If you could make one thing legal

Joe P said:
it is late like and i have another 6 hours to go at work..

i dont want to say this but yes your seing it wrong thats why drugs have different classes as each has a different affect where whisky, vodka, lager, beer all have the same affect although some get you there quicker than others.

imo you cant compare drugs as a whole as you would have to include alchohol and tobacco in there too.
Click to expand...

I'm off work this week, so thank god I don't have to deal with any people for another 7 days :)

Fair dinkum , still, kept the thread ticking along a bit longer :)
 
the problem with legalising or even decriminalising drugs is that we have spent so long bad talking them without any research or studies that there are millions of people like the few close minded people in this thread and they would not be happy whatsoever.

a fortune could be made from taxing drugs and a fortune could be saved when people are not ending up in hospital/police custody/prison because of things like bad/fake drugs or gang violence

many people would love for the risks of ''wonder whats in this pill'' and ''wonder who this guy im meeting down an alley is'' to be removed and would happily pay a bit extra.

and as for the ''but even more people will take drugs if they can get hold of them easily''' well it doesnt seem to be the case in portugal http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1893946,00.html
 
Tombstone said:
Most nights in my local streets you'd think it already was :)
Click to expand...

No I mean stopping your car at 11am on a wednesday and urinating on the side of the road in full view of other motorists. Or urinating on the side of Tesco on your way back to your car with your trolley without anyone batting an eyelash.
 
I'm also with the opinion certain drug laws should be changed. Studies have shown prescribing heroin to addicts reduces the use of ilicit heroin and crime. The drug laws were never really based on science but on prejudice, racism and fear. (racism due to the fact the chinese were targeted at the beginning of the 20th century by americans). The UK's drug policy was fairly liberal until the early 70's, GP's were allowed to prescribe heroin to addicts.

There is a huge ammount of evidence in the medical field regarding opiates and the safety of them. Don't forget people take morphine and other opiates for long periods of time (I have for 10 years now) without any psychological addiction. The damage heroin addiction causes isn't because of the heroin itself but the crimilising of the distribution system and the environment the drug is used. Alcohol is probably the most destructive substance and yet it's legal.
 
Joe P said:
is it true that at one point most ilegal drugs where once medicines at some point
Click to expand...

Yep, obvious example is morphine and heroin, but cocaine is a local anesthetic (not used much anymore), amphetamines were first used as cold remedy, and later diet pillls.
 
"andy" said:
never mind not knowing how much will kill them , most people dont even know how much they are buying and taking!

imagine buying a packet of paracetomol but not knowing wether each tablet/capsule had 100mg in or 500mg in. and then because theres no leaflet saying not to take when using alcohol you mix them with a bottle of vodka.


lack of information is a huge problem too. its not that people havent done the studies but its that its hard for average joe to easily find and make use of the stats and information. (as we have found above)
Click to expand...

Yup, education and strict control of the substance so you know what you're buying will DRAMATICALLY drop ecstasy deaths, we already have education and strict control for alcohol so theres no equal method of dropping current alcohol related deaths, so the numbers are rather pointless.

Deadbeat, I might have missed the point you're making but the numbers end up similar(maybe) but the context would be in why and how they died, which we don't know. YOu can find a link on the alcohol stat to exactly what they classify as an alcohol related death, you can't do the same for ecstasy(it says the info is there on another site, I just am too tired to look for it).

While from 96-2002 of the 200 or so deaths only 17% were caused directly by alcohol, the 200 number directly leads to the calculation of the number per 100k population.

Also
However, mono-intoxication ecstasy fatalities per 100,000 16- to 24-year-old users were significantly more represented than AMP/METH fatalities (1.67 +/- 0.52 vs. 0.8 +/- 0.65; p = 0.0007)
Click to expand...

That seems to suggest that mono-intoxication from ecstasy is ridiculously low, 0.8 +/- 0.65.

Its again worth noting the alcohol stat is per 100k full stop, the ecstasy numbers are 16-59yr olds.

Remember the majority of alcohol deaths are from long term use, so the numbers go UP the older you get, ecstasy, I do think the majority of deaths are from od'ing and the majority(massive majority) of those are from OD'ing/mixing multiple drugs, not just ecstasy. I would hazard a guess those over 59 are doing far less ecstasy than those below.

So I'd expect the deaths per 100k population with no limits on age to be significantly reduced in ecstasy, while I'd also expect the opposite to happen and deaths per 100k only up to 59yr olds would be lower for alcohol.

But again thats supposition because from the info in those 3 links at least, and the list of different alcohol related deaths none say which kinds of deaths have the highest percentage. I'm completely guessing OD's are the most common kind of death with ecstasy and long term failure of organs like liver/kidneys isn't a large scale problem from ecstasy.

The numbers as shown, can really tell a million different stories, though for me the most obvious one is deaths due to ecstasy alone could quite easily be as little as 20% of that final death per 100k number, and if that 100k included older people that number would go down again. Meaning deaths due to alcohol alone vs ecstasy alone could be 6 or 7:1 at a guess.

Then again, the alcohol numbers are bad aswell, how many people drank to excess then took something else that the combined effect took out the liver?

As alcohol causes so many long term deaths its very hard to tell, did some 70yr old with liver failure drink alcohol every day but it was drinking + a liver infection from some other cause that actually caused the start of his liver problems in his 50's, who knows.

The rather large issue is that we've got millions of drinkers, and very few drug takers in comparison and most people who actually research and follow other countries that have decriminalised drugs don't see dramatic drug usage increases.

But the more fundamental problem, does anyone want alcohol banned because some people die from it, what about manufacturing and smog produced, power stations, cars, life, people die, people will die from every legal and non legal activity that happens in life, why do we care? We can't ban everything nor save anyone, people dying from drug use is the single dumbest reason for not legalising it.

IT will stop more deaths due to crime commited smuggling, distributing and trying to fund the purchase of drugs than the drugs themselves could ever hope to kill aswell stopping gangs and drug dealing being profitable which will put a HUGE amount of criminals out of business, which will also mean less police manpower wasted on a non existant drug trade.

Of course, it will upset Cameron, several thousand more people will need new jobs.
 
Andy_82 said:
Yep, obvious example is morphine and heroin, but cocaine is a local anesthetic (not used much anymore), amphetamines were first used as cold remedy, and later diet pillls.
Click to expand...

yes and no, hundreds/thousands of years ago they started off as recreational, it wouldn't have taken people long to use them to zonk people out as an anesthetic/painkiller. Most of these drugs were legal as recreational substances till relatively VERY recently in terms of cultures around the world. They were legal for thousands of years and never really a problem, then suddenly they are illegal in the western world and suddenly you have a worldwide crime problem and wars over drugs, its insane.
 
correct me if im wrong here as i dont know much for certain and i dont like feeding out information that i dont know is true.

anywho wasn't the ilegalisation (or whater the word is) of canabis due to some mush in america wanting to ban hemp

please understand i have cut a long story really really short there, maybe someone can elaborate. if i didn't just dream it up :D
 
Joe P said:
is it true that at one point most ilegal drugs where once medicines at some point
Click to expand...

They are medicines, expect for the designer drugs and most psychedelics the vast majority of drugs on the street are used medically. Heroin to treat pain, meth/amphetamine to treat ADHD and chronic fatigue, benzodiazepines, carbamates and barbiturates to treat anxiety and insomnia, GHB to treat narcolepsy and insomnia, cocaine as a local anaesthetic (rarely), ketamine as a general anaesthetic, MDMA to treat PTSD, cannabis to treat a variety of ailments. Most of these are also prescribed off label for depression/anxiety as well.
 
Last edited:
Andy_82 said:
Yep, obvious example is morphine and heroin, but cocaine is a local anesthetic (not used much anymore), amphetamines were first used as cold remedy, and later diet pillls.
Click to expand...

Energize said:
They are medicines, expect for the designer drugs and most psychedelics the vast majority of drugs on the street are used medically. Heroin to treat pain, meth/amphetamine to treat ADHD and chronic fatigue, benzodiazepines, carbamates and barbiturates to treat anxiety and insomnia, GHB to treat narcolepsy and insomnia, cocaine as a local anaesthetic (rarely), ketamine as a general anaesthetic, MDMA to treat PTSD, cannabis to treat a variety of ailments. Most of these are also prescribed off label for depression/anxiety as well.
Click to expand...

i thought so cheers. :D im an honest believer of if it only affects you then you should be able to do what you like, suicide included.

on a different plane of thought i think freedom of speach should be legal. proper freedom of speach not this "ooh you cant call them black they might take offence". please dont take me for a racist that was just an example, a religionist maybe but not a racist.
 
drunkenmaster said:
yes and no, hundreds/thousands of years ago they started off as recreational, it wouldn't have taken people long to use them to zonk people out as an anesthetic/painkiller. Most of these drugs were legal as recreational substances till relatively VERY recently in terms of cultures around the world. They were legal for thousands of years and never really a problem, then suddenly they are illegal in the western world and suddenly you have a worldwide crime problem and wars over drugs, its insane.
Click to expand...

Sorry, you right, it wasn't until the harrison narcotic act (sorry rubbish at spelling) that opiates were controlled, untill then they were sold over the counter in many different patent remidies for almost any condition.
 
EdGey said:
Haha my first thought upon reading the thread title.

Quite worrying!

On a slightly more serious note, I agree with the OP's option.
Click to expand...

im not a big fan of rape myself (not that i've tried it) but when you see it in films i cant see it doing it for me. its pretty horrible
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom