The party's over

thelordofcheese wrote: »

Well to be fair those years are off the end of your life, and those years are **** anyway.

Not so. I have a friend who's father recently had a quadruple heart bypass, and spent about a month in hospital, before during and after the surgery. He was telling me that in the same ward there were guys in their late twenty's and early thirties as well that were in there because they overdid the coke so much they've got the heart condition and arteries of seventy year olds.

If people want to waste their life because they snorted 2 parts coke, 3 parts talcum powder, and 4 parts horse tranquilizer then no ad campaign is going to stop them. You can try educate them, but at the end of the day its a personal choice.

Predalien wrote: »

I'd agree the ad campaign is awful but at some point I'd wish the twats usin coke (and other drugs) at the moment would cop on to the fact that the people bringin in the drugs are the same as the bstards bringin in guns.

I'm sick of people whingin about how if drugs were legal then all the problems with crime would disappear, they won't, it's time drug users just took some responsibility and made the choice to not take drugs while they're illegal, without a market there'd be no business. We'll never have a rational debate what recreational drugs should be legal when people believe they have some kind of right to take whatever drugs they want, simply because they enjoy it.

Over 90% of crime in this country is DIRECTLY related to illegal drugs, mainly heroin and cocaine (heroin being responsible for the vast majority).

The cocaine problem (ie, people dropping dead, and people being shot dead) can be solved by legalising and regulating, it will obv create new problems, but these will be far lesser imo. Read 'Freakanomics' to see how the reduction in the market for crack cocaine caused the almost elimination of violent crime in New York.

Heroin is different, our prisons are full to overflowing with heroin addicts, these guys have no choice but to break into your house or steal your car. Legalising, regulating and making it freely available would see crime rates drop drastically.

Also re your last point, you're right, it's impossible to have a rational argument about this subject, people are suckers for the tabloids.

ronoc wrote: »

That assumes that the main ingredient is safe on its own which it clearly isn't.

meh, cigarettes are worse for your health.

The 'main ingredient', ie cocaine is no more harmfull to you than alcohol.

~Rebel~ wrote: »

The other side is that we become the drug tourism centre of the world. We'd become the new amsterdam where everyone comes to get fcked up. Something like this could only work if it was done over the whole continent to stop everyone flooding to one spot.

Kinda are anyway, Vintners association, Paddy's day ???? International day of drinking and all thinks Irish... It'd be a new twist on the Green Isle....Have a week long amnesty and see how it goes. Try a weed amnesty 1st, let people apply for licenses to have some sent over from Amsterdam or Canada or somewhere and see how few people have anything bad to say about it....Some nice week in August.....Might mellow people out as they wait for that fleeting fragment of Summer ?

I'm sick of people whingin about how if drugs were legal then all the problems with crime would disappear, they won't, it's time drug users just took some responsibility and made the choice to not take drugs while they're illegal, without a market there'd be no business. We'll never have a rational debate what recreational drugs should be legal when people believe they have some kind of right to take whatever drugs they want, simply because they enjoy it.

Nobody ever suggested that all the social problems blamed on drug abuse (including alcohol) would disappear, but the resources thrown at the problem could be spent on actually helping people sort out their lives in a functional way, instead of criminalising them and turning them into a social underclass for a crime that is victimless at the grassroots level. The same problems that arise from illegal narcotic abuse occur from alcohol abuse too, and there is no real way to separate the two so they need to be regarded, -if not treated-, in the same manner.
Ad campaigns will be of modest effect at best. Most regular drug users will reach the same conclusion as the ad in their own time anyway and mill find a desire to change their lives/lifestyles

Over 90% of crime in this country is DIRECTLY related to illegal drugs, mainly heroin and cocaine (heroin being responsible for the vast majority).

While we are making stuff up, 40 percent of under 40's have admitted having an experience with illegal drugs (experimenting at some stage)
I wonder how many of those were positive, and how many were negative ??

I'm with Papa Smut, It takes a little bit of spectating on the rat race to actually see where the track bends back to the start, where you pass the torch to your eternally disappointing kids !!!
It'd make you want to take the whole experience a little less seriously, and enjoy it, Some drugs do have benefits of making you see aspects of life that make you question it, I think that is a healthy thing, and that it may have had a role in the development of the cognitive dynamic animals that we have evolved to be, Who are we to decide that we are above it all of a sudden.
In that statement I refer specifically to Marijuana which was far less illegal in the 19th Century, and while less widespread, had few of the social ills for which it stands accused associated with it. It is being used as a conservative political tool. Its too east to blame it, and removing it definitely removes some unquantified benefits.
Its my head, my body, my mind, I'll do with it as I fcuking please, Who are you to tell me what to do, I can read, I can understand clinical studies and risk assesments, Do not treat me like a child, or I will act as one....and ignore you. That is the response a condescending ad campaign provokes from this hippie anyway.....:rolleyes:

Hey guys, if we just legalise everything then there'll be no more crime!

Surprised no one thought of this earlier. Must've been all the drugs we were doing.

Predalien wrote: »

I'm sick of people whingin about how if drugs were legal then all the problems with crime would disappear, they won't, it's time drug users just took some responsibility and made the choice to not take drugs while they're illegal, without a market there'd be no business.

I don't think anybody said crime would disappear. The scum will simply turn to another trade, illegal activity. Cigarettes are smuggled in and booze gets stolen or illegally distilled. Somebody is buying these and funding these gangs. There is a lot more profit selling a smuggled pack of smokes than a "E" tablet. Some people will buy these illegal smokes and booze even though they could buy legal ones where the tax goes towards the country, and they know that the production is controlled to some degree.

Of course people would still by on the cheap from gangs, but I expect most people would buy in shops, just like booze and smokes now, many would love the opportunity to buy drugs with some control, from a normal shop, and give money to a shop owner and tax to their government.

Needless to say there still be people robbing for money, and of course many will use some this money to buy drugs, legal or not, just like they do now. Just like people who make an honest living will use some of their income on drugs, legal or not.

Terry wrote: »

It will also make cocaine less addictive and less dangerous.

Yes, a good point, there is talk of dealers mixing it with heroin these days, so it could well be less addictive, also with controlled doses people will know how much to take, less risk of overdosing or just abnormally high use which would lead to easier addiction. And certainly it would be less harmful, people are cutting it with all sorts of stuff, the way it is produced in Columbia uses lots of toxic chemicals. Prohibition of alcohol lead to the sale of dangerous contaminated alcohol in the US, part of the reason it was done away with.

The CAB program was just on TV3 a while ago, during one of the ads it had one of these red top rags advertisements, most go something like "the guys who bring in the drugs also bring in the guns"

The last one was "If you think cocaine is a party, you'll end up at a wake"
What happens at a wake again? dunno how they missed the irony.

Trojan911 wrote: »

A person buying drugs gives the dealer business, the dealer gives the importer business. Drug users keep the market in demand.... Everyone who buys from a dealer or is offered free drugs is contributing to the drugs trade.

They are are all scummy lowlife contributers to murder, misery & crime. I shed no tears when I hear of another shooting or a person dropping into a coma from drug abuse. My only concern is that person has taken up a life support machine which could be used for a genuine illness not drug related. Selfish barstewards. They deserve all they get & more.

See there is a truth to this argument, but do the people who make this argument also rail against the chocolate, tea and coffee industries? Do they actively try to stop people buying sweatshop produced clothing? Do they only use organic, locally sourced sunflower oil in their cars? Otherwise they are hypocrites.

Chunky Monkey wrote: »

I didn't say it would make the drinking problem worse...

I also never said people already using would use it more. But it would open up the market. More people would have access to it. So more would use it and over indulge in it.

Yes you would end up with far more cocaine addicts I have no doubt of that. But look at the "I'm addcited" thread, nobody seemed to express any concern about people being addicted to legal substances, except the codeine since the OP possibly didn't know they were in fact taking an opiate. Lots were listing beer and tobacco and nobody bats an eyelid, since its legal, and people seem to fully accept you can have functional addicts. The media portrays all users of illegal drugs as unfunctional degenerate addicts. The alcohol and cocaine ads are very similar, the only extra about the cocaine is the "funding crime" bit, get rid of that and the ads are the same story.

Many people will not take illegal drugs simply because of their illegality.

People will use cocaine more, doesn't mean they will necessarily drink the same amounts. A lot of people I know will take low doses of recreational drugs in addition to alcohol, and most I know will tone down their drinking because of the added effect, many take to to enhance or get a symbiotic high along with the alcohol, some doing it to calm down their drinking- they might drink 8 pints normally, or have 5 and a few spliffs in the beer garden, less of a hangover and far cheaper. A half tab of E will keep someone awake and tends to make them less partial to drinking too. You would probably be surprised how many people in the local are on stuff, if you express an anti-drug view then some of your mates could well be on the stuff and just not tell you since they don't want to sit through the hypocritical berating as you suck down your pints.