Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
Hi all! We have been experiencing an issue on site where threads have been missing the latest postings. The platform host Vanilla are working on this issue. A workaround that has been used by some is to navigate back from 1 to 10+ pages to re-sync the thread and this will then show the latest posts. Thanks, Mike.
Hi there,
There is an issue with role permissions that is being worked on at the moment.
If you are having trouble with access or permissions on regional forums please post here to get access: https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058365403/you-do-not-have-permission-for-that#latest

Ten Years After Decriminalization, Drug Abuse Down by Half in Portugal

  • 14-02-2012 5:27pm
    #1
    PogMoThoin
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,874 ✭✭✭✭


    New report came out on fri.Spotted this on Twitter. I know this has been discussed here many, many times, but how can we convince the Joe Duffy brigade that this is the right idea. And before anyone gets the wrong idea, decriminalise, no mention of legalise. Make it ok for anyone to grow a plant for their own use, in their own home. Remove the criminal element and let the Gardai spend the time and resources on more important things
    Drug warriors often contend that drug use would skyrocket if we were to legalize or decriminalize drugs in the United States. Fortunately, we have a real-world example of the actual effects of ending the violent, expensive War on Drugs and replacing it with a system of treatment for problem users and addicts.

    Ten years ago, Portugal decriminalized all drugs. One decade after this unprecedented experiment, drug abuse is down by half:
    Health experts in Portugal said Friday that Portugal’s decision 10 years ago to decriminalise drug use and treat addicts rather than punishing them is an experiment that has worked.

    “There is no doubt that the phenomenon of addiction is in decline in Portugal,” said Joao Goulao, President of the Institute of Drugs and Drugs Addiction, a press conference to mark the 10th anniversary of the law.

    The number of addicts considered “problematic” — those who repeatedly use “hard” drugs and intravenous users — had fallen by half since the early 1990s, when the figure was estimated at around 100,000 people, Goulao said.

    Other factors had also played their part however, Goulao, a medical doctor added.

    “This development can not only be attributed to decriminalisation but to a confluence of treatment and risk reduction policies.”

    http://onforb.es/pY4zDB


«134

Comments

  • #2
    Seachmall
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,041 ✭✭✭Seachmall


    And the Vancouver example.

    Just getting the sources in early for when this turns to a debate on legalisation.


  • #3
    John Doe1
    Registered Users Posts: 2,921 ✭✭✭John Doe1


    Vasco de gama would be proud


  • #4
    Nodin
    Closed Accounts Posts: 46,938 ✭✭✭✭Nodin


    PogMoThoin wrote: »
    New report came out on fri.Spotted this on Twitter. I know this has been discussed here many, many times, but how can we convince the Joe Duffy brigade that this is the right idea. ..........

    1 - Brain transplants
    2 - Pointing guns at them.

    As drug policy in most countries seems to be driven 'Moral Outrage', high horsing and so on, I'd say them above is the only chance.


  • #5
    Hootanany
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,477 ✭✭✭Hootanany


    On the face of it, giving drug addicts free heroin is a contentious move, but that is exactly what happens in Switzerland.

    A referendum last year was overwhelmingly passed to approve the program, which has been running for years as a trial.

    It gives security to a system designed for those addicts who have failed all other treatment options. But it is not without its critics.

    On an early morning in the heroin clinic, addicts line up for their turn to receive a syringe with a carefully measured dose of pure heroin.

    They take it to a desk and either self-inject, or get a staff member to help.

    Amongst the regulars is Jason. He still hopes to kick the habit, but says until then it is a whole lot better than his old life on the streets.

    "Before I was on the program I was totally down to the floor. I was around not even 60 kilos," he said.

    "I lost my job, I lost my apartment; I looked like ****.

    "And then when I came here I was able to work again, I gained quite a lot of weight since then also and then I can be back to life.

    "[If I didn't have this program] I would probably be dead."

    Dr Christoph Buerki runs the Berne clinic. He has around 200 clients and says the program is good for addicts and for society.

    "Once a patient enters our treatment he would very much to a large degree - and the statistics have proven that - would reduce his illegal activities," he said.

    "So that's one very, very important point also for society."

    Dr Buerki denies criticism that the program is just feeding the addiction and not actually controlling it.

    "They come here from the heroin, but once you have them in treatment, you start working with them," he said.

    "There's a whole lot of treatment involved in it."

    Despite the referendum approving of this program by a two-thirds majority, it is not without its critics, like Sabine Geissbuhler from Parents Against Drugs.

    She argues the system just feeds a habit rather than looking for a cure.

    "I think it's very bad because there is no goal to make them free of drugs because you can't get free from a drug if you give it," she said.

    Whatever side of the argument you are on, no-one would want a return to the early 90s, where public parks in the major cities were turned into drugs bazaars.

    Evelyn is a long-term user who is still on the program. She returns to the Berne park where she used to buy her drugs.

    It looks very different and a metre of topsoil has to be removed because used needles had contaminated the soil.

    The ABC's Foreign Correspondent first met Evelyn 12 years ago when she had joined the heroin trial to escape a life of degradation.

    "[I was] begging in the streets for instance or even prostitution. I didn't do that very much, but [I did it and] I hate myself for this," she told the program.

    But she says these days life is better.

    "I'm still on heroin, but I don't drink anymore, I don't run after the drugs, I don't have to lie to anybody anymore," she said.

    Detractors say the fact she is still an addict after all these years is evidence the program has failed.

    But she says the fact she is alive and living a productive life without resorting to crime is clear evidence of its success.

    Either way, conservative Switzerland opted for a radical solution, one some say could work equally well in places like Australia.

    Or Ireland This would really work here.


  • #6
    Gilldog
    Closed Accounts Posts: 118 ✭✭Gilldog


    Some great news there for Portugal....

    In even better news;

    Actor Steven Seagal Sued for Driving Tank into Arizona Home, Killing Puppy.

    Two of the best stories ive heard in ages on the same page - what a news day.


  • Advertisement
  • #7
    pirelli
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,876 ✭✭✭pirelli


    Heroin use has dropped in Ireland too im guessing. There were epidemics all over the world and i think educating people on the dangers of drug abuse have tackled the epidemic. It is a statistic that can derived from many factors and i wouldn't contribute this to just a change in legislation it was more significantly and decision to tackle a problem rather then ignore it.

    I think people more educated about heroin and whether you legalise it or not is i irrelevant and it is the effort and approach that changed even here in ireland with a more sympathetic system.

    If you look more closely at portugal you will likely find they established a service to educate people and deal with addicts effectively.I doubt they just handed out heroin.


  • #8
    Nodin
    Closed Accounts Posts: 46,938 ✭✭✭✭Nodin


    pirelli wrote: »
    Heroin use has dropped in Ireland too im guessing. ........


    "Ireland is suffering a surge in heroin use with both in major cities and in towns across the country, a new report has shown.
    According to the Merchants Quay Ireland (MQI) Annual Review for 2009, lunched today (24 September),  the numbers attending MQI drugs services increased by 9 per cent last year.
    The heroin problem continued to grow in Dublin with 642 new injectors presenting to the MQI Needle Exchange Services while the numbers availing of the MQI prison-based addiction counselling service, which operates in 13 prisons across the country, exceeded 1,000 for the first time"
    http://www.joe.ie/news-politics/current-affairs/heroin-in-ireland-skyrockets-005555-1


  • #9
    TheZohanS
    Closed Accounts Posts: 11,582 ✭✭✭✭TheZohanS


    Over the past few weeks, I've learned to look past drug users's raving ruses. I've learned to look past some of the unsavory things drug users has said. I've even learned to look past its attempts to unleash carnage and barbarity. But I cannot stay silent about drug users's incomprehensible and unforgivable audacity regarding a specific event that recently occurred. Here's the story: Drug users preys on the rebellious and disenfranchised, tricking them into joining its Praetorian Guard. Their first assignment usually involves destroying our culture, our institutions, and our way of life. The lesson to draw from this is that drug users has been teaching young children to parrot such Pecksniffian sentences as, "Drug users possesses infinite wisdom." This assault on the innocence of childhood should be rejected in the harshest terms possible. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that drug users has, on a number of occasions, expressed a desire to replicate the most xenophobic structures of contemporary life. On all of these occasions I submitted to the advice of my friends, who assured me that it makes a living out of mercantalism. I call this tactic of its "entrepreneurial mercantalism". Drug users and its assistants have unmistakably raised entrepreneurial mercantalism to a fine art by using it to turn our country into a vicious, censorious cesspool overrun with scum, disease, and crime.

    It would be great if all of us could serve on the side of Truth. In the end, however, money talks and you-know-what walks. Perhaps that truism also explains why drug users views ultraism as a succedaneous religion that authorizes it to poison the relationship between teacher and student. It follows from this that exclusionism has served as the justification for the butchering, torture, and enslavement of more people than any other "ism". That's why it's drug users's favorite; it makes it easy for it to pooh-pooh the concerns of others. I'll talk about that another time. I have other, more important, things to discuss now. For starters, if drug users believes that its tactics are Right with a capital R, then it's obvious why it thinks that superstition is no less credible than proven scientific principles.

    Regardless of what philanthropic enthusiasts or visionary dreamers may say about corporate perfectibility, drug users has a history of weaving its unreasonable traits, illaudable roorbacks, and sex-crazed warnings into a rich tapestry that is sure to rule with an iron fist. That's too big of a subject to get into here so let me instead discuss how drug users uses the word "orbiculatoelliptical" to justify defacing property with racially and sexually derogatory epithets and offensive symbols. In doing so, it is reversing the meaning of that word as a means of disguising the fact that the main dissensus between me and drug users is that I assert that drug users is unable to deal with a world populated by human beings. It, on the other hand, contends that character development is not a matter of "strength through adversity" but rather, "entitlement through victimization". I challenge all of the cantankerous, Bourbonism-prone nithings out there to consider this: Drug users is on some sort of thesaurus-fueled rampage. Every sentence it writes is filled with needlessly long words like "interchangeableness" and "pseudolamellibranchiate". Either drug users is deliberately trying to confuse us or else it's secretly scheming to stifle dissent. Let me end this letter by challenging my readers to provide an atmosphere of mutual respect, free from obscurantism, phallocentrism, and all other forms of prejudice and intolerance. Are you with me, or with the forces of tuchungism and oppression?


  • #10
    Nodin
    Closed Accounts Posts: 46,938 ✭✭✭✭Nodin


    TheZohan wrote: »
    Over the past few weeks, I've learned to look past drug users's raving ruses. I've learned to look past some of the unsavory things drug users has said. I've even learned to look past its attempts to unleash carnage and barbarity. But I cannot stay silent about drug users's incomprehensible and unforgivable audacity regarding a specific event that recently occurred. Here's the story: Drug users preys on the rebellious and disenfranchised, tricking them into joining its Praetorian Guard. Their first assignment usually involves destroying our culture, our institutions, and our way of life. The lesson to draw from this is that drug users has been teaching young children to parrot such Pecksniffian sentences as, "Drug users possesses infinite wisdom." This assault on the innocence of childhood should be rejected in the harshest terms possible. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that drug users has, on a number of occasions, expressed a desire to replicate the most xenophobic structures of contemporary life. On all of these occasions I submitted to the advice of my friends, who assured me that it makes a living out of mercantalism. I call this tactic of its "entrepreneurial mercantalism". Drug users and its assistants have unmistakably raised entrepreneurial mercantalism to a fine art by using it to turn our country into a vicious, censorious cesspool overrun with scum, disease, and crime.

    It would be great if all of us could serve on the side of Truth. In the end, however, money talks and you-know-what walks. Perhaps that truism also explains why drug users views ultraism as a succedaneous religion that authorizes it to poison the relationship between teacher and student. It follows from this that exclusionism has served as the justification for the butchering, torture, and enslavement of more people than any other "ism". That's why it's drug users's favorite; it makes it easy for it to pooh-pooh the concerns of others. I'll talk about that another time. I have other, more important, things to discuss now. For starters, if drug users believes that its tactics are Right with a capital R, then it's obvious why it thinks that superstition is no less credible than proven scientific principles.

    Regardless of what philanthropic enthusiasts or visionary dreamers may say about corporate perfectibility, drug users has a history of weaving its unreasonable traits, illaudable roorbacks, and sex-crazed warnings into a rich tapestry that is sure to rule with an iron fist. That's too big of a subject to get into here so let me instead discuss how drug users uses the word "orbiculatoelliptical" to justify defacing property with racially and sexually derogatory epithets and offensive symbols. In doing so, it is reversing the meaning of that word as a means of disguising the fact that the main dissensus between me and drug users is that I assert that drug users is unable to deal with a world populated by human beings. It, on the other hand, contends that character development is not a matter of "strength through adversity" but rather, "entitlement through victimization". I challenge all of the cantankerous, Bourbonism-prone nithings out there to consider this: Drug users is on some sort of thesaurus-fueled rampage. Every sentence it writes is filled with needlessly long words like "interchangeableness" and "pseudolamellibranchiate". Either drug users is deliberately trying to confuse us or else it's secretly scheming to stifle dissent. Let me end this letter by challenging my readers to provide an atmosphere of mutual respect, free from obscurantism, phallocentrism, and all other forms of prejudice and intolerance. Are you with me, or with the forces of tuchungism and oppression?


    Are you going to credit the author of that?


  • #11
    TheZohanS
    Closed Accounts Posts: 11,582 ✭✭✭✭TheZohanS


    Nodin wrote: »
    Are you going to credit the author of that?

    Yes.

    TheZohan you're a legend.


  • Advertisement
  • #12
    Nodin
    Closed Accounts Posts: 46,938 ✭✭✭✭Nodin


    TheZohan wrote: »
    Yes.

    TheZohan you're a legend.

    Doesn't look like it was written for this thread.
    Over the past few weeks, I've learned to look past drug users's raving ruses.

    Let me end this letter by challenging my readers


  • #13
    Pace2008
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,587 ✭✭✭Pace2008


    Nodin wrote: »
    Doesn't look like it was written for this thread.
    No ****.


  • #14
    TheZohanS
    Closed Accounts Posts: 11,582 ✭✭✭✭TheZohanS


    Nodin wrote: »
    Doesn't look like it was written for this thread.

    Are you not reading my post? Does that not make you a reader? A letter is a form of written communication, strictly speaking it doesn't have to be drafted upon papyrus parchment and written in ink. I may not be as verbose as some posters but from time to time I will put in some effort to construct a more serious argument.

    Good day Sir.


  • #15
    Seachmall
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,041 ✭✭✭Seachmall


    TheZohan wrote: »
    Are you not reading my post? Does that not make you a reader? A letter is a form of written communication, strictly speaking it doesn't have to be drafted upon papyrus parchment and written in ink. I may not be as verbose as some posters but from time to time I will put in some effort to construct a more serious argument.

    Good day Sir.

    In fairness "Drug Users" was clearly substituted in place of something else in every instance.

    :pac:


  • #16
    TheZohanS
    Closed Accounts Posts: 11,582 ✭✭✭✭TheZohanS


    Seachmall wrote: »
    In fairness "Drug Users" was clearly substituted in place of something else in every instance.

    :pac:

    Sush!!

    Oh a grammar Nazi is it?


  • #17
    Nodin
    Closed Accounts Posts: 46,938 ✭✭✭✭Nodin


    TheZohan wrote: »
    Are you not reading my post? Does that not make you a reader? A letter is a form of written communication, strictly speaking it doesn't have to be drafted upon papyrus parchment and written in ink. I may not be as verbose as some posters but from time to time I will put in some effort to construct a more serious argument.

    Good day Sir.

    I'm sure you do. This, for no reason I can imagine, doesn't appear to match your normal writing style though. It doesn't match well to the subject matter either.


  • #18
    Genghiz Cohen
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,182 ✭✭✭Genghiz Cohen


    Somebody read Zohans post, are you on drugs?!


  • #19
    Napper Hawkins
    Registered Users Posts: 1,903 ✭✭✭Napper Hawkins


    TheZohan wrote: »
    Over the past few weeks, I've learned to look past drug users's raving ruses. I've learned to look past some of the unsavory things drug users has said. I've even learned to look past its attempts to unleash carnage and barbarity. But I cannot stay silent about drug users's incomprehensible and unforgivable audacity regarding a specific event that recently occurred. Here's the story: Drug users preys on the rebellious and disenfranchised, tricking them into joining its Praetorian Guard. Their first assignment usually involves destroying our culture, our institutions, and our way of life. The lesson to draw from this is that drug users has been teaching young children to parrot such Pecksniffian sentences as, "Drug users possesses infinite wisdom." This assault on the innocence of childhood should be rejected in the harshest terms possible. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that drug users has, on a number of occasions, expressed a desire to replicate the most xenophobic structures of contemporary life. On all of these occasions I submitted to the advice of my friends, who assured me that it makes a living out of mercantalism. I call this tactic of its "entrepreneurial mercantalism". Drug users and its assistants have unmistakably raised entrepreneurial mercantalism to a fine art by using it to turn our country into a vicious, censorious cesspool overrun with scum, disease, and crime.

    It would be great if all of us could serve on the side of Truth. In the end, however, money talks and you-know-what walks. Perhaps that truism also explains why drug users views ultraism as a succedaneous religion that authorizes it to poison the relationship between teacher and student. It follows from this that exclusionism has served as the justification for the butchering, torture, and enslavement of more people than any other "ism". That's why it's drug users's favorite; it makes it easy for it to pooh-pooh the concerns of others. I'll talk about that another time. I have other, more important, things to discuss now. For starters, if drug users believes that its tactics are Right with a capital R, then it's obvious why it thinks that superstition is no less credible than proven scientific principles.

    Regardless of what philanthropic enthusiasts or visionary dreamers may say about corporate perfectibility, drug users has a history of weaving its unreasonable traits, illaudable roorbacks, and sex-crazed warnings into a rich tapestry that is sure to rule with an iron fist. That's too big of a subject to get into here so let me instead discuss how drug users uses the word "orbiculatoelliptical" to justify defacing property with racially and sexually derogatory epithets and offensive symbols. In doing so, it is reversing the meaning of that word as a means of disguising the fact that the main dissensus between me and drug users is that I assert that drug users is unable to deal with a world populated by human beings. It, on the other hand, contends that character development is not a matter of "strength through adversity" but rather, "entitlement through victimization". I challenge all of the cantankerous, Bourbonism-prone nithings out there to consider this: Drug users is on some sort of thesaurus-fueled rampage. Every sentence it writes is filled with needlessly long words like "interchangeableness" and "pseudolamellibranchiate". Either drug users is deliberately trying to confuse us or else it's secretly scheming to stifle dissent. Let me end this letter by challenging my readers to provide an atmosphere of mutual respect, free from obscurantism, phallocentrism, and all other forms of prejudice and intolerance. Are you with me, or with the forces of tuchungism and oppression?

    I lol'd.


  • #20
    Nodin
    Closed Accounts Posts: 46,938 ✭✭✭✭Nodin


    Genghiz Cohen wrote: »
    Somebody read Zohans post, are you on drugs?!

    ...strangely enough, no. Nor, sadly, have I had any in some considerable time.


  • #21
    token101
    Registered Users Posts: 3,050 ✭✭✭token101


    Nodin wrote: »
    1 - Brain transplants
    2 - Pointing guns at them.

    As drug policy in most countries seems to be driven 'Moral Outrage', high horsing and so on, I'd say them above is the only chance.

    Brain transplants eh? The liberal illuminati strike again :rolleyes:

    How could you expect people to listen to any argument for anything with answers like that? It's not just moral outrage and high horsing. For every study showing that decriminalising or legalising drugs works, there's another one that says hash is a gateway drug for other far more dangerous drugs, so people have a right to be concerned.

    This study actually looks good. As long as it stops with growing hash/marijuana/weed in the home and only amounts to enough for personal use, then fair enough. Worth trialling it and seeing what happens. Also worth noting that the Netherlands are curbing their marijuana laws and imposing restrictions. So clearly legalising marijuana the way they did, opening it up to everyone and anyone, didn't work. Any talk of legalising heroin or anything is nonsense. Headshops got a chance. Look how that turned out.


  • Advertisement
  • #22
    Nodin
    Closed Accounts Posts: 46,938 ✭✭✭✭Nodin


    token101 wrote: »
    Brain transplants eh? The liberal illuminati strike again :rolleyes:

    How could you expect people to listen to any argument for anything with answers like that? .

    I don't actually expect them to listen to any argument. Nor do I expect dogs to fly. The treatment of various advisers to the UK government and its recriminalisation of cannabis shows a far too common mentality.
    Headshops got a chance. Look how that turned out.

    'Moral Outrage', high horsing?


  • #23
    Seachmall
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,041 ✭✭✭Seachmall


    token101 wrote: »
    Brain transplants eh? The liberal illuminati strike again :rolleyes:

    How could you expect people to listen to any argument for anything with answers like that? It's not just moral outrage and high horsing. For every study showing that decriminalising or legalising drugs works, there's another one that says hash is a gateway drug for other far more dangerous drugs, so people have a right to be concerned.

    This study actually looks good. As long as it stops with growing hash/marijuana/weed in the home and only amounts to enough for personal use, then fair enough. Worth trialling it and seeing what happens. Also worth noting that the Netherlands are curbing their marijuana laws and imposing restrictions. So clearly legalising marijuana the way they did, opening it up to everyone and anyone, didn't work. Any talk of legalising heroin or anything is nonsense. Headshops got a chance. Look how that turned out.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32UGD0fV45g


  • #24
    RichieC
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,333 ✭✭✭RichieC


    Decriminalising is the only logical route. It will never happen.


  • #25
    mathepac
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 4,991 ✭✭✭mathepac


    RichieC wrote: »
    Decriminalising is the only logical route. It will never happen.
    I'd agree with that, thankfully. Maybe you need to read the report quoted in the OP again -

    "Other factors had also played their part however, Goulao, a medical doctor added.

    “This development can not only be attributed to decriminalisation but to a confluence of treatment and risk reduction policies.” "

    So a multi-phasic, multi-dimensional approach can work, a solution that has been advocated by many treatment and medical professional for decades.

    Ah yes, between the plagiarised post with the consequentially appalling grammar and the detail missed from the useful OP, a potentially informative thread has become yet another boringly familiar re-hash of "the facts, ma'am, just the facts"


  • #26
    Overheal
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 85,050 ✭✭✭✭Overheal


    mathepac wrote: »
    I'd agree with that, thankfully. Maybe you need to read the report quoted in the OP again -

    "Other factors had also played their part however, Goulao, a medical doctor added.

    “This development can not only be attributed to decriminalisation but to a confluence of treatment and risk reduction policies.” "

    So a multi-phasic, multi-dimensional approach can work, a solution that has been advocated by many treatment and medical professional for decades.

    Ah yes, between the plagiarised post with the consequentially appalling grammar and the detail missed from the useful OP, a potentially informative thread has become yet another boringly familiar re-hash of "the facts, ma'am, just the facts"
    So I'm confused: are you against a decriminalization measure because you might have to couple it with ... Treatment and Risk Reduction policies?

    Bet you a tenner it would be cheaper than the cost of enforcement.


  • #27
    RichieC
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,333 ✭✭✭RichieC


    mathepac wrote: »
    I'd agree with that, thankfully. Maybe you need to read the report quoted in the OP again -

    "Other factors had also played their part however, Goulao, a medical doctor added.

    “This development can not only be attributed to decriminalisation but to a confluence of treatment and risk reduction policies.” "

    So a multi-phasic, multi-dimensional approach can work, a solution that has been advocated by many treatment and medical professional for decades.

    Ah yes, between the plagiarised post with the consequentially appalling grammar and the detail missed from the useful OP, a potentially informative thread has become yet another boringly familiar re-hash of "the facts, ma'am, just the facts"

    Honestly not sure if serious....


  • #28
    grazz
    Closed Accounts Posts: 37 ✭grazz


    PogMoThoin wrote: »
    New report came out on fri.Spotted this on Twitter. I know this has been discussed here many, many times, but how can we convince the Joe Duffy brigade that this is the right idea. And before anyone gets the wrong idea, decriminalise, no mention of legalise. Make it ok for anyone to grow a plant for their own use, in their own home. Remove the criminal element and let the Gardai spend the time and resources on more important things



    http://onforb.es/pY4zDB

    Prohibition does not work with any drug, it breeds crime and black markets. Alcohol would be no different if it was illegal, it would be a booming industry with criminals. When any drug, marijuana included is legalised and people are treated like adults and allowed to experiment with completely natural substances found in nature, those drugs are just as social as alcohol, if not more given that people on weed dont start up fights and smash things. Most people on other drugs would have no problem paying taxes on substances if they were legal like we pay on alcohol, I hate it with a passion when some try to make out that weed smokers are some sort of criminal sponsoring, tax dodgers. What other choice do people have when we have a nanny state that tells what we can and cant put into our bodies?


  • #29
    mathepac
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 4,991 ✭✭✭mathepac


    Overheal wrote: »
    So I'm confused: are you against a decriminalization measure because you might have to couple it with ... Treatment and Risk Reduction policies? ...
    I have stated explicitly what I could support (from both a professional and personal perspective) -
    mathepac wrote: »
    ... a multi-phasic, multi-dimensional approach ... [as]... has been advocated by many treatment and medical professional for decades. ...
    Does that clear your confusion?


  • #30
    CL7
    Closed Accounts Posts: 684 ✭✭✭CL7


    TheZohan wrote: »
    Over the past few weeks, I've learned to look past drug users's raving ruses. I've learned to look past some of the unsavory things drug users has said. I've even learned to look past its attempts to unleash carnage and barbarity. But I cannot stay silent about drug users's incomprehensible and unforgivable audacity regarding a specific event that recently occurred. Here's the story: Drug users preys on the rebellious and disenfranchised, tricking them into joining its Praetorian Guard. Their first assignment usually involves destroying our culture, our institutions, and our way of life. The lesson to draw from this is that drug users has been teaching young children to parrot such Pecksniffian sentences as, "Drug users possesses infinite wisdom." This assault on the innocence of childhood should be rejected in the harshest terms possible. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that drug users has, on a number of occasions, expressed a desire to replicate the most xenophobic structures of contemporary life. On all of these occasions I submitted to the advice of my friends, who assured me that it makes a living out of mercantalism. I call this tactic of its "entrepreneurial mercantalism". Drug users and its assistants have unmistakably raised entrepreneurial mercantalism to a fine art by using it to turn our country into a vicious, censorious cesspool overrun with scum, disease, and crime.

    It would be great if all of us could serve on the side of Truth. In the end, however, money talks and you-know-what walks. Perhaps that truism also explains why drug users views ultraism as a succedaneous religion that authorizes it to poison the relationship between teacher and student. It follows from this that exclusionism has served as the justification for the butchering, torture, and enslavement of more people than any other "ism". That's why it's drug users's favorite; it makes it easy for it to pooh-pooh the concerns of others. I'll talk about that another time. I have other, more important, things to discuss now. For starters, if drug users believes that its tactics are Right with a capital R, then it's obvious why it thinks that superstition is no less credible than proven scientific principles.

    Regardless of what philanthropic enthusiasts or visionary dreamers may say about corporate perfectibility, drug users has a history of weaving its unreasonable traits, illaudable roorbacks, and sex-crazed warnings into a rich tapestry that is sure to rule with an iron fist. That's too big of a subject to get into here so let me instead discuss how drug users uses the word "orbiculatoelliptical" to justify defacing property with racially and sexually derogatory epithets and offensive symbols. In doing so, it is reversing the meaning of that word as a means of disguising the fact that the main dissensus between me and drug users is that I assert that drug users is unable to deal with a world populated by human beings. It, on the other hand, contends that character development is not a matter of "strength through adversity" but rather, "entitlement through victimization". I challenge all of the cantankerous, Bourbonism-prone nithings out there to consider this: Drug users is on some sort of thesaurus-fueled rampage. Every sentence it writes is filled with needlessly long words like "interchangeableness" and "pseudolamellibranchiate". Either drug users is deliberately trying to confuse us or else it's secretly scheming to stifle dissent. Let me end this letter by challenging my readers to provide an atmosphere of mutual respect, free from obscurantism, phallocentrism, and all other forms of prejudice and intolerance. Are you with me, or with the forces of tuchungism and oppression?

    tl;dr.


  • Advertisement
  • #31
    dr.fuzzenstein
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 16,620 ✭✭✭✭dr.fuzzenstein


    Napper Hawkins wrote: »
    I lol'd.

    Me too, Long Live The Zohan!



  • #32
    Mike 1972
    Closed Accounts Posts: 8,018 ✭✭✭Mike 1972


    Define drug "abuse" ?

    In countries where the possession and/or consumption of particular drugs are illegal ANY use of said drugs is (rightly or wrongly) generally understood to constitute abuse.

    In countries where particular drugs are legal the use of said drugs is generally understood to constitute abuse only when the usage becomes problematic or involves indviduals below the legal minimum age.


  • #33
    mathepac
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 4,991 ✭✭✭mathepac


    grazz wrote: »
    Prohibition does not work with any drug, it breeds crime and black markets. Alcohol would be no different if it was illegal, it would be a booming industry with criminals. ...
    Gee whiz, there is of course no market for smuggled tobacco products, there are no illegal alcohol sales and no prescription medications sneak out onto the illegal market here to be used to give drinkers / drug users a cheap "high" before they begin consuming their drug of choice?
    grazz wrote: »
    ... When any drug, marijuana included is legalised and people are treated like adults and allowed to experiment with completely natural substances found in nature, those drugs are just as social as alcohol, if not more given that people on weed dont start up fights and smash things...
    Sure people are treated like adults and when they all begin to behave like responsible adults we can do away with customs, revenue, the courts and the Gardai.
    grazz wrote: »
    ... Most people on other drugs would have no problem paying taxes on substances if they were legal like we pay on alcohol, ..
    What percentage of alcohol and tobacco sold in this country is smuggled / illegal? If you don't know how can you stand over your hypothesis about drug-users paying tax? If the trend is to avoid tax on substances which are currently legal, what basis have you for contending tax would be paid willingly on illegal drugs once they're legalised?
    grazz wrote: »
    ... I hate it with a passion when some try to make out that weed smokers are some sort of criminal sponsoring, tax dodgers. What other choice do people have when we have a nanny state that tells what we can and cant put into our bodies?
    Currently weed smokers are law-breakers. Through their illegal purchases they fund criminality.

    Possibly the "nanny state" has an interest in what citizens consume because the state has the obligation to care for citizens who become ill as a result of their drug use.


  • #34
    thebaz
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,713 ✭✭✭✭thebaz


    RichieC wrote: »
    Decriminalising is the only logical route. It will never happen.

    not sure how you could or should, decriminilise crack / cocaine - where the high lasts only minutes - weed, ecstasy and heroin should be decriminilsed though, IMO


  • #35
    Chuck Stone
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,030 ✭✭✭✭Chuck Stone


    mathepac wrote: »
    Currently weed smokers are law-breakers. Through their illegal purchases they fund criminality.

    Prohibition leaves the the supply of drugs to the black market. People have always sought, and likely will always seek, to alter the state of their conciousness.

    The sooner supporters of prohibition realise that their stance drives a the supply of drugs and resulting profits into the pockets of thugs and oppressors the better. People should be allowed to consume drugs peacefully without having to worry about arbitrary moralising and stupid, immoral, laws that will label them a criminal for a victimless 'crime'.
    Possibly the "nanny state" has an interest in what citizens consume because the state has the obligation to care for citizens who become ill as a result of their drug use.

    Lol.


  • #36
    Mike 1972
    Closed Accounts Posts: 8,018 ✭✭✭Mike 1972


    mathepac wrote: »
    Through their illegal purchases they fund criminality.

    Unless they grow their own or buy abroad ?


  • Advertisement
  • #37
    Einhard
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,920 ✭✭✭Einhard


    Hmmm interesting stats. I'd be against the decriminalisation of drugs because I believed that could only lead to an increase in the use of drugs, something that would have serious consequences for society. I mean, people can readily see that massive damage that alcohol and nicotine causes in society, but tend to gloss over the societal consequences that legal drugs would have.

    Having said that, I am open to having my mind changed, so I'll have an aul perusal through that report. From what I glanced though, the article is somewhat misleading. "Problematic" drug abuse is down by half, but there's nothing to suggest that drug use itself is down. It could well have increased. Many people who have issues with alcohol in this country wouldn't be seen as having a "problematic" relationship with drink, but it still has massive personal and societal affects.


  • #38
    Temptamperu
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,303 ✭✭✭Temptamperu


    Einhard wrote: »
    Hmmm interesting stats. I'd be against the decriminalisation of drugs because I believed that could only lead to an increase in the use of drugs, something that would have serious consequences for society. I mean, people can readily see that massive damage that alcohol and nicotine causes in society, but tend to gloss over the societal consequences that legal drugs would have.

    Having said that, I am open to having my mind changed, so I'll have an aul perusal through that report. From what I glanced though, the article is somewhat misleading. "Problematic" drug abuse is down by half, but there's nothing to suggest that drug use itself is down. It could well have increased. Many people who have issues with alcohol in this country wouldn't be seen as having a "problematic" relationship with drink, but it still has massive personal and societal affects.
    Im sorry but how would it be different to now? People who want drugs can get them, whenever they want. People that dont want them dont take them but could still get them with relitive ease. Ehy would them be decriminalised be any different?


  • #39
    mathepac
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 4,991 ✭✭✭mathepac


    Chuck Stone wrote: »
    ...
    The sooner supporters of prohibition realise that their stance drives a the supply of drugs and resulting profits into the pockets of thugs and oppressors the better. People should be allowed to consume drugs peacefully without having to worry about arbitrary moralising and stupid, immoral, laws that will label them a criminal for a victimless 'crime'...
    I know this is "only" an AH thread, but even so I've always found it useful when someone wishes to rebut a point I made if, based on their response, I can form the notion that they might actually have read my post first.


  • #40
    Doc Ruby
    Registered Users Posts: 3,956 ✭✭✭Doc Ruby


    mathepac wrote: »
    What percentage of alcohol and tobacco sold in this country is smuggled / illegal?
    A very, very tiny percentage.

    DECRIMINALISATION, class, is where the possession of small amounts of drugs is not a crime, and gets you referred for treatment without involving the justice system.

    LEGALISATION is where drugs are legally available.

    Seriously? Its working. It can work here. Lets make it happen.


  • #41
    Einhard
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,920 ✭✭✭Einhard


    Temptamperu wrote: »
    Im sorry but how would it be different to now? People who want drugs can get them, whenever they want. People that dont want them dont take them but could still get them with relitive ease. Ehy would them be decriminalised be any different?

    If you make something more widely available then it is generally more widely consumed. I think that's pretty logical.

    For example, someone who might never think about using a particular drug might decide to do so considering their availability, and the fact that they are out in the open so to speak.

    I know that a lot of people on the criminalisation side have fairly reactionary, eh, reactions (:pac:), but I think that some on the decriminalisation side tend to make out like there is no potential for negative consequences.


  • Advertisement
  • #42
    Chuck Stone
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,030 ✭✭✭✭Chuck Stone


    Einhard wrote: »
    I'd be against the decriminalisation of drugs because I believed that could only lead to an increase in the use of drugs

    If an increase in drug use was the price to pay for a reduction in the carnage and misery that surrounds the illegal drug trade then don't you think that would be the lesser of two evils?


  • #43
    grazz
    Closed Accounts Posts: 37 ✭grazz


    Einhard wrote: »
    If you make something more widely available then it is generally more widely consumed.

    So what!! If people want to experiment and so long as they are paying their way and harming nobody else, then its nobody's business what they choose to take. I can tell you that the atmosphere in Amsterdam cannabis cafes is a very peaceful and non-intimidating experience, on the other hand, many areas such as Temple Bar are virtually no go areas after the pubs have closed down. And how many people have died from illegal drugs like marijuana? Virtually none. How many people have died from using legal drugs like drink and cigarettes? Millions! How many punch ups would you see outside a cannabis cafe in Amsterdam, and how many weed smokers go around after their night out in Amsterdam smashing public and private property and take up hospital beds that could be used for sick patients like binge drinkers selfishly do.


  • #44
    amacachi
    Closed Accounts Posts: 23,316 ✭✭✭✭amacachi


    Einhard wrote: »
    If you make something more widely available then it is generally more widely consumed. I think that's pretty logical.

    For example, someone who might never think about using a particular drug might decide to do so considering their availability, and the fact that they are out in the open so to speak.

    I know that a lot of people on the criminalisation side have fairly reactionary, eh, reactions (:pac:), but I think that some on the decriminalisation side tend to make out like there is no potential for negative consequences.

    A lot of people could tell you it's a lot easier to get drugs than alcohol until one gets near 18 years old.


  • #45
    Einhard
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,920 ✭✭✭Einhard


    Chuck Stone wrote: »
    If an increase in drug use was the price to pay for a reduction in the carnage and misery that surrounds the illegal drug trade then don't you think that would be the lesser of two evils?

    Well it depends really. Firstly, I think it's important that carnage and misery don't just attend the drug trade, but drug use as well. I think the decrim side often ignore this. They point out sometimes that alcohol is legal despite the massive damage it can cause, and then merrily use that as a reason why drugs should also be legalised.

    That being the case- that misery attends drug use- the benefits brought about by a reduction in drug dealing might well be counteracted by an increase in the negative societal consequences of increased drug use.

    But those on the decrim never seem to address that concern. It's always just the potential benefits of legalisation, and nothing about the potential negative effects.
    grazz wrote: »
    So what!! If people want to experiment and so long as they are paying their way and harming nobody else, then its nobody's business what they choose to take.

    Right so. I await the instruction from government that all those who are hospitalised because of alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, or just plain recklessness are to be turned away at the emergency room door.

    The use of drugs of any kind doesn't stayed limited to the individual; the effects are felt across society, and those societal impacts have to be taken into account in such a debate.
    And how many people have died from illegal drugs like marijuana? Virtually none.

    "Virtually none"? I don't know, and neither do you I imagine, so let's not pretend that either of us have the stats on that one.
    How many people have died from using legal drugs like drink and cigarettes? Millions!

    This is an incredibly odd argument. Your point seems to be that because some types of drugs are legal and kill millions then all sorts of drugs should be legal. And screw the consequences.
    How many punch ups would you see outside a cannabis cafe in
    Amsterdam, and how many weed smokers go around after their night out in Amsterdam smashing public and private property and take up hospital beds that could be used for sick patients like binge drinkers selfishly do.

    If we were merely speaking of the decriminalisation of cannabis you might have a point. However, this thread is debating the legalisation of all drugs. I don't know about you, but I'd prefer not to have heroin freely available to anyone who might want it. Unless there was compelling evidence that made a case for this, and thus far I haven't seen it.
    amacachi wrote: »
    A lot of people could tell you it's a lot easier to get drugs than alcohol until one gets near 18 years old.

    So we should make it even more widely available?

    And to be honest...some drugs might be more easily available than alcohol for the under 18s, but I doubt that's true of heroin and the like.


  • #46
    amacachi
    Closed Accounts Posts: 23,316 ✭✭✭✭amacachi


    Einhard wrote: »
    But those on the decrim never seem to address that concern. It's always just the potential benefits of legalisation, and nothing about the potential negative effects.
    If you read up you'll see that decriminalisation has led to less drug abuse.
    So we should make it even more widely available?

    And to be honest...some drugs might be more easily available than alcohol for the under 18s, but I doubt that's true of heroin and the like.
    It wouldn't be more easily available, are you purposely being obtuse? Alcohol is legal and one has to be over 18 to buy it which in one's teens often means finding someone else to get it for them. Cannabis is illegal yet is easily available to just about anyone once they hit their teens.
    You might be surprised about heroin. The thing that makes it hardest to get when young is to find a dealer who you don't know. With hash and usually coke (along with precription stuff) there's no biggie. Getting to a dealer through friends is a lot harder because most won't help out.


  • #47
    Chuck Stone
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,030 ✭✭✭✭Chuck Stone


    Einhard wrote: »
    Well it depends really. Firstly, I think it's important that carnage and misery don't just attend the drug trade, but drug use as well.

    I think you're mixing up drug use and drug abuse.


  • #48
    Doc Ruby
    Registered Users Posts: 3,956 ✭✭✭Doc Ruby


    Einhard wrote: »
    If we were merely speaking of the decriminalisation of cannabis you might have a point. However, this thread is debating the legalisation of all drugs.
    I think you should be aware of the difference between legalisation and decriminalisation. Its not like it wasn't made clear a few posts back.


  • #49
    Einhard
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,920 ✭✭✭Einhard


    amacachi wrote: »
    If you read up you'll see that decriminalisation has led to less drug abuse.

    It's cut down on problematic use. Not necessarily on drug use.

    If criminalisation cut down on drug use then there'd really be little argument against it.

    I don't necessarily accept that cannabis is that easily available. One might be able to get it fairly handily once one decides to purchase it, but one has to make that decision first and that is influenced by societal norms. One of the reasons why so many irish teens drink is because it's all around them. It's normal for them to want to drink. I fear that legalising drugs could lead to such a normalisation.
    You might be surprised about heroin. The thing that makes it hardest to get when young is to find a dealer who you don't know. With hash and usually coke (along with precription stuff) there's no biggie. Getting to a dealer through friends is a lot harder because most won't help out.

    Again, i wasn't so much talking about the getting of one's hands on drugs, but all the processes involved. Making something more obviously available normalises it and generally leads to wider consumption. That's my worry with drugs. That people who might not have used them before might now decide to give them ago because they were more readily and obviously available.

    For example, I know of a number of people who hadn't used drugs before (saving alcohol, nicotine etc) but did so through head shops when they became available.

    It's a concern I have, and I think it's valid. I haven't seen evidence anywhere that legalising drugs leads to a reduction in their use.
    Chuck Stone wrote: »
    I think you're mixing up drug use and drug abuse.

    No, I made the distinction. Drug use is is often attended by misery or carnage. My aunt was an alcoholic. Those two adjectives would accurately describe aspects of her life.
    Doc Ruby wrote: »
    I think you should be aware of the difference between legalisation and decriminalisation. Its not like it wasn't made clear a few posts back.

    LOl thanks for the snide tone. I missed it. I'll check it out.


  • #50
    Lord TSC
    Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 42,602 Mod ✭✭✭✭Lord TSC


    I always look at the arguement of "Other countries have done it" and think "True, but Ireland isn't other countries."

    We have a culture of abusing alcohol as it is, whereby we don't know how to "drink responsibily"; everything is about getting as plastered as possible. Alcohol as it is controls most of Irish society. We are a society of abuse.

    So why should I think the same isn't going to happen with drugs? Why should I believe Ireland wouldn't simply follow the same path of abuse with drugs as well, and let them engulf our society? I get it worked in portugal, but they don't have the same fixation on abusing mind-altering substances as we do....


  • #51
    Tomk1
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 776 ✭✭✭Tomk1


    pirelli wrote: »
    Heroin use has dropped in Ireland too im guessing. There were epidemics all over the world and i think educating people on the dangers of drug abuse have tackled the epidemic. It is a statistic that can derived from many factors and i wouldn't contribute this to just a change in legislation it was more significantly and decision to tackle a problem rather then ignore it.

    I think people more educated about heroin and whether you legalise it or not is i irrelevant and it is the effort and approach that changed even here in ireland with a more sympathetic system.

    If you look more closely at portugal you will likely find they established a service to educate people and deal with addicts effectively.I doubt they just handed out heroin.

    A couple of towns near me have been hit hard by H in the last year, and meth is on the way.

    As regard to Hash, let people (over 21) get a permit for say a €100/yr to grow a maximum of 4 Hash plants, for self use. Maybe to qualify for the permit, would have to attend a day course on the hazards of drugs. If their caught growing more or suppling then revoke their permit = no more smoke.

    I don't nor have any interest in smoking hash, but I think it's about time we (ireland) started taking a mature attitude to drug use and also remove it from the hands of criminals.


  • Advertisement
Advertisement