This is why people are losing respect for the police...

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PlacidCasual said:
I accept all of those as reductions but on the other side do we think the numbers of addicts will increase and will there be more drug use related illness or accidents. I'm broadly supportive of the zero crime approach to drug use, I just want to be sufficiently skeptical of the reciprocal impacts too.
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legality makes a small reduction to the occurrence of drug use. There is some evidence people might try a drug once or twice if made legal, but overall frequent usage decreases slightly and there is a reduction in drug related accidents and illness.

Largely, people don't care if a drug is legal or not, especially when the the legality has little basis in health outcomes considering one od the most dangerous addictive drugs is legal
 
People who know this guy from inside prison say he has no remorse for what he's done. Yet the parole board are releasing him again!?

He was sent back to prison before for approaching young women.

Another case for the rope.

www.bbc.co.uk

Colin Pitchfork: Double child killer and rapist to be released

Colin Pitchfork, jailed in 1988 for raping and murdering two 15-year-old girls, is granted parole.
www.bbc.co.uk
 
PlacidCasual said:
I accept all of those as reductions but on the other side do we think the numbers of addicts will increase and will there be more drug use related illness or accidents. I'm broadly supportive of the zero crime approach to drug use, I just want to be sufficiently skeptical of the reciprocal impacts too.
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It would depend on how it's done. Just legalising all drugs, no regulation, nothing else at all, would probably have the negative effects you refer to. Maybe better for society overall, maybe worse.

The approach most often referred to is the Portugese one, which started roughly in the last 1980s and became national and formal in 2001. It decriminalised (not legalised) drug possession and use (but not dealing) and shifted to treating it as a healthcare issue instead. The initial goal was to reduce HIV infection from injecting drugs, which was particularly high in Portugal at the time, but it broadened to a more general harm reduction. The change in approach is generally agreed to have been significantly beneficial to society as a whole, though there's argument about how much. But the paradigm shift to making it a healthcare issue is a key part of the strategy. It costs money to do that. Quite a lot of money. Just binning the drug laws wouldn't do the job. Would the UK be willing to spend the necessary money to do the job properly? I doubt it. The gutter press would rant and the politicians would cave and "save money". Cut costs at any costs!
 
Will said:
I know it's somewhat trendy to bash the failed 'war on drugs' policies, and to insist that drugs should be dealt with as a health rather than a criminal justice matter....but the reality is that, whilst the legislation has not changed in a long time (misuse of drugs act 1971 et al), the way in which the vast majority of simple drugs possession offences are dealt with by police on a practical level, that it is in effect almost decriminalised by the back door anyway, and that police are already pushing hugely towards treating it as a health issue.
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Bashing the war on drugs is the pragmatic argument for legalising drugs, the more principled one is that people have self ownership and bodily autonomy, basic principles of a so called "liberal democracy" that were articulated hundreds of years ago. If "my body my choice" applies to abortion which is a far more ethically contentions matter as it involves taking a human life, it should certainly apply to a far more ethically straightforward case like drugs. We allow people to risk their life all the time when it comes to all sorts of other issues, but when it comes to drugs all of a sudden fundamental liberal principles are thrown out of the window, a combination of the elites in parliament which have a disdain for drug users, and certain other vested interests in keeping the war on drugs going.
 
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BowdonUK said:
People who know this guy from inside prison say he has no remorse for what he's done. Yet the parole board are releasing him again!?

He was sent back to prison before for approaching young women.

Another case for the rope.

www.bbc.co.uk

Colin Pitchfork: Double child killer and rapist to be released

Colin Pitchfork, jailed in 1988 for raping and murdering two 15-year-old girls, is granted parole.
www.bbc.co.uk
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Seems a bizarre decision to make and I can't see this ending well.
 
Alice In Wonderland said:
Seems a bizarre decision to make and I can't see this ending well.
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I don't understand why his minimum sentence was so low, for the murder of a child the starting point is 30 years and the sexual element would require a significant uplift beyond the maximum of 35 years normally. In fact murdering two children in a sexual way would normally attract a whole life order, i.e. life without parole.

What I also don't understand is the reference to a polygraph, please don't tell me our prison services are using this pseudoscience to determine whether a prisoner should be released or not. :eek:
 
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Energize said:
I don't understand why his minimum sentence was so low, for the murder of a child the starting point is 30 years and the sexual element would require a significant uplift beyond the maximum of 35 years normally. In fact murdering two children in a sexual way would normally attract a whole life order, i.e. life without parole.

What I also don't understand is the reference to a polygraph, please don't tell me our prison services are using this pseudoscience to determine whether a prisoner should be released or not. :eek:
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Agree with everything you wrote and I honestly don't understand it either.

I think they will come to regret their decision but sincerely hope I'm wrong.
 
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