Psychoactive bill will become (psycho) active from monday

Hammered hippie

As of 0:00 monday the 23rd of august the psycho active substances bill will become active as decided by our minister for prosecution, D. Ahern.
This bill is so vague that even the gardai don't know how to interpret it, so its effectiveness and implementation will be up to the mood and discretion of the guard that is imposing it.
It is actually not really a law but more a propaganda statement from the government that whatever bothers them in the field of the trade in mind altering substances can instantly be made illegal and branded dangerous. It is the head shop hysteria fuelled by tabloids cast into a 'law' by a spineless coward of a government that prefers to appear tough and further their own carreer than to act in the interest of the people whom they represent.
Since the ban of most legal highs in may A&E deparments have been flooded by people being fed deadly concoctions by the old reliable dealer in the street (http://www.independent.ie/national-news/docs-warn-headshop-ban-has-little-effect-2297957.html) and gang wars have now started to take the lives of innocent people (http://www.herald.ie/opinion/andrew-lynch-ahernrsquos-bluster-has-done-nothing-to-deter-gangs-2273908.html). All of this doesn't bother the government one bit, as long as they can be seen to appease a small group of people they deem more worthy of their democratic rights than the majority that enjoy legal highs.
As this piece of personal propaganda for D. Ahern is supposedly designed to protect the public from 'bad' psychoactive substances we can conclude that the government is telling us that tobacco and alcohol are safe, as they are exempt from the psycho active substances bill. So go out, get drunk, smoke your lungs into tarpits and then come back to sue the government...because they said in a way it was safe to do so...didn't they?

OutlawPete

Ah Bill's alright, sure What About Bob was just a movie.

Overheal

You need unfortunately politicians that are able to look at the big picture. Which in this case they clearly weren't. More worried about covering their liability that wondering how this would actually affect the well-being of Irish society.

But in order to get them to see that bigger picture you need to get them stoned and sit them down to watch the Matrix. Good luck with that.

Archeron

Welcome to the Republic of Joe Duffy listeners.

Collie D

Hammered hippie wrote: »

Since the ban of most legal highs in may A&E deparments have been flooded by people being fed deadly concoctions by the old reliable dealer in the street and gang wars have now started to take the lives of innocent people.

How can you talk about tabloid media frenzies and then come out with a line like that in the next sentence?

Overheal

Collie D wrote: »

How can you talk aboit tabloid media frenzies and then come out with a line like that in the next sentence?

Because instead of purchasing safer alternatives in Head Shops, people are back to drug dealers, that sell them even more highly questionable substances, that is landing people in hospital.

Any questions?

Collie D

Overheal wrote: »

Because instead of purchasing safer alternatives in Head Shops, people are back to drug dealers, that sell them even more highly questionable substances, that is landing people in hospital.

Any questions?

Yes, I'd like to see some figures. Hardly a fact. And gang wars have started taking the lives of innocent people?

Any answers?

Kurtosis

Hammered hippie wrote: »

Since the ban of most legal highs in may A&E deparments have been flooded by people being fed deadly concoctions by the old reliable dealer in the street

Damn evil dealers feeding people drugs against their will.

Hammered hippie

@Collie D.

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/docs-warn-headshop-ban-has-little-effect-2297957.html

Cheers

Hammered hippie

@Collie D.

http://www.herald.ie/opinion/andrew-lynch-ahernrsquos-bluster-has-done-nothing-to-deter-gangs-2273908.html

Hammered hippie

Silenceeeee.......

Elevator

hammered hippy I think you'll find that most of those in a&e since the last banning were in cos of horrible experiences on that naphyrone ****e!! we can give out about the headshops for selling it for a bit til it was quite obvious the drug isn't safe but it sure did make mephadrone look so appealing compared to it!!

what drives me crazy is ya can't buy an e without it containig only banned head shop drugs so it has done nothing to stem the supply to the same poeple and the wider market it served

only winners here are the dealers and I for one would love to give ahern a piece of my mind let me tell ya! fcuking incompetent assholes the whole lot of them

PeterIanStaker

of course alcohol is safe, its Fianna Fúckup the (Re)publican party making the laws.

opinion guy

tl;dr.

So headshops are closing then.


Good.

seensensee

Banning psychoactive's outright probably has been a big mistake. The government should have worked with the headshops and come to some arrangement in regulating supply and quality.

I can see where alarmed parents would want to restrict access of research chemicals to their children, it's no longer a case of white doves but more the Ivory wave...

"The coughing got worse with every bump. The two of us made more horrible gagging / coughing sounds than a Russian whooping cough ward from the 1940s. I also should mention here that by now I had started to feel completely insane. People who are too scared to do acid always think that acid will make you feel completely insane but that’s not necessarily true. Acid generally gives you an hilarious world of weird and funny stuff that borders on feeling insane sometimes but it is nothing compared to the really unpleasant insanity that good old Ivory Wave provides its punters."
http://nellnews.com/another-terrible-legal-high-reviewed-by-somebody-who-feels-not-very-well-today-viceland-com.html


The critique is written by an experienced drug user and well worth reading in full. If headshops were selling the above substance then it's no surprise that "something?" had to be done.

120_Minutes

Stupid law brought in by stupid people to appease stupid people.

Prohibition doesn't work. Education and regulation would.

To be honest I'm giving up on this country until such time as the Joe Duffy demographic cease to be the only group that are listened to.

Hammered hippie

I could write down what happens when you down a bottle of whiskey in less than two hours time. It is very very unpleasant, if you survive to tell the tale.
Yet no one thinks that would be reason to close bars and off licences. People will just think it is silly to drink that much that fast.

It is the same with certain head shop stuff...with the big big enormous exception that when complaints arise..head shops self regulate and stop selling certain bits and pieces.
When will off lincenses stop selling hard liquor due to its negative side effects when over dosing.....that's right...never!

If off licences and bars were as responsible as most head shop owners have been there would be sooo much less **** on the streets.

As for that utter fool d ahern. I have seen drug dealers dancing for joy outside my local head shop when they heard the news of this new law.
That's right folks....d ahern makes drug dealers dance for joy. The man himself made things 1000% better for drug dealers over the last 12 months. Minister? ...my arse!...for justice?...**** off d ahern!

Yag reuoY

There is a paradoxical benifit to Ireland's utter ****ness on pretty much every level: I won't miss it when I leave later this year. :pac:

This has nothing to do with drugs per se, just a general statement of how much I hate the country and its people.

seensensee

Hammered hippie wrote: »

I could write down what happens when you down a bottle of whiskey in less than two hours time. It is very very unpleasant, if you survive to tell the tale.
Yet no one thinks that would be reason to close bars and off licences. People will just think it is silly to drink that much that fast.

It is the same with certain head shop stuff...with the big big enormous exception that when complaints arise..head shops self regulate and stop selling certain bits and pieces.
When will off lincenses stop selling hard liquor due to its negative side effects when over dosing.....that's right...never!

If off licences and bars were as responsible as most head shop owners have been there would be sooo much less **** on the streets.

As for that utter fool d ahern. I have seen drug dealers dancing for joy outside my local head shop when they heard the news of this new law.
That's right folks....d ahern makes drug dealers dance for joy. The man himself made things 1000% better for drug dealers over the last 12 months. Minister? ...my arse!...for justice?...**** off d ahern!

Yes it appears that things are getting better for Hard Drug dealers with the new legislation, is it a coincidence that while headshops were open and cash was diverted from dealers that the age of heroin users plummeted...

Eight year olds starting to use heroin

By Jennifer Hough
Monday, May 17, 2010
CHILDREN as young as eight years are starting to use drugs as experts warn of a dangerous trend of younger addicts showing signs of increasingly more violent behaviour.




The Matt Talbot Adolescent Service in Cork said trends showed the onset of drug use for young people had dramatically lowered – from the age of 12 in 2006 to the age of eight this year.

Young people referred to the services, which caters for 14-23 year olds, are increasingly smoking heroin, using prescription drugs and carrying weapons to defend themselves against drug dealers to whom they owed money.

Strong evidence gathered by MTAS shows that combined benzodiazepines, such as Valium or Xanax, cocaine, and alcohol use correlated with repeated violent criminal behaviour.


Read more: http://www.examiner.ie/home/eight-year-olds-starting-to-use-heroin-120011.html#ixzz0xMkvcy4l

Kurtosis

seensensee wrote: »

Yes it appears that things are getting better for Hard Drug dealers with the new legislation, is it a coincidence that while headshops were open and cash was diverted from dealers that the age of heroin users plummeted...

Eight year olds starting to use heroin

By Jennifer Hough
Monday, May 17, 2010
CHILDREN as young as eight years are starting to use drugs as experts warn of a dangerous trend of younger addicts showing signs of increasingly more violent behaviour.

The Matt Talbot Adolescent Service in Cork said trends showed the onset of drug use for young people had dramatically lowered – from the age of 12 in 2006 to the age of eight this year.

Of all the ridiculous things posted in these headshop-related threads, I think this is my favourite.

I like how your little preamble does a Daily Mail-worthy job of sensationalising a supposed link between the new anti-headshop measures and hard drugs in kids.

Reading further though, I see that the age of use has dropped from 12 in 2006 to 8 this year. Pretty shocking. Of course this would be due to anti-headshop laws...well, or the countless number of other changes that have occurred in cities in this country in the last four years.

But it gets better. Hmmm, maybe these new laws could have perhaps had some tiny little impact? Oh wait, this article was published on May 17th. The law banning a number of chemicals found in headshop products was published on May 12th. Now come on, even if you're on headshop drugs it'd still be tough to try to suggest that one caused the other. It would make more sense to try and link the popularity of headshops with the drop in age of heroin users!

I know myself and many others do not fully agree with these new measures, but when this is the kind of stuff that opponents of these laws come out with...

Hammered hippie

@penguin88
Lets go for a stroll in certain parts of Dublin north shall we?
No bullet proof vests, though!

Kurtosis

Hammered hippie wrote: »

@penguin88
Lets go for a stroll in certain parts of Dublin north shall we?
No bullet proof vests, though!

Wait, what?

seensensee

It's not the daily mail, but the Irish Examiner which quotes a drug treatment centre. My take on the article is that heroin dealers felt the pinch when headshops were trading and as a result even eight year old children were exposed to and supplied heroin.

Though I must admit it is a rather pedantic and narrow view of what is a massive problem all over Ireland which being that heroin is available everywhere.
So much for winning the drug war...


"Over the past two years there has been a dramatic increase in the number of heroin addicts using the drug intravenously. That wouldn’t be unique to Limerick, it shows the progression... in the use of heroin from smoking to intravenous use. It is a matter of great concern to us."

Supt O’Brien said the increased use of heroin has had a huge impact on crime, with addicts resorting to robbery to fund their habit.

"It feeds into all that sort of crime: burglaries, shop lifting, theft from cars, handbag snatching,"

Read more: http://www.irishexaminer.ie/ireland/city-sees-destructive-surge-in-heroin-use-127402.html#ixzz0xNFzJKQq

So, what is the situation now? head shops closed, a legitimate controllable supplier of recreational drugs will be replaced by what??? Would it be the existing illegal networks one asks, the very ones who will supply kids with heroin?
It's no stretch of the imagination to say that illegal drug suppliers will see a jump in profits.
Who benefits?
The head shops were not ideal but could have been regulated.

I think these guys have the right idea...
http://www.leap.cc/cms/index.php

connexion

I just walked past Nirvana on Clanbrassil st.

Big sign upfront .... "Nirvana closed until further notice."

Kurtosis

seensensee wrote: »

It's not the daily mail, but the Irish Examiner which quotes a drug treatment centre. My take on the article is that heroin dealers felt the pinch when headshops were trading and as a result even eight year old children were exposed to and supplied heroin.

Though I must admit it is a rather pedantic and narrow view of what is a massive problem all over Ireland which being that heroin is available everywhere.
So much for winning the drug war...


"Over the past two years there has been a dramatic increase in the number of heroin addicts using the drug intravenously. That wouldn’t be unique to Limerick, it shows the progression... in the use of heroin from smoking to intravenous use. It is a matter of great concern to us."

So following on from your theory then, should we not see fewer kids being exposed to heroin and a drop in heroin numbers now that the headshops are gone?

Our man in Havana

2 mins to go.

IvySlayer

Well done Government.

Drugs which are less dangerous than alcohol are now being banned. Jobs lost. Tax income, lost. Drugs dealers are now going to have even more customers. Well done indeed.

If only Joe Duffy and co can look past their blind ignorance.

beagle001

They got too greedy and thought they were above regulation,if they kept it to the smoke all would have been grand but selling the class A alternatives closed the door on the industry with the negative effects and media hype.
Its a shame as only alternative for people is back to the dealers and a risk of prosecution plus the loss of hundreds of jobs and lost tax revenue.
Typical of this bunch of clowns in Govt to rush in and shut the whole operation down without any vision,they have not a clue what is happening in Ireland.

P_1

Well done government. Jobs lost, dealers back in business.

Whatever happened to personal choice?

Joke of a country.

Kurtosis

IvySlayer wrote: »

Drugs which are less dangerous than alcohol are now being banned.

Must have missed those studies. Could you point me in the right direction if you have any evidence for this?

seensensee

The theory says that by closing head shops and ensuring all recreational drugs are illegal ensures that only illegal drug suppliers will service the nations recreational drug demand, the dealers have just became more popular and rewarded as a result of government legislation.
The dealers now have a greater influence in communities and they also have heroin for sale. If some one has money to spend on drugs now the only source is to go to the dealer.

beagle001

penguin88 wrote: »

Must have missed those studies. Could you point me in the right direction if you have any evidence for this?

Alcohol related diseases are the cause of far more deaths in Ireland yearly and the dog on the street knows this,no need to back it up with a report.
Many of the substances being banned are less harmful than alcohol,for f-cks sake the banning of weed in general is farsical and a medieval attitude exists in this country to it.
Only people who benefit from the head shops going under are illegal drug peddlers and publicans(fianna fail cronies).

Kurtosis

seensensee wrote: »

The theory says that by closing head shops and ensuring all recreational drugs are illegal ensures that only illegal drug suppliers will service the nations recreational drug demand, the dealers have just became more popular and rewarded as a result of government legislation.
The dealers now have a greater influence in communities and they also have heroin for sale. If some one has money to spend on drugs now the only source is to go to the dealer.

If that was the point you were trying to make then why were you linking to those newspaper articles? With these links, you seemed to infer that while headshops were open, younger children were exposed to heroin and numbers of heroin users increased...so by the same wacky logic, we should now see fewer young children using and fewer people overall?

The stories you are linking to have nothing to do with these (former) legal highs.

Kurtosis

beagle001 wrote: »

Alcohol related diseases are the cause of far more deaths in Ireland yearly and the dog on the street knows this,no need to back it up with a report.
Many of the substances being banned are less harmful than alcohol,for f-cks sake the banning of weed in general is farsical and a medieval attitude exists in this country to it.
Only people who benefit from the head shops going under are illegal drug peddlers and publicans(fianna fail cronies).

These headshop products contained an unknown number of unspecified substances in unknown amounts. Any labelling they did have was largely unreliable and there was no apparent quality control. Then factor in that the substances in these products were also full of unknowns, no proper toxicological data or information about potency was known.

How anyone can say these are safer than alcohol is beyond me. They might well be a whole lot safer than alcohol, they might be exactly as safe as alcohol, or they may be more dangerous - however it remains an unknown.

landsleaving

Nearly an hour... I'm gettin' the shakes already...

beagle001

Wake up penguin
How many people died from alcohol directly or indirectly last year and compare that to recorded deaths from head shops and their substances.
While it is true regulation was needed for the headshops not a knee jerk reaction and banning something that we did not understand or try to understand.
Typical of the clowns running claiming to run this country,protect the drinks industry and ban the new threat outright.
Alcohol is a lethal drug a lot worse than 90% of the products that were sold in these shops

jimmycrackcorm

So the bill prevents people easily getting drugs from a shop. Instead if they want to try them they have to find a drug dealer.

Are those guys in the golden pages then?

Kurtosis

beagle001 wrote: »

Wake up penguin
How many people died from alcohol directly or indirectly last year and compare that to recorded deaths from head shops and their substances.
While it is true regulation was needed for the headshops not a knee jerk reaction and banning something that we did not understand or try to understand.
Typical of the clowns running claiming to run this country,protect the drinks industry and ban the new threat outright.
Alcohol is a lethal drug a lot worse than 90% of the products that were sold in these shops

I'm wide awake thanks. There's more to the harm a substance can do than the number of deaths it causes. I won't get into the vast difference in numbers of users involved.

I was actually hoping a system of regulation would have been introduced, where these products and substances were studied properly and then issued a licence, while the premises which sold them also be subjected to a licensing procedure. The thing is had this been done there would not have been an overnight switch, it would have taken months or years to complete the required work and the money to do so was not going to grow on trees. Even if such a system had been implemented and the issue of financing resolved, we would effectively be in the same situation as now, with the headshops not selling these products (albeit on a temporary basis).

seensensee

penguin88 wrote: »

If that was the point you were trying to make then why were you linking to those newspaper articles? With these links, you seemed to infer that while headshops were open, younger children were exposed to heroin and numbers of heroin users increased...so by the same wacky logic, we should now see fewer young children using and fewer people overall?

The stories you are linking to have nothing to do with these (former) legal highs.

There is no wacky logic to it, people should be free to source their drugs of choice in a legitimate regulated manner (head shops, coffee shops) places where there are no illegitimate suppliers.

What has transpired is that joe's warriors and government policy have given the nation no choice but to visit and pay the illegal dealer for their drugs.

the_syco

penguin88 wrote: »

I was actually hoping a system of regulation would have been introduced, where these products and substances were studied properly and then issued a licence

If this had happened, the shops would still be open. As opposed to the invention of new drugs every so often, with (it would seem, most of) the old drugs getting banned after a year when the long-term effects begin to pop up.

poisonated

In a way, I'm glad. Been there done that. I don't want to go down a bad road. That being said, I am a strong believer of personal choice. I believe that they were lazy and should have tried to legislate it before they did this.

lila44

seensensee wrote: »

Banning psychoactive's outright probably has been a big mistake. The government should have worked with the headshops and come to some arrangement in regulating supply and quality.

I can see where alarmed parents would want to restrict access of research chemicals to their children, it's no longer a case of white doves but more the Ivory wave...

"The coughing got worse with every bump. The two of us made more horrible gagging / coughing sounds than a Russian whooping cough ward from the 1940s. I also should mention here that by now I had started to feel completely insane. People who are too scared to do acid always think that acid will make you feel completely insane but that’s not necessarily true. Acid generally gives you an hilarious world of weird and funny stuff that borders on feeling insane sometimes but it is nothing compared to the really unpleasant insanity that good old Ivory Wave provides its punters."
http://nellnews.com/another-terrible-legal-high-reviewed-by-somebody-who-feels-not-very-well-today-viceland-com.html


The critique is written by an experienced drug user and well worth reading in full. If headshops were selling the above substance then it's no surprise that "something?" had to be done.

A quote from that article: " It’s like crystal meth without any of the good bits."



Having done Ivory Wave many times when it was legal, I found it was all about pacing yourself (as in, not snorting an entire bag in one night - only idiots do this). Granted, it made me hyper, extremely talkative, and slightly paranoid, but I mean, doesn't coke do all the very same things? (that's actually a question, i've never tried coke!)

I always had a great laugh while on the stuff, really brilliant nights and brilliant chats! thinking back the following morning you sometimes feel like a bit of a dick, but sure the same comes from a night on the booze. The comedown for was just like a hangover with an edge, probably cos I didn't snort 3grams in one night! :P

on a side note...I can see this turning into the usual debate about head shops...which has been done people. To death.

Overheal

wheres the Duffy Rage about alcohol?

Jev/N

Overheal wrote: »

wheres the Duffy Rage about alcohol?

After the LC/JC results nights

Einhard

IvySlayer wrote: »

If only Joe Duffy and co can look past their blind ignorance.

It must be wonderful living in a world where all those who have the temerity to hold a contrary opinion to your own are are hysterical, blindly ignorant Joe Duffy listeners.

Einhard

beagle001 wrote: »

Wake up penguin
How many people died from alcohol directly or indirectly last year and compare that to recorded deaths from head shops and their substances.
While it is true regulation was needed for the headshops not a knee jerk reaction and banning something that we did not understand or try to understand.
Typical of the clowns running claiming to run this country,protect the drinks industry and ban the new threat outright.
Alcohol is a lethal drug a lot worse than 90% of the products that were sold in these shops

Oh FFS, I'm sick and tired of this nonsense cranked out about the hypocrisy of banning headshops but not pubs. The simple reason alcohol hasn't been banned is because it would require a massive upheaval in social attitude to do so. It would require a government to tell the 95% of adults who drink that they can no longer do so anymore. It's the same with cigarettes which most governments would love to ban but can't, because so many of their citizens use them. Headshops though, and drugs in general, are different because a comparatively tiny proportion of the population are regular users.

Also, the reason the negative health stats for alcohol are so much more higher than other substances is because so many more people consume alcohol than those other substances. You can't compare the two in that way because there's such a massive disparity in consumption.

Furthermore, the average person consuming alcohol at a reasonable rate over the entirety of his adult life, will not experience a significant impact on his health , whereas just one evening using drugs can lead to massive internal damage. And that's without any external factors being applied.

And last but not least, the fact that headshops were on the main street made the drugs they stocked far more accessible to people who would not otherwise have used them. That's where most of the concern lay. And it's an eminently reasonable concern, and one that deserves to be properly debated, and not patronisingly dismissed as the rantings of a Joe Duffyesque rump.

Kurtosis

the_syco wrote: »

If this had happened, the shops would still be open. As opposed to the invention of new drugs every so often, with (it would seem, most of) the old drugs getting banned after a year when the long-term effects begin to pop up.

Yeah it would have stopped the cycle of new alternatives emerging every few years. I was saying the shops would still be closed now (or at least not selling any legal highs) was to allow testing, research and licensing of products to take place. If legislation had been passed requiring such products to be licensed before being sold, then it's likely they would not be allowed on the market while the licensing procedure was ongoing.

I still think that this down period would have been difficult for the headshop operators to accept, and in addition the capital required to carry out testing/trials with these products and to obtain a licence - if it was anything like medicines licensing, serious amounts of cash would be required and it's unclear who would have footed such a bill.

Our man in Havana

The manufacturer of the product would have to pay the costs of licensing. Same as for medicines.

Hammered hippie

Just so people know where our dear minister for justice gets his information on which he bases his policies:

Go to the TRIS site of they european union (http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/tris/index_en.htm)

Check the last two months submissions from Ireland. (click the search the database link)
Look at the one that was rushed through with the name 'psychoactive substances'
Then for fun check the references...have a good look at the sources this minister for justice actually uses for his legislation.
No..its not research or proper rapports (apart for some very old ones that just stress the need for monitoring)....dermot ahern used....news paper headlines...mostly from the examiner.
Now people..be honest...that does sound like a joke doesn't it.
Our minister for justice passes hefty legislation curbing our civil rights...and his sources are the headlines from the examiner.
The man actually believes the headlines and heads above opinion pieces in the newspapers and uses them as a basis for his policies. O MY GOD !:eek::eek:


So if joe duffy gets hysteria going and it makes it into the headlines...then our ministers create legislation based on it.
This means that in essence joe duffy, or any other populist sensationalist, is the policy maker of Ireland, as the government does not conduct its own research or uses its own intelligence. The government just copy paste the head lines from the newspapers. Very very disturbing all together.

Kurtosis

Haddockman wrote: »

The manufacturer of the product would have to pay the costs of licensing. Same as for medicines.

I suppose the question is would they be willing to pay for it. Could they justify a significant amount of expenditure to gain entry to the small market that exists here in comparison to the global demand? Also take into account that being a new regulatory system, it is possible that subsequent governments could alter the controls on the industry and make it less viable at any time. Even now, some medicines manufacturers choose not to license their products in this country due to the costs involved, and this would be with the clinical trials, research and other ground work already completed.

It's all hypothetical though and we'll probably never see such an eventuality arising.

The_Minister

Hammered hippie wrote: »

All of this doesn't bother the government one bit, as long as they can be seen to appease a small group of people they deem more worthy of their democratic rights than the majority that enjoy legal highs.

The majority do not enjoy legal highs.
Far more people want to ban these drugs than keep them legal.
This 'small group of people' are the majority, you are the baked minority.

Hammered hippie wrote: »

As this piece of personal propaganda for D. Ahern is supposedly designed to protect the public from 'bad' psychoactive substances we can conclude that the government is telling us that tobacco and alcohol are safe, as they are exempt from the psycho active substances bill. So go out, get drunk, smoke your lungs into tarpits and then come back to sue the government...because they said in a way it was safe to do so...didn't they?

Funny all those government warning labels on cigarettes, and safe drinking campaigns, they would seem to indicate that the government knows that alcohol and tobacco are dangerous.

Hammered hippie wrote: »

I could write down what happens when you down a bottle of whiskey in less than two hours time. It is very very unpleasant, if you survive to tell the tale.
Yet no one thinks that would be reason to close bars and off licences. People will just think it is silly to drink that much that fast.

It think you will find the point is that it is far easier to overdose on these drugs; it's a absolute chore to drink an entire bottle of whiskey; popping a few extra pills is much easier to do, especially by accident.

Hammered hippie wrote: »

It is the same with certain head shop stuff...with the big big enormous exception that when complaints arise..head shops self regulate and stop selling certain bits and pieces.
When will off lincenses stop selling hard liquor due to its negative side effects when over dosing.....that's right...never!

Actually, have you ever noticed that our off-licenses don't sell 60%+ alcohol generally.
Alcohol is not a free for all in this country.

Hammered hippie wrote: »

As for that utter fool d ahern. I have seen drug dealers dancing for joy outside my local head shop when they heard the news of this new law.
That's right folks....d ahern makes drug dealers dance for joy. The man himself made things 1000% better for drug dealers over the last 12 months. Minister? ...my arse!...for justice?...**** off d ahern!

I pity you.
You've obviously taken so many illegal highs that you now believe that Dublin is now in the West Side Story universe.
Doubtless the Westies will now fight the other gangs to get revenge on them for their actions against a gorgeous Polish woman.



Look.
I support keeping head-shops legal, and regulating them.
I am a member of an organisation that supports the same.
I want to legalise weed. I want to legalise ectasy. I want to legalise mushrooms.
I want to legalise every drug currently out there, and either have them in designated shops with careful restrictions on them, or have them supplied by the government to the addicted, in combination with treatment programs and addiction counselling.
I want to stop the drug dealers here, and I want to end the sheer amount of suffering and well, evil, that occurs in so many countries to feed the West's undeniable appetite for these drugs. Even weed, often seen as the most benign legal drug, has a mountain of corpses and pain behind it by the time it gets here.

The thing is, it's very hard for organisations that want to be taken seriously to come out in favour of legalising when the most high-profile advocates of legalisation are condescending, arrogant users who give the impression of being willing to say anything to get a fix.
You aren't helping things, the only people you will get to agree with you are people who already agree with you.
The key to actually legalising drugs in this country in a sensible, intelligent and rational manner is not to have half-baked users making self-serving arguments while madly gesturing at alcohol and going 'look, look, people die from that, therefore let us maybe die from this'.
People have been conditioned for years to believe that drugs are evil, to convince them of legalisation you have to undo all that.

The key to getting drugs decriminalised is having an intelligent, articulate, trustworthy, and most importantly non-using person to go on the Late Late Show and acknowledge that there are dangers, those dangers can be reduced be legalisation of some drugs (some of your favorite brands may go in favour of safer alternatives), and careful regulation, tied into criminal liability for head-shop owners if they provide drugs without proper information on safe usage, or tainted drugs.

Instead we get a noxious concoction of wild exaggerations, spurious logic and pathetic whining.