Posted by Nickengland on June 6, 2005, at 8:08:56
In reply to Re: Decriminalisation would at least be step in right » Nickengland, posted by alexandra_k on June 5, 2005, at 21:10:34
Some of what you say does make sense..
You say how is heroin different from alcohol? The two are in a completey different class, with regards to the level of addiction and withdrawal symtoms.
People i've seen take heroin, start off by smkoking it and the "majority" have ended up either dead, in and out of prison or just people you would not want anything to do with at all.
The majority of people who I know who drink, none of them ended up dead or in and out of prison because of alcohol.
Its fair to say that yes, some professional people do take heroin, some are doctors etc.. Out of all the people who use the drug though in developed countries, the majority have completley ruined their lives (i'm talking about long-term users) and also the lives of the people most close to them. Just because it would be legal and you could buy it in a shop, wouldn't mean that all the damage from the drug would stop over night, I think the damage would only increase more for those users at most risk from the drug.Alcohol and drink driving offences continue to rise...if alchol was illeagal would they be still rising at the rate they are now?
Smoking related diseases continue to rise, if smoking was illeagal, would they continue to rise at the rate as though they were legal?
What i'm saying is by keeping heroin illegal stops the rates at which herion effects people lives negatively. Making it legal would open a whole new can of worms and the downs sides to this would weight out any good.
It would be interesting to see what happens if heroin was made legal, personally I think it would cause far more desruction to society than it would benefit. If people today, want to take heroin they can, and they can take it in a safe setting if they choose to. Also the price of heroin has dropped massively over here in the uk for as little as 5 or 10 pound a hit.
There have been reports of dealers handing it out to school children for as little as 2 or 3 pounds.
If it was made legal the tax man over here would tax the hell of it and the price would increase dramictally...meaning that addicts would need further increases of money to fund their habit which would increase crime rates even more to fund the drug.
For example a packet of 20 cigarettes costs here 5 pounds which is stupidly expensive and 80%+ of that cost is tax.
Perhaps in the future all drugs will be legal, as don't get me wrong in some respects I think they should be, just with the timing now in todays world it simply would not work, this would take years to implement so that it would actually benefit society.
The first issue, is in my opion to tackle organised crime related to drugs such as heroin cocaine cannabis etc.. This has to be a global effort and really the polititions who are closest to this effort are mostly corrupt...
How do you stop this? how do you stop columbian cocaine drug war lords? or Afgan heroin smugglers...because at the moment their profits and their empire is on the rise and its multi-billion $ business - and while they keep rising, the idea of making all drugs legal sinks even more...
poster:Nickengland
thread:506791
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/poli/20050509/msgs/508381.html