Decriminisation of personal use of illegal drugs.

BurnUp78

Arrival wrote: »

You are aware that there are hundreds of different strains of cannabis, right? And prohibition and a lack of regulation has actually resulted in ridiculously potent strains being the most easily available ones? Teenagers wouldn't have such easy access to such high THC strains with legalisation, it's even been found that use amongst teenagers has decreased in legal states in the US. I feel bad for people who have only ever tried high THC strains that just make you feel like a potato

At around the age of 18 i began to suffer severe adverse affects from smoking weed such as extreme anxiety, panic attacks and general negative thoughts. why can't stoners just accept that some people's brain chemistry leaves them much more vulnerable to marijuana's adverse affects?

weldoninhio

https://youtu.be/FxF4vE67g40

Arrival

BurnUp78 wrote: »

At around the age of 18 i began to suffer severe adverse affects from smoking weed such as extreme anxiety, panic attacks and general negative thoughts. why can't stoners just accept that some people's brain chemistry leaves them much more vulnerable to marijuana's adverse affects?

I can't speak for stoners as I am not one, so go ask one. It is a fact that some people are not suited to consuming cannabis as it can, for example, induce latent mental health issues (STRONG emphasis on the word latent as some people confuse this with it causing mental health issues)

By the way, you were smoking at too young of an age. Teenagers should not be smoking, this is known to be dangerous for developing minds. And I would put money on you smoking any old cannabis you could get your hands on and not discussing with the dealer which strain it was, whether it was an indica or sativa, what its THC content would be like etc. so you more than likely smoke strong cannabis which exacerbates any potential negative effects

Captcha

Potential-Monke wrote: »

So in my ten years of being a Garda, I can easily say 70% of people I arrested had alcohol taken. Up that to 90% for alcohol being a factor at some point. In those 10 years, I never arrested someone for being too stoned, or committing a crime because they were stoned. Why? Because the stoners don't cause hassle. They know that the idiots can go into town and get messed up drunk every night if they want. The stoners are at a friends house, playing games (electronic, board, RPG), listening to music, watching tv/movies.

I'll be honest, I didn't do much with the drugs investigations where I was based, because there's a drugs unit for that, but even they will say that it's the most harmless (read: least harmful) intoxicant out there imo. Although, one sergeant did tell me that cannabis was worse than heroin, so I never listened to a word he said from that day forth, but there's idiots in every line of work.

It was supposed to have been decriminalised a couple of years back, but nothing has happened. There seems to be renewed ideas that it will be decriminalised early next year, along with coke, and heroin. They're opening injection centres in Dublin, and other cities to follow apparently. Once that happens, the door to allowing recreational cannabis use will be easier to open. And I welcome it.

I can hand on heart say that if cannabis was legalised, I would never drink again. It's poison, it's detrimental to your health, and causes numerous health and public expenditure problems. If cannabis was legalised, you'll have the usual idiots over indulging, but the will only last the honeymoon period, until the majority of people are able to treat it properly. You'll still have the idiots that overindulge, just like with alcohol, but the 'war on drugs' won't work. Legalising cannabis will decimate the income of large gangs, and free up Garda time to investigate the heavier drug dealers, even suppliers.

Cannabis is not 100% safe for 100% of people, just like alcohol, coffee, nuts, dairy... Everyone can't have everything, but this country seems to think they know what's best for me.

If you were still a Garda then the force would be better for it!

Rory28

Captcha wrote: »

If you were still a Garda then the force would be better for it!

But I doubt Monke would. By all accounts its a stressful and thankless job.

Frankincense

Indeed! It must be stressful to be busting people for doing things you know aren't wrong...

Tigger

Larbre34 wrote: »

When they burgle my elderly aunts house and mug my young male cousin with a blade to feed their habits, it makes it my "fockin" business. And i dont give a shyte what drug it was they were trying to get from those robberies, hash featured somewhere on their CV

As did ethanol

Tigger

Rory28 wrote: »

But I doubt Monke would. By all accounts its a stressful and thankless job.

Couple of spliffs , be grand

Muzzymor

Decriminalise all crimes. Instantly solve all crime.

Drug dealers and their minions will immediately go on the straight and narrow and get respectable office jobs.
Cokeheads will no longer become violent and agressive.
Junkies will no longer resort to theft and mugging to support their now legal heroin addiction.
Nobody will seek to undercut the prices of the now legal and safe drugs. If they do we can give the drugs away for free.

When we remove the social stigma, being a drugged up waste of space will no longer be cool and rebellious, so the drug abuse figures will go right down.

If addicts still commit muggings and robbery to buy their legal drugs, legalise theft and mugging too . The laws are just criminalising the poor chaps and we still have muggings and theft anyway.
We need a good dose of legalisation and sympathy for the hard luck story of every criminal.
Every criminal is one of God's children and we as a society created them and are therefore responsible for their actions, not the individual criminal.

What's that you say?
We could enforce the laws?
There was a guy who believed in "enforcing" "laws".
Hitler was his name.

Donald Trump

Potential-Monke wrote: »

So in my ten years of being a Garda, I can easily say 70% of people I arrested had alcohol taken. Up that to 90% for alcohol being a factor at some point.  In those 10 years, I never arrested someone for being too stoned, or committing a crime because they were stoned. Why? Because the stoners don't cause hassle. They know that the idiots can go into town and get messed up drunk every night if they want. The stoners are at a friends house, playing games (electronic, board, RPG), listening to music, watching tv/movies.  

I'll be honest, I didn't do much with the drugs investigations where I was based, because there's a drugs unit for that, but even they will say that it's the most harmless (read: least harmful) intoxicant out there imo.  Although, one sergeant did tell me that cannabis was worse than heroin, so I never listened to a word he said from that day forth, but there's idiots in every line of work.  

It was supposed to have been decriminalised a couple of years back, but nothing has happened.  There seems to be renewed ideas that it will be decriminalised early next year, along with coke, and heroin.  They're opening injection centres in Dublin, and other cities to follow apparently.  Once that happens, the door to allowing recreational cannabis use will be easier to open.  And I welcome it.  

I can hand on heart say that if cannabis was legalised, I would never drink again.  It's poison, it's detrimental to your health, and causes numerous health and public expenditure problems.  If cannabis was legalised, you'll have the usual idiots over indulging, but the will only last the honeymoon period, until the majority of people are able to treat it properly.  You'll still have the idiots that overindulge, just like with alcohol, but the 'war on drugs' won't work. Legalising cannabis will decimate the income of large gangs, and free up Garda time to investigate the heavier drug dealers, even suppliers.  

Cannabis is not 100% safe for 100% of people, just like alcohol, coffee, nuts, dairy...  Everyone can't have everything, but this country seems to think they know what's best for me.

If 90% of the people you arrested had something to do with alcohol then there might be two explanations:

1) 90% of crime in the country is caused or related to alcohol
2) You weren't really doing a very good job - rather just lazily picking the low-hanging fruit
:pac:

Sam Quentin

Just say no.
You can get over an addiction.
But you'll never get over a conviction.

Donald Trump

Sam Quentin wrote: »

Just say no.
You can get over an addiction.
But you'll never get over a conviction.

I thought you kicked the bucket recently Nancy me oul' flower

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQXgVM30mIY

Billy86

AndyBoBandy wrote: »

And even America, which was a big shock, but look at the positives already being reported. Massive bumps to state taxes which is all being pumped back into healthcare, massive workload being taken off the police forces, allowing them to focus more of their efforts on crimes with victims etc..

This is why certain drugs need to be legalised. All that talk of "it's part of nature and grows among us man" bollix won't impress any lawmakers, politicians or many voters. Even pointing out that people don't smoke a joint and go around starting fights like with alcohol won't convince them. But pointing out the amount of money in it, that's always the most surefire method, and in the US where you've got states like Missouri in a nightmare scenario of having to reduce the school week to four days because they cannot afford to have them open on the fifth day, you've also got states who have legalised getting the following:

• Oregon pays out $85 million in pot taxes to school fund, cops, other services
• Alaska marijuana tax collections hit new high in January [2018]
• According to numbers from the state [of Colorado], marijuana tax, license and fee revenue collected in 2016 almost hit the $200 million mark. To be exact: $198.5 million.
• Nevada Makes $30 Million In Marijuana Taxes During First Six Months Of Sales.
• Taxes on recreational marijuana sales could net the state between $44 million and $82 million in the next fiscal year, according to a new analysis by the Massachusetts Department of Revenue.
• Washington state collected a total of $319 million in legal marijuana income and license fees in fiscal year 2017, all but $4 million of it from the state’s marijuana excise, or sales tax.

And that's before taking into account the additional money and resources saved by not having police out chasing after people selling it, and then having them as well as people smoking it taking up space (and more resources) in a cell or holding up the courts in front of a judge. On the marijuana front, we're hitting a point where there is little reason left to keep it illegal other than the stubbornness of "it's always been that way" which is what the public overwhelmingly laughed out of the rule books for same sex marriage in 2015.

It's hard to tell what the income for Ireland would be, but the money that could be put into schools, health care, infrastructure and the housing crisis would be a huge help, and saying you don't want that at the expense of people being allowed to legally take a drug that just makes them calm, relaxed and rather hungry simply doesn't make any sense in my mind whatsoever.

It won't happen overnight but if you had told me in 2001 that same sex marriage for example would be a thing in Ireland within 15 years I would have considered you off your rocker. Still, I reckon marijuana will be largely legal around much of the western world by 2030.

---

As for harder drugs I'm not sure that I'd be in favour of legalisation, but decriminilisation makes too much sense not to when you see the incredible impact it has had in Portugal since 2004 (a move I thought was a disaster waiting to happen at the time). Their overdose rate (3.0 per 100,000) is now almost 1/6th of the EU average (17.3), 1/20th of Ireland's average (58.5), and second lowest in all of Europe behind only Romania.

https://thumbs.mic.com/NmQ1NTE5NWFlNyMvSXVPRUE1LWFHM0hOaml4VHFmVk9wWFVsTG40PS9maXQtaW4vNzYweDAvZmlsdGVyczpub191cHNjYWxlKCk6Zm9ybWF0KGpwZWcpOnF1YWxpdHkoODApL2h0dHBzOi8vczMuYW1hem9uYXdzLmNvbS9wb2xpY3ltaWMtaW1hZ2VzL3VqMmQxNDZjMTFmbHBrNTJ0aXJqbnE0aTRiZ25sdnB6MXVmdHl1Ynl0eTFmMTgza3FyY2EyZ29ubG5na3V2dGcuanBn.jpg

Potential-Monke

Rory28 wrote: »

But I doubt Monke would. By all accounts its a stressful and thankless job.

100%. Part of the reason I left.

Frankincense wrote: »

Indeed! It must be stressful to be busting people for doing things you know aren't wrong...

But I didn't though.

Donald Trump wrote: »

If 90% of the people you arrested had something to do with alcohol then there might be two explanations:

1) 90% of crime in the country is caused or related to alcohol
2) You weren't really doing a very good job - rather just lazily picking the low-hanging fruit
:pac:

Most likely category 1. The majority of shoplifters had drink taken, most burglars had drink taken or were doing it to but alcohol/other drugs, 99% of public order is due to drink, rape usually has alcohol involved, drink driving is self explanatory, assaults usually have alcohol involved.

As for 2, yes, that's what I was doing shortly before I quit so I ensured I wouldn't be called back for court.