimated that 20% of all hospital admins and upto 45,000 deaths where caused due to legal drugs.(This is drug interactions, people misusing legally prescribed drugs and over the counter drugs). Think about this in context to illegal drugs. I appreciate more prescription drugs are used, but compared to car accidents this is a lot of people. regards David Rovardi Cybershooters website: http://www.cybershooters.org List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ T O P I C A http://www.topica.com/t/17 Newsletters, Tips and Discussions on Your Favorite Topics
CS: Misc-drugs
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Oh, and how come Holland has never had a single death attributable to E? I think both Holland and Switzerland have schemes where you can actually test the E you have bought. From what I've read the majority of the serious physical effects of drugs are cuased through improperly made batches containing various contaminates or are due to stuff that hasn't been cut enough and is far too strong. This is purely a result of illegality and would probably be greatly aleviated by a proper system of legal controls. It would largely remove the unsavoury characters from the supply chain, I mean we don't see people going blind or getting brain damage from illegal alcohol these days because you can just go down the offy and buy it. Statistically, E is much safer than Pennicillin. A previous Poster was right about Laudnum it never realy caused a problem when you could get it neither did many of the other drugs, yes we have a much more violent society these days, as IG has pointed out, but a lot of this violence is again derived from the fact that drugs are illegal. Acid was only banned in the 60's, Cannabis the 30's and E was legal in the US until about 1983. The poster who pointed out that most bans are only to keep "middle England" happy is probably not far from the mark. Most of the drugs that are illegal today were made illegal because polite society simply didn't like the types that were associated with them. Pot was banned in the 30's or 40's, the reason it was banned in the US at least, was because of it's association with those nasty Jazz musicans, who were mostly black, similar reasons probably existed here. Move forward to the 60's when Acid was banned, filthy hippies used to use that and E was seen as the root cause of all these noisy "raves". I can see a fairly good case for keeping Heroin illegal but then again is it possible to manufacture it in such a form so as to be not as destructive to those using it? I really don't know and don't know where to find out, I wouldn't believe anything the Government told me about drugs or much else for that matter. Everything else dosen't seem to pose too many problems as long as they are produced and supplied under a proper system of controls. Perhaps it wouldn't make all that much difference, but it can't be any worse than the situation we have now. Jonathan Laws -- Yes, I would go along with that summary. Acid and cannabis are harmful to some extent but they aren't really addictive. They cause health problems but nothing like cocaine and heroin and a few others. Steve. Cybershooters website: http://www.cybershooters.org List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ T O P I C A http://www.topica.com/t/17 Newsletters, Tips and Discussions on Your Favorite Topics
CS: Misc-Drugs
From: "David Rovardi", [EMAIL PROTECTED] Drugs E safer than heroin, I don't think so. E was developed as an antipsycotic drug (eg to treat schizophrenics). It is not safe, even the government can't get the warnings right. Drink lots of water while you take it, its the overheating that kills you. Whoops no it isn't is water overload or hyponatraemia that does. Pure heroin is no more addictive or harmful than nicotine. Its the rest of crap in both nicotine (as tobacco) and heroin (just about anything) that causes harm. If anyone would like a discussion about drugs or any questions answers I'd be more than happy too. regards David Rovardi MRPharmS Pharmacist -- E is not addictive like heroin is, that's the problem rather than the harm a single dose can inflict. Steve. Cybershooters website: http://www.cybershooters.org List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ T O P I C A http://www.topica.com/t/17 Newsletters, Tips and Discussions on Your Favorite Topics
CS: Misc-drugs
From: "IG", [EMAIL PROTECTED] These things are *directly* the result of proscription and absolutely *nothing* to do either with the pharmacological affect of the drugs nor of the rave culture. That no-one in mainstream politics or the Civil Service appears to be able to extract any meaningful lesson from Prohibition in the US leaves me gobsmacked. Naivety in the extreme. Have you ever seen the results of drug taking? I suppose the 47 people that have died as a result of Heroin overdoses this year in one small town near where I live are the result of proscription? Are you seriously, with a straight face, trying to tell me that these deaths would have been avoided if heroin was legally available to them? That the deaths have nothing to do with the pharmacological effect of the stuff? That they would have continued to lead useful and fulfilling lives if they had got the stuff at a shop as opposed to a dealer? Are you on drugs or what! IG Cybershooters website: http://www.cybershooters.org List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ T O P I C A http://www.topica.com/t/17 Newsletters, Tips and Discussions on Your Favorite Topics
CS: Misc-drugs
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sorry ET, but I'm convinced the libertarian view is this instance is complete nonsense, because of what I said previously about economics. Heroin is already inexpensive so it hardly matters about where the supply comes from, the only way to stop the supply is stop the dealers (same theory as gun crime really, get the criminals rather than the guns). If you have inelastic demand, then the price will be whatever it is, and you will still have addicts, you will still have addicts committing burglaries to feed their habit, you will still have monumental health costs associated with treating them all. Heroin may be cheap but so are all Drugs, it's just depends on what people decide to charge for them. One Columbian drug baron used to fly Heroin into the US by the 737 load so the price obviously has nowt to do with the actual quantities available. The reason Heroin is cheap is becasue it's being subsidised by Tobacco and Booze smuggling. The profits from the latter are being used to subsidise the former and if the Government ever gets it's act together and reduces alcohol and tobacco tax the price of Heroin will rise again and the dealers will have lots of new addicts because of it. I don't think the answer to illegal drug problems is to stop the dealers, the Police actually do a pretty good job at this anyway, the problem is when you lock up one another will always come along to fill his place. People are stupid, they risk ten year jail terms for robbing Post Offices for a few grand, selling drugs for possibly much bigger rewards is much more attractive. The fact of the mater is, the potential profits are staggering and there are just too many people willing to take the risk. You won't stop people getting it into the Country for the same reason, if you offer some Columbian peasant a lifetimes wages to make a trip on a cargo vessel to deliver a package to Britain He'll jump at the chance. Jonathan Laws -- I think you're right about the smugglers, I think it is a complete farce what the Government is doing, how on Earth can you stop the illegal import of cigarettes, they found a factory the other week that had illegally imported eight tonnes of tobacco and started making cigarettes illegally! Going after the dealers is the only way. The problem is that many dealers do get out far too early and certainly I would never suggest the problem could be stopped totally but they did make a big dent in heroin dealing back in the 80s. The problem now is pretty similar to the gun problem, weepy parents going on about someone killed by ecstacy or ignorant people afraid of cannabis (why?) causing loads of money to be wasted on combatting the wrong problem. There used to be a plant shop next door to the local cop shop that had a sign in the window saying "Pot plants for sale." Only when one of the coppers found his daughter growing said pot plants in his bathtub did they realise what kind of pot plants were being sold there! Heroin and cocaine dealing can be substantially reduced though, I'm convinced of it, in fact every copper I speak to in Walsall says exactly the same thing as me. Revolving door of justice and all that. One thing I do want to say here is that gun crime may have not been a problem pre-1920, but heroin abuse was, why was it banned in the first place? Why did the Chinese go to war to stop it being imported? Steve. Cybershooters website: http://www.cybershooters.org List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ T O P I C A http://www.topica.com/t/17 Newsletters, Tips and Discussions on Your Favorite Topics
CS: Misc-drugs
From: "John Daragon", [EMAIL PROTECTED] I said : We didn't have this trouble when Laudanum was available over the pharmacy counter, and we didn't have it for just two reasons : purity of supply and administration, and the lack of pushers with a vested interest both in (arbitrary) cutting and in the propagation of addiction. "IG" replied "No, we didnt have raves, AIDS, a simmering culture of violence and many other things either. It is beyond belief that anyone can even think about legalising, or even decriminalising class A drugs. I can only think that they have never seen the results of drug addiction. Im not talking about the crime aspect, I'm talking about the physical effects of narcotics on the individual. The incontinence, the hepatitis, the HIV, the septicaemaia, the depravity and filth. The pathetic specimens that sleep in gutters and doorways. Would being able to buy the stuff at a shop make this vanish? Of course not." Well, actually, yes it would. Not one of the effects you mention are amongst the effects of taking any of the drugs on Schedule A. They *are* the effects of taking the contaminants you get when they're prepared without the benefits of a proper production lab and where access to (for example) socially acceptable sources of clean needles is denied. These things are *directly* the result of proscription and absolutely *nothing* to do either with the pharmacological affect of the drugs nor of the rave culture. That no-one in mainstream politics or the Civil Service appears to be able to extract any meaningful lesson from Prohibition in the US leaves me gobsmacked. jd -- I disagree, the health problems from heroin don't come directly from the drug, they come from the addiction, the suppression of hunger and so on. The heroin sold on the street today is far purer than it ever has been before and we have vastly more heroin addicts than we did ten years ago. In ye olde days you had to inject it, not any more. Steve. Cybershooters website: http://www.cybershooters.org List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ T O P I C A http://www.topica.com/t/17 Newsletters, Tips and Discussions on Your Favorite Topics
CS: Misc-drugs
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] It's: "Hellawell", and what does he do? Well, in essence he is a puppet who spouts whatever he is told to spout, mostly! He's also a total hypocrite and liar. Before he got his anti drugs job with the Government he was saying that Cannabis should be legalised, now he want's it all kept illegal. He also said, one or two days after getting the job, that Cannabis was not only addictive but halucanogenic, both of which are lies. Jonathan Laws -- Cannabis isn't addictive, but tobacco is, and it's rolled together to make a joint usually. Steve. Cybershooters website: http://www.cybershooters.org List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ T O P I C A http://www.topica.com/t/17 Newsletters, Tips and Discussions on Your Favorite Topics
CS: Misc-drugs
From: "John Daragon", [EMAIL PROTECTED] but instead of using their intelligence to get a real job they are addicted to heroin so they steal cars and live from day to day. and And it's not because drugs are artificially expensive because they're banned either, heroin is quite inexpensive, but when you are addicted to it you can barely function as a human being so you can't make much money. and then Wake up everyone, there is a large and growing proportion of the population going down the tubes because of heroin. I'm not sure this is completely true. I don't think what you're observing is the effect of heroin addiction. I think it's the result of illegal heroin addiction. We didn't have this trouble when Laudanum was available over the pharmacy counter, and we didn't have it for just two reasons : purity of supply and administration, and the lack of pushers with a vested interest both in (arbitrary) cutting and in the propagation of addiction. Many addicts with access to legal diamorphine (or morphine, or cocaine, or whatever) have lived useful, productive, happy lives without a great deal of damage to themselves and with absolutely none to society. My guess is that history will judge the proscription of (some) drugs that we have now in much the same way that we think about the witchcraft laws. jd -- Oh, it's the way it's marketed for sure, what annoys me is when people think that it is the user's own stupid fault etc. Drug dealers are con artists. They pick on young people because they know they are naive, and the increase in heroin use among young people is staggering. In Walsall ten years ago it was virtually unknown in my experience, but go into town during lunch time now and it's "spot the smackhead". The reason why decriminalising cannabis is nonsensical is because it will just give drug dealers cover. If cannabis is decriminalised it needs to be legalised and available over the counter at any corner shop, that is the only way to get drug dealers out of the equation. All the Customs officers in the world won't stop the stuff coming in, it's too easy to send drugs through the post. The solution as far as I'm concerned is legalise all the Class B drugs and slap a life sentence on anyone caught dealing Class A drugs on the second offence. Steve. Cybershooters website: http://www.cybershooters.org List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ T O P I C A http://www.topica.com/t/17 Newsletters, Tips and Discussions on Your Favorite Topics
CS: Misc-drugs
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] "" The reason why decriminalising cannabis is nonsensical is because it will just give drug dealers cover. If cannabis is decriminalised it needs to be legalised and available over the counter at any corner shop, that is the only way to get drug dealers out of the equation. All the Customs officers in the world won't stop the stuff coming in, it's too easy to send drugs through the post. The solution as far as I'm concerned is legalise all the Class B drugs and slap a life sentence on anyone caught dealing Class A drugs on the second offence."" Couldn't have said it better myself. I'm sick of watching young people's lives being ruined for the sake of political expediency and to maintain 'middle England' and it's voters in a little cocoon! It's time for radical action against the pushers, dealers and gangs. Our 'War' on drugs is a damp squib. By preventing young people from being in contact with the dealers we could stop or reduce a whole generation of addicts. The dealers in Fraserburgh in the NE of Scotland took to pushing free sample bags of heroin through letterboxes last year! The public assumes all drugs are bad. I suppose they are, but to varying degrees. Heroin is very, very addictive. Kids will rob their own family to 'score'. An aquaintance of mine has had to fix their TV and video down to stop it being stolen by their son. The drive for heroin is totally and utterly over-riding. A quote from the film Trainspotting: "I'd crawl on my hands and knees over a mile of broken glass just to use the ~dealers~ sh#te for toothpaste, for a fix!" You cannot beat that except by extreme methods and confronting societies entrenched views. Free the police and customs to hound the hard drug dealers out of business and into jail for a very, very long time. In addition, the Government could cash in on the deal by taxing hash in much the same way as tobacco. The Friday and Saturday night alcohol induced violence would be cut as the 'dope heads' would be too sleepy, loved up and/or hungry to bother hassling each other..:-) Oh, and how come Holland has never had a single death attributable to E? It may surprise some people to learn that Leah Betts, who died after taking ecstacy, and whose father has become a leading anti-drugs campaigner, actually died through drinking too much water. She didn't die from a reaction to the drug itself, she was following advice on re-hydration and went too far. http://mir.drugtext.org/ravesafe/water.htm J. Cybershooters website: http://www.cybershooters.org List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ T O P I C A http://www.topica.com/t/17 Newsletters, Tips and Discussions on Your Favorite Topics
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From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Also this argument about only weak-minded people is utter crap as well, anyone can become a drug addict Come on, Steve, you're in danger of getting a little personal here! There is such a thing as the "addictive personality", identified a long time ago, and it's simply not true to say that "anyone" can become addicted to hard drugs. Especially from what you say, with the West Midlands apparently awash with illegal substances, heroin seems no more difficult to obtain than alcohol - but are most people taking advantage of its availability? Of course not. And I emphasise that I am not just saying complacently that I and my family, and the people I know, are just "too bright" to go in for this sort of destructive indulgence: for example, the use of hard drugs among some otherwise bright musicians is a long-established phenomenon, cf one of the all-time jazz greats, Charlie Parker. I know nothing of Walsall, and freely admit I am happy to live in the rural South West well away from the urban horrors you describe. But I still say that the deliberate use of damagingly addictive substances is characteristic of a certain type of person - and in a free society we should let them get on with the business of destroying themselves, interfering only if their habit threatens us directly. Many observers comment that drug crime is caused largely by the illegality and consequent high price of drugs: remove the crooks from the equation and druggies should no longer get sucked into committing crimes to feed their habit. I agree it must be nasty to live alongside the drug culture, but it's a problem which is exacerbated by oppressive, puritanical laws, and by government taking advantage of druggies as a "client population" to facilitate their grabbing more and more sweeping powers to do things to the rest of us. I don't know what you think of as a "large and growing" proportion of the population, but perhaps it's a proportion whose self-destruction would not greatly distress the rest of us. Last night I enjoyed a couple of pints with a chum of mine, discussing such things as shooting the Winchester 458 Magnum; I don't feel tempted to start mainlining vodka... Right now I'm ingesting my first "hit" of caffeine for the day... Anthony Harrison -- I personally think this theory of "addictive personalities" is the same as the Nazis calling the Jews genetically inferior. If only weak-minded people with addictive personalities can get addicted to heroin, then they constitute a large proportion of the population, so it is academic to argue what characteristics they have. How do you know you don't have an "addictive personality"? Your wife? Your kids? Steve. Cybershooters website: http://www.cybershooters.org List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ T O P I C A http://www.topica.com/t/17 Newsletters, Tips and Discussions on Your Favorite Topics
CS: Misc-drugs
From: "jim.craig", [EMAIL PROTECTED] Hmm. I don't want to take a position which supports absolute freedom to take any substance but the process of addiction is not as simple as stated. As an army medic I saw many cases where soldiers in extreme pain were given large and repeated doses of morphine (essentially the same stuff as heroin) but did not become addicted nor suffer any of the horrors of 'cold turkey' when the drug was withdrawn A small number did have problems but the large majority went back to a completely normal way of life when the pain went away and there was no further need for the medication. This despite the approved wisdom of the time that while some drugs eg alcohol; nicotine; some antidepressants could produce 'psychological dependency , others like morphine could produce true physiological addiction in which the body could not function properly without a regular supply of the drug. Anyway the point is academic to the drug problem. In this country at one time, registered drug addicts were, I am told, given free supplies of whatever they were addicted to under prescription on the NHS. The numbers were small, the costs miniscule and the problem of a black did not seriously arise. Some do-gooder or other no doubt decided that it was morally wrong to provide these 'moral degenerates' with free supplies of their drugs and the programme was wound up with the predictable results that an illegal market for these substances was created. Just goes to show, yet again, that making things illegal does not automatically make them go away! -- We're getting way OT here (my fault), but when I was in hospital I was given morphine as a pain killer and I didn't get addicted to it either. The pattern of use of a recreational user is completely different than someone being given medical treatment. They take it to get a buzz, and they progressively need more and more to get the same buzz. In health care they're careful to measure the doses and watch the reaction to prevent addiction. Plus morphine is not the same stuff being peddled on the street to kids, this stuff is so pure now they can put it in joints and smoke it. With morphine you have to inject it, and a lot of people are put off by needles. Steve. Cybershooters website: http://www.cybershooters.org List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ T O P I C A http://www.topica.com/t/17 Newsletters, Tips and Discussions on Your Favorite Topics
CS: Misc-drugs
From: "IG", [EMAIL PROTECTED] We didn't have this trouble when Laudanum was available over the pharmacy counter, and we didn't have it for just two reasons : purity of supply and administration, and the lack of pushers with a vested interest both in (arbitrary) cutting and in the propagation of addiction. No, we didnt have raves, AIDS, a simmering culture of violence and many other things either. It is beyond belief that anyone can even think about legalising, or even decriminalising class A drugs. I can only think that they have never seen the results of drug addiction. Im not talking about the crime aspect, I'm talking about the physical effects of narcotics on the individual. The incontinence, the hepatitis, the HIV, the septicaemaia, the depravity and filth. The pathetic specimens that sleep in gutters and doorways. Would being able to buy the stuff at a shop make this vanish? Of course not. Like it or not, some things do need legislation to regulate them, as too many people are weak minded enough to succumb to the temptation to indulge. IG -- I say it again, it's nothing to do with being weak-minded. It's peer pressure. Platitudes that it only happens to unemployed people or weak-minded people are conjured up in the same way that the anti-gunners say all gun owners are mentally ill or own them as phallic symbols. Is Robert Downey Jr the sort of person people think lives on a council estate? Steve. Cybershooters website: http://www.cybershooters.org List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ T O P I C A http://www.topica.com/t/17 Newsletters, Tips and Discussions on Your Favorite Topics
CS: Misc-drugs
From: "E.J. Totty", [EMAIL PROTECTED] Many addicts with access to legal diamorphine (or morphine, or cocaine, or whatever) have lived useful, productive, happy lives without a great deal of damage to themselves and with absolutely none to society. My guess is that history will judge the proscription of (some) drugs that we have now in much the same way that we think about the witchcraft laws. jd -- Oh, it's the way it's marketed for sure, what annoys me is when people think that it is the user's own stupid fault etc. Drug dealers are con artists. They pick on young people because they know they are naive, and the increase in heroin use among young people is staggering. In Walsall ten years ago it was virtually unknown in my experience, but go into town during lunch time now and it's "spot the smackhead". --snip-- The solution as far as I'm concerned is legalise all the Class B drugs and slap a life sentence on anyone caught dealing Class A drugs on the second offence. Steve. Steve, John, In either case of the above, there is that element of the citizen accepting, or being made to accept self-responsibility, and accountability. Children can be somewhat excepted from this rule, but it still begs the question of control. Presuming for a moment that if there were almost complete legalization, with access only through pharmaceutical outlets, and with a price structure that would effectively compete the black market out of existence, then the criminal element is forced to move on to greener pastures. If a junkie knows that a fix costs less, has guaranteed quality, and can access clean medical supplies without the hassle of arrest, then guess where he will go? No threats, no hassles, no need to be part of a crime scene, no fear of compromise, no aspect of blackmail, no furtive forays to seek drugs. In short: no criminality. It also effectively guarantees the 'authorities' of an accurate assessment of drug use in the nation, and even where it might be centered. It doesn't take much to extrapolate the US experience with alcohol prohibition to what all of us are now experiencing in our respective nations with psychoactive substances. If it can be accomplished with alcohol, it can certainly be done with other drugs. To blanket prohibit anything literally invites it to be a subject of black market interests. I agree that addiction is a vile and cruel malady, but it is better to have -- in my mind -- someone who is an addict who obtained the substance from a source of known accountability, and be able to say with a certainty that that person exists in the community, than to have any substance awash in that same community having no standards or controls for purity, and not be able to quantify usage, and identify the addicts much beyond when they become incapacitated or victims in the sense of the several aspects that result of the addiction, the most prominent of which is crime. It used to work at one time. One wonders what the real motive was that created the morass we experience. -- =*= =*= =*= =*= =*= =*= =*= =*= =*= =*= Liberty: Live it . . . or lose it. =*= =*= =*= =*= =*= =*= =*= =*= =*= =*= ET -- Sorry ET, but I'm convinced the libertarian view is this instance is complete nonsense, because of what I said previously about economics. Heroin is already inexpensive so it hardly matters about where the supply comes from, the only way to stop the supply is stop the dealers (same theory as gun crime really, get the criminals rather than the guns). If you have inelastic demand, then the price will be whatever it is, and you will still have addicts, you will still have addicts committing burglaries to feed their habit, you will still have monumental health costs associated with treating them all. You only have to look at what has happened in Switzerland, they took a laid back view and now they have the highest proportion of heroin addicts in Europe, 5% of the population and their health care costs because of it have skyrocketed. Finally they have decided to crack down on it. There is a reason the Chinese went to war to stop the English from shipping the stuff in to China. Heroin and crack cocaine (or rather amphetamines cooked up like cocaine) are extremely addictive and cause serious health problems, vastly worse than alcohol or tobacco. I've seen it happen with too many people. For example, a lot of girls take heroin to lose weight. Not only that, but Walsall has the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in the EU, and a lot of girls in the area binge on heroin to cause miscarriages. And so it goes. We've had burglaries at our premises by heroin addicts who are so desperate that they cut themselves getting over the spikes on the gates, and then literally punch through the glass and grab whatever they can steal, blood everywhere. Rational people, even criminals don't do that. Steve. Cybershooters website:
CS: Misc-drugs
From: "E.J. Totty", [EMAIL PROTECTED] ""Are you implying that we have a law regulating the MISUSE of drugs? --snip-- I've had friends use recreational drugs in the past, and I can tell you that this is a prime example of prohibition causing more problems than it ever solves. --snip-- -- I totally agree with you John, there are so many people in Walsall who have gotten onto heroin the way you describe that it is exceptionally hard for anyone to convince me that marijuana and ecstacy should remain illegal. --snip-- Also clearing out the jails of people convicted of growing marijuana would make space to keep the smack dealers in for much longer periods of time. Steve. Steve, John, Well, if you were to go the complete run and re-legalize the whole group of drugs that are currently outlawed, and merely make them obtainable by signature at a local apothecary/pharmacy or what have you, then the government would have a real idea as to the dimensions of drug use within the community -- something they have no idea of now. And, if every item were packaged with a description of the actual effects upon the body that the substance will have, as well as the long term effects, that could serve as a restraint. And, instead of playing the current lock'em up game, it would be a much better use of funds to simply have treatment centers for those who wanted to kick the addiction. As for the illegal market? If the price is so low that even the most poor could well purchase whatever, then there is no black market. To be sure, there would always be the abusers, but the glamor aspect has been removed. And the caveat of illegal usage: no concurrent activities that would cause others harm. If the price for breaking that law is stiff enough, it would deter the greater number. As you know, there will always be the hard cases. Allow me this: those who become addicted to any substance are pretty much of the same psychology: the aren't sick people, they are looking for an out from something that is bothering them. I you can get them into counseling, you can get to root causes of their dilemma. The general idea of getting young people to stay away from abusive drug use, isn't well thought out. Nobody I know of simply tells them the real story: "Your bodies are still growing, and everything you put into them will have an effect later on in life. When you abuse a substance, you are essentially weakening the building blocks of your life, creating possible havoc later on down the line. Everything in life is momentary except life itself. "Act in haste, regret in leisure". And regret lasts a lot longer than haste." Young people aren't taught to think in terms longer than the shortest spans of time, thus deriving the shortsighted mental attitudes that prevails in almost every culture. But that's another story. -- =*= =*= =*= =*= =*= =*= =*= =*= =*= =*= Liberty: Live it . . . or lose it. =*= =*= =*= =*= =*= =*= =*= =*= =*= =*= ET -- My personal view based on far too much sorry experience with young people in the local area is that any drug that has seriously harmful effects and is addictive should be banned. But also things like ecstacy and marijuana which at best are only mildly addictive and have mild health effects should be legal. My theory being the one of the lesser of several evils. Driving through some of the council estates in Walsall is an enlightening experience. There are people who live in Blakenhall who have sold the glass and doors out of their council house to buy heroin. People who advocate total legalisation do so on a flawed assumption of economics. I've always said that the problem with libertarianism is that it works great on civil rights, not so well with economics. If a substance is highly addictive, then demand is perfectly inelastic, regardless of price. The higher the price becomes the more crime you have as people attempt to obtain money to buy it. The only way to stop this is to stop people using it in the first place, and that means in part stopping the supply. The other half is to cut down on demand but I don't care how much money they pump into drug treatment, I have seen too many people on methadone one day and smack the next. The problem in many areas is that people simply won't admit they have a drug problem, because everyone around them uses drugs. If you can't get them to admit they have a problem, you can't treat them. So logically the finite resources of the police and Customs should be focused on the most damaging drugs, and the only way to do that is to legalise those drugs which don't do the damage. Steve. Cybershooters website: http://www.cybershooters.org List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ T O P I C A http://www.topica.com/t/17 Newsletters, Tips and Discussions on Your Favorite Topics
CS: Misc-drugs
From: "IG", [EMAIL PROTECTED] There are people who live in Blakenhall who have sold the glass and doors out of their council house to buy heroin. If there were no gun controls, they could have legally bought firearms and nothing could have been done about it. It is but a small escalation to then use that firearm to carry out a raid on an all night garage. Or anywhere really. A bit like America. BTW..armed robberies are still less common than unarmed ones. Before the posts start flying in. So logically the finite resources of the police and Customs should be focused on the most damaging drugs, and the only way to do that is to legalise those drugs which don't do the damage. Or concentrate on the source of the problem. Colombia, Pakistan, etc etc. Get rid of the drug tzar and actually do something about the importation of drugs. I am surprised that anyone who admits to seeing the damage done by tack and E could advocate legalising such substances. Cannabis...hmmm..open to argument.but Emy God. What is a recreational drug by the way? Its another nonsense term, like 'friendly fire'. Its merely an attempt to minimise and legitimise the consequences caused by ingestation of chemical substances to alter a state of consciousness or to reduce inhibitions, etc. IG -- E isn't addictive though, not like heroin at any rate. I know a guy in Walsall who is brain damaged because he used too much of it but the doctors reckon it was because of a bad recipe. He has these spells where he sits and rolls his eyes and sometimes he has fits. However, that is nothing compared to what I have seen done to people who use heroin and I tend to feel that if ecstacy were legal it would be properly manufactured so any adverse affects would be minimal. And BTW, I didn't advocate that there be no gun controls, remember? Steve. Cybershooters website: http://www.cybershooters.org List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ T O P I C A http://www.topica.com/t/17 Newsletters, Tips and Discussions on Your Favorite Topics
CS: Misc-drugs
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] any drug that has seriously harmful effects and is addictive should be banned I know it's tempting to agree with this, but the history of governments banning things (including guns...) is a very sorry one. Reason invariably flies out of the window, the rules are arbitrary, there is a massive growth of bureaucracy and a parallel diminution of civil rights. To call for something to be banned is to say either "I disapprove of this even if it has no direct effect on my liberty and I don't think others should be allowed to make up their own minds," or "I think a bunch of politicians and civil servants should have the power to decide what I can eat, drink, smoke or sniff." Banning things creates all manner of dangerous precedents - as shooters, of all people, should know. Like gun-control, the "war on drugs" is a massive scam perpetrated on the citizens by duplicitous governments, to whom it gives greater freedom to tax us, spy on us, and interfere with our liberty. Alcohol meets your definition of a potentially dangerous, habituating drug, Steve - but the great majority of us don't let that glass of sherry at the vicarage tea-party lead subsequently to our sitting under a railway arch swigging methylated spirits. If a few weak-minded people want to destroy themselves with heroin or whatever, let them - they won't last long. It's just Mother Nature's way of culling the bozos. Anthony Harrison -- I knew someone was going to say "Oh yes, Steve, but that includes booze and fags as well." No it doesn't. Also this argument about only weak-minded people is utter crap as well, anyone can become a drug addict I've seen it with my own eyes. I have to say quite frankly that people who say things like that obviously have little or no experience with drug addicts. I've seen blokes who are obviously very bright who can defeat every car security system known to man in seconds, but instead of using their intelligence to get a real job they are addicted to heroin so they steal cars and live from day to day. If it only affected people because of some genetic reason then it would affect all age groups equally, it doesn't, it affects young people to a far, far greater degree, certainly in Walsall at any rate. People do not sell every possession they have, live in poverty and commit burglaries every day when they have a drinking or smoking addiction. And it's not because they started out living in poverty either, most of them don't in my experience. And it's not because drugs are artificially expensive because they're banned either, heroin is quite inexpensive, but when you are addicted to it you can barely function as a human being so you can't make much money. I've seen this "Oh, it could never happen to me, I'm far too bright (or my kids are)" and then they find out their daughter uses smack every day or they get addicted to it themselves. Wake up everyone, there is a large and growing proportion of the population going down the tubes because of heroin. Steve. Cybershooters website: http://www.cybershooters.org List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ T O P I C A http://www.topica.com/t/17 Newsletters, Tips and Discussions on Your Favorite Topics
CS: Misc-drugs
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ""Are you implying that we have a law regulating the MISUSE of drugs? Then again it could be used to justify another totally ineffective law; "The law works because people only break it legally". If the laws prohibiting certain types of drugs, their possession and use work so well would you mind telling me why we pay Keith Halliwell (I think that is his name) the "drugs tzar" to do?"" ---88--- It's: "Hellawell", and what does he do? Well, in essence he is a puppet who spouts whatever he is told to spout, mostly! I've had friends use recreational drugs in the past, and I can tell you that this is a prime example of prohibition causing more problems than it ever solves. The people I knew who preferred a joint at home to a few pints down the local were forced to be in regular touch with the most unsavoury characters imaginable just to get hold of some 'weed'. (You could argue that they don't need it, but they would argue that you don't need beer. And, vastly fewer people die through abusing dope than alcohol, or even guns in the UK.) Inevitably, the dealers managed to convert some of them onto more dangerous and vastly more profitable drugs through offering first time, cheap deals. I had a friend, now living in London who I've heard spends most of his time high on crack cocaine because of this. It truly is a tradgedy and is simply not being helped by the entrenched views of the establishment. Another ex-aquaintance commenting on the ease of getting some 'gear' after a series of massive drugs raids and numerous arrests in our smallish community: "HAHAHA, it's just a drop in the ocean!" Anyone care to draw some parallels? Oh, perhaps most interesting is that knowing my preferences for alcohol, and the fact that I'm subject to possible work related random testing, I never had anyone even try to persuade me to give it a go! Offer, perhaps but no peruasion. But then, I suppose I never had cause to be in the company of the 'dealers'. The following letter is quite interesting: International Organised Crime Inc. Everywhere, Sitting Pretty, The World Date as postmark An open letter to all Prohibitionists We are writing to thank you for supporting the prohibition of illegal drugs. It is your unflagging support for prohibition that enabled us to make more than ú300 000 million (nearly ú1bn a day) last year, the second largest commodity trade on the planet. Your "No to drugs" is a resounding "Yes!" to our success. We couldnÆt have done it without you. Thank you! Your policy of "not giving out the wrong message to young people" leaves us free to give out drugs to those self same youngsters. Thank you! Prohibition of this world-wide demand-led market provides us with the firm foundation we need to operate oligopolies that mean we can charge whatever price we want. Because of international prohibition the illegal drugs market is ours. Under this system there are NO RULES. Violence is our watchword. We will do anything that we have to in order to protect our business interests. We pay no tax and because of the lack of regulation of the market we can even sell drugs to children without compunction. We make so much money that we can buy anyone we want, so oiling the wheels of international commerce. Alcohol prohibition in the US provided us with the market to set ourselves up and drugs prohibition has enabled us to consolidate our position and vastly increase our wealth and empire. We urge you to bring in more anti-drugs legislation and to prosecute the war on drugs to its fullest. The more the market is pushed underground the greater the vacuum becomes, into which we will move. We thank you again for all your support and we urge you to continue to fight the drugs war with everything you have. You have our full support. Yours gratefully International Organised Crime Inc. -- I totally agree with you John, there are so many people in Walsall who have gotten onto heroin the way you describe that it is exceptionally hard for anyone to convince me that marijuana and ecstacy should remain illegal. Getting someone onto heroin is quite hard, because there is a psychological barrier, but when Joe Drug Dealer can say to them, "Well, this is like the draw you buy from me, only better" there is much more chance of people trying heroin. If you had to make the jump from simply buying marijuana at the local shop to hunting down heroin dealers on council estates it would be much less likely people would use it. Also clearing out the jails of people convicted of growing marijuana would make space to keep the smack dealers in for much longer periods of time. Steve. Cybershooters website: http://www.cybershooters.org List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ T O P I C A http://www.topica.com/t/17 Newsletters, Tips and Discussions on Your Favorite Topics
