Cannabis should be legalized in Ireland To pull Our country out of ression

What next ? Taxes on the air we breath? Or could we become more acceptable on our laws towards legalization of Cannabis ? and help our recession out of depression ?
WHY ? Well the very truth is Cannabis would net millions yearly for our suffering economy. This is a fact. You would just have to look up the total of cannabis seizures alone for 2009.
The Irish government estimates that there are 800,000 cannabis smokers in this country, around 10% of the adult population..
The government spends between €200-300 million every year to prosecute less than 1% of those smokers and intercept less than 10% of the incoming narcotics. In 2009 alone there has been an estimated over 20 million total of seized cannabis.
Evening Herald Wednesday September 09 2009
A Dutch man has been arrested in connection with an €8 million cannabis seizure at Dublin Port.
If the war against cannabis users were to be won, it would require an annual spend of over €24 billion - more than the entire annual tax take.
Simply removing cannabis from the law enforcement priorities of the state would produce massive savings. The Justice Department would save €109 million per year: the savings for the Gardai alone would be a 58.8 million every year.
Besides saving money, ending the unjust war on cannabis would free up resources and manpower to fight serious crime.
If the government decided to regulate cannabis sales, this could be expected to bring in over €200 million in VAT on Irish cannabis sales alone.
Regulation of the cannabis industry would result in the creation of hundreds of jobs. It would generate an estimated €243.8 million per year in employer taxes, and a further €26.3 million in PAYE taxes.
The Netherlands generates an estimated €360 million per year from tourists visiting their cannabis vending coffeeshops; Ireland could expect to generate up to 80% of this revenue from tourism.
Widespread cannabis contamination and lack of quality control regulation is costing young people their respiratory health and creating an unknown future burden on the health services. Cannabis smokers are consuming plastic, glass, lead, diesel and various other dangerous additives designed to increase weight and market value.
Cannabis legalisation would deprive violent criminals their share of the illicit market and would net the Irish state a total of over €879 million per year.

Since I like my information in easy-to-understand visual form, and from relatively-respectable sources, here's The Lancet on empirical harm:




Apparently we've all got it wrong, and should be chewing some khat

weedfreedomtinp wrote: »

Ok if something is not regulated it is easier ,, most kids in schools will tell u that its the drugs like coke extacy cannabis is easier to get there hands on than alcohol or tobacco

thats a fact

because when it is regulated they have to show id over 18s only,, they should make a license to sell very hard to get and easy to lose like alcohol.

Exactly and saying people would still buy it illegally is a red herring because does that happen with alcohol?

I'm sure you have small black markets for alcohol but overall the vast majority are law abiding and buy from premises authorised to sell for the simple reason that people don't want to break the law.

Keeping weed illegal makes it push other drugs because once you've broken the law by buying weed then the law is no longer a barrier to buying any higher drug since your already doing it buying something harmless like weed. It stops law being a deterrent because people know they are taking the piss having it illegal.

Also from biased education in schools that all drugs are bad once kids find out they were being lied to about one they will be more likely to try others to find out what else was a lie. Honest education and legalisation of not very harmful drugs and allow people to make informed decisions is the only way you will reduce drug use IMO.

bleg wrote: »

Haha, death isn't listed as a side effect of caffeine. Thread is ridiculous. I doubt that cannabis is in short supply for those that want it. Other than for some restricted medical conditions I see no reason why it should be legalised.

Why criminalise it? Costs the State an absolute fortune prosecuting cannabis related offenses. Demand has not depreciated, in spite of the continual toughening of sentences for those convicted. Despite the fact that hundreds of millions of euros have been spent on scientific research trying to justify its criminalisation, over 50 years, no conclusive evidence has yet emerged indicating cannabis is as dangerous as the laws deem it.

The recent events in England regarding the decision to reclassify cannabis, despite recommendations from the government appointed advisory council (ACMD) on the misuse of drugs that cannabis is in no way as dangerous as other legal drugs, indicates that there are other motivations behind the continuing persecution of millions of regular cannabis users in that jurisdiction.

The sacking of Professor Nutt, the chair of the ACMD, and the blatant disregard for the scientific, evidence based arguments laid out in their reports, illustrates the baseless nature of drug prohibition in the developed world.

We should perhaps examine more closely the economic and political interests in keeping cannabis illegal. How many civil servants are employed directly in the prosecution of cannabis laws?

Imagine an Ireland where cannabis was legal? Courts free to deal with crimes of a serious nature, political corruption perhaps? Planning corruption? Gardaí having to deal with more genuine criminals, devoting their resources to ensure they actually get convictions in more murder and rape cases?

Cannabis users are soft targets and boost Garda crime prevention stats. The DPP loves cannabis criminalisation, the accused rarely plead innocent and they are in plenty of supply.

It is difficult to determine for Ireland, as study in this area has not been extensive. But we could compare ourselves fairly with the US. They are currently liberalising their approach to cannabis criminalisation on a state by state basis. Yet in 2007 cannabis related arrests in the US were at 872,721, with 88% of those being for simple possession. The total costs, including law enforcement, judicial proceedings and imprisonment was estimated to be between $5-15 billion annually (2003 figures). The US population is approximately 75 times that of Ireland, so a figure of $70-210 million would be a rough indication of costs for Ireland.

Many will argue that the US has greater law enforcement resources per capita which it happily commits to cannabis prohibition, but I would argue that Ireland places a disproportionate importance on cannabis prohibition that many other developed countries. If the magnitude of cannabis seizures can be indicative of such an approach.

If we are to look at usage rates, Ireland is significantly higher compared with other European countries with liberal cannabis laws (Spain and the Netherlands). So it is not fair to reason that our costs would be in line approximately to the US on a per capita basis, after all Irish politicians and Gardaí have made it abundantly clear they supported the US approach with the failed Reaganite "War on Drugs". We have a conservative approach to cannabis, from a legal perspective (completely opposing the social consensus among the under 40s that cannabis is comparable to alcohol in harm). The case law surrounding cannabis in this State indicates a narrow view of its harm from the judiciary, most of whom are happy to apply the maximum penalties on accused.

These estimates would be served of course by more concrete statistics derived from independent audits and surveys. Unfortunately, as is the case in many other jurisdictions, funding for research in this area is generally exclusive to those studies proposing to show the harm in cannabis use. Studies implying a general overview of the situation are not welcomed by a political system that has a vested interest in cheap political points scoring from soft targets. They all want to be tough on criminals, and the overwhelming majority of cannabis users are not inherently criminal, lacking the requisite mindset to avoid the long arms of the law.

So you've got a grand total of 4 signatures, despite overwhelming backing on this forum.
What does that tell you about online petitions?