Trevor – you have no idea what you are talking about. Clearly you have never lived with a drug addict. A member of my family is a drug addict – tik, crack, dagga (yes I know you have said before that people cannot become addicted to dagga – I know from firsthand experience that this is rubbish), coke and heroin. It is a nightmare. You state: “If people are addicted then give them free drugs” – clearly, the statement of someone who has no idea about drug addiction. Giving an addict free drugs is not the solution to the problem (in a way I suppose it could be a solution because the addict would end up dead very quickly – so there would no longer be a problem, but I am assuming that is not what you mean as the solution.) You really need to educate yourself on drug addiction – maybe go spend some time in Lavender Hill or Hanover Park – spend some time with drug addicts and then you can say how wonderful it would be if drugs were legalised and we happily handed out free drugs to drug addicts.
Drug addiction is a completely destructive habit. It destroys the addict and everyone who cares about the addict – I have lived with it for all of my life, so I know what I am talking about. And it makes me so angry when people who have had no experience with this type of thing then come up with this complete rubbish about legalising drugs and how that will make everything better – it won’t – it will make it worse, because then it will be easier for addicts to get drugs and easier for more people to get drugs and end up as addicts. At the moment, the fact that drugs are illegal keeps a lot of people off drugs and it also makes it harder for people who are addicted to access drugs. And it also provides more severe consequences for people who are addicts, eg being arrested should they be caught. Ok, that will never stop an addict, I know that, but it can provide a deterrent to a certain extent. If my family member was able to pop down to the local cafe and buy drugs over the counter – he would have & our lives would have been 10 times worse because he would have used 10 times more than he did and does. And for all the times he has decided to go into recovery it has been due to the fact that he could end up in jail again or because he has been arrested again – not because he is worried about his health. Ok, he always ends up relapsing but at least in amongst the storm of addiction there are certain peaceful quiet patches. If drugs were freely available and there were no legal consequences for the taking of drugs, he would never ever go into recovery and he would possibly be dead by now. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Observatory Neighbourhood watch" group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/obsnw/-/__c0vZxdRm8J. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/obsnw?hl=en.
