My 2cents is that anyone commenting on these issues should focus on facts, not emotion. There are lot of claims and myths and emotional experiences to draw on out there - what do the facts say?
Watch the documentary "The Union" to learn more about why drug prohibition fails and will always fail, and why it is specifically irrelevant with marijuana. There is no evidence to support claims made here that marijuana is addictive or leads to people seeking greater highs etc. With all repsect Carys, I'm pretty certain that the person who told you they had only had weed but was scracthing bugs out of their arms had taken much more... and this is based on my years as a social worker working with people who used all sorts of substances - legal and illegal. And yes - we are all different, and do react differently to various substances, so perhaps that was a one in a million case of an extreme reaction... but there are similar if not worse reactions to perfectly legal substances. We do not base laws on the exceptions. There are very valid reasons why decriminalisation is being seriously looked at as an alternative to "war on drug" tactics. The only reasons I have ever encountered for the opposite are based on either politics or emotion. Something like "the government should protect us from drug users" falls totally flat when we realise that the majority of emergency room visits are related to alcohol, which is legal. For those who vehemantly against ALL drugs - do you define that only by what is illegal? Legal drugs like alcohol, tobacco, pain killers etc are just as bad. We learnt from the prohibition years, however, that banning alcohol does nothing to reduce alcohol consumption and only serves to fuel an underground world of criminals - often involved in a wider range of organised crime. As we don't live in a world where we can just wipe the slate clean and start from scratch with a new approach, and thus cannot instantly rid society of organised crime synidicates merely by decriminalising something, I am personally on the fence about decriminalising or what exactly is the best way forward... but we can at least see that while countries like America have spent billions on a "war on drugs" approach - they have achieved nothing. Others that have take a more fact-based approach and a more compassionate approach have achieved more. The only places that have reduced drug use over the last 30yrs are places that have emphasised preventative and accurate education and rehavilitation programmes - regardless of legality, the emphasis is on knowledge and the individual, on social services and education, not on bold moves for the army/police. I'm not sure that this debate is even relevant at all for this forum, so for those who are interested, this source provides good summaries of "for" and "against" arguments on the topic: http://debatepedia.idebate.org/en/index.php/Debate:_Legalization_of_drugs and of course wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arguments_for_and_against_drug_prohibition On Monday, 9 July 2012 15:53:13 UTC+2, Carys Villet wrote: > > > When I was growing up drugs were more readily available in my house than > milk and bread - so naturally as a teenager I tried all the stuff that was > lying around! So it is not as if I have no idea what drugs, including > weed, are like. I am not anti any specific drug - I am anti ALL drugs. I > was very lucky that I do not have an addictive personaltiy otherwise I > would have ended up the same way as my mother! And as much as people want > to say that weed is harmless and that there is nothing wrong with it - that > is just complete denial. What about green fever? Have you ever seen anyone > who has that? I have - I have seen someone who has only been using weed > think that they had bugs crawling out of their skin, pulling chunks of > flesh off his arm trying to get rid of the bugs - and that was just > from the sweet innocent weed that you are talking about. > > The problem with drugs, including weed, is that people don't know if they > are going to be addicted to them or not. And as you say, kids then try weed > and hey this isn't so bad...dum dum dum... let me try something else - it > happens. I used to run with a druggie crowd in my misspent youth and I saw > it happen again and again. So even if weed is legalised, then what happens, > people get bored with it and next thing they are trying the harder drugs. > And as I said until you try them you don't know if you have an addictive > personality and by the time you have tried them and discovered, o hell I > actually do have an addictive personality, well guess what - it is too late! > > Maybe you are lucky - maybe you don't have an addictive personality and so > you can handle your weed - but not everyone can. And making drugs legal > just means that it will be accessible to everyone and that will just lead > to so many more addicts and so many more messed up families and messed up > people. Drugs are rife in Lavender Hill - and there is no way anyone can > say that the people there are leading peaceful happy druggie lives! In fact > it is the opposite and not just becasue of the fact that drugs are illegal > - drugs make people violent, aggressive, psychotic - they can make a mother > want to stab her own 4 year old child with a kitchen knife because the > mother thinks the child is a demon (yes that is from personal experience!) > - that is the reality of drugs, they mess people up! And having them on > sale at Spar is not going to change that situation - they are still going > to turn people into monsters! > -- 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/-/EMntwSvc45cJ. 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.
