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EU ready to end drug prohibition

Elevator

yes you seen it right, I cannot wait, read on

http://encod.org/info/EU-READY-TO-END-DRUG-PROHIBITION.html?sms_ss=facebook&at_xt=4cffe5ad708c21f2%2C0

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thebigbiffo

liah wrote: »

The Germans may drink more but if that's true they do it more responsibly from what I've seen. Obviously that's anecdotal and I've only been here for six months, but I lived in Ireland for 2 years and if I didn't start drinking I wouldn't've had a social life.

I haven't had more than three or four drinks since I've been in Germany and know loads of people.

I'm probably digging myself a grave here but regardless of the amount of consumption, there's a big difference between the way people in this part of Germany handle their alcohol and how they did back in Mullingar, for instance.

Again, it's purely anecdotal and from the perspective of a foreigner who has no original affiliation with either country. I'm not being anti-Irish. Just saying what I see. Not saying it's right or wrong, just observations.

but what's this 'responsible drinking' though? there's scumbags who fight on drink, but they'd be scum and you wouldn't want to be around them anyway and alcoholism is generally a deeper issue to simply a culutre of drink. i sincerely believe that as this country got more 'rich' people started to fancy themselves as more socially concious, health concious and the like. i think it's all b'ollox.

Pace2008

thebigbiffo wrote: »

but what's this 'responsible drinking' though? there's scumbags who fight on drink, but they'd be scum and you wouldn't want to be around them anyway

I know people who have no inclination towards violence but can get aggressive as they near the blackout stage. I can be quite a dickhead myself when I've had the one that's one too many.

Booze will certainly exacerbate in aggressiveness in people who are that way predisposed, but I've also seen it bring it out of nowhere in people who are not.

and alcoholism is generally a deeper issue to simply a culutre of drink.

I wouldn't say we have an alcoholic culture; I'd say we have a binge-drinking culture, though an individual's alcoholism is more likely to go unnoticed in a nation when it's acceptable to get trashed, and people are around their friends when they're drunk as often as not.

ScumLord

Jagle wrote: »

am currently telling politicians that come to my door i wanna be able to legally smoke a planet that has a zero record for killing people while my car parked over there i can easily kill alot with,

Thinly veiled threats of violence. Nice.

prinz wrote: »

We have already seen that there is a significant section of Irish society incapable of dealing with alcohol maturely despite it's long legal history. Perhaps we, as a society, should master one drug first. When we have responsible partaking of one, we may be able to manage responsible partaking in another.

There is no mastering one drug and moving onto another that's a pretty silly thing to hope for in fairness. There's nothing to say cannabis may have a positive influence on the Irish drinking culture. The fact is if you mix drink and weed all your fit for is bed, it makes you tired. You also can't drink nearly as much alcohol with weed, the alcohol will become nothing more than a beverage when your stoned.

I just don't see how cannabis can exacerbate the problem when what you'll really be doing is allowing people to choose a different drug when socialising. If more and more people use weed for socialising it will take numbers away from the drinking crowd not add to them and make them more mental.

Elevator

free the weed

grow hemp everywhere

what's the problem with that?

Pace2008

ScumLord wrote: »

There is no mastering one drug and moving onto another that's a pretty silly thing to hope for in fairness. There's nothing to say cannabis may have a positive influence on the Irish drinking culture. The fact is if you mix drink and weed all your fit for is bed, it makes you tired. You also can't drink nearly as much alcohol with weed, the alcohol will become nothing more than a beverage when your stoned.

I just don't see how cannabis can exacerbate the problem when what you'll really be doing is allowing people to choose a different drug when socialising. If more and more people use weed for socialising it will take numbers away from the drinking crowd not add to them and make them more mental.

Absolutely

You don't just smoke a load of spliffs and go out on the tear. Weed and alcohol are both depressants, they're both enjoyable, but that's where the similarities end. Weed doesn't give the dutch courage and bullish confidence that alcohol will imbue, it's good for shooting the **** with close friends but causes loud, busy places with unfamiliar people to become uncomfortable. It’s a sitting-in drug rather than a going out one - if you smoke any amount of joints in the house you get comfortable in your cosy bubble, where you’ll stay for the night, with your only interaction with the outside world being one or more phone calls to your fast-food outlet of choice. And whilst I think a few beers synergise well with a bag of sticky, but as you’ve said, the key term is “a few.” Start downing the gargle when you’re stoned and you’ll end up passing out at best, and with your head in the porcelain at worst.

So I could see an increase in cannabis consumption alleviating some of the social problems associated with our drink culture, but this is assuming that legalisation would even cause an significant rise in the use of a drug that’s already widely available and socially acceptable amongst the youth. Lest we forget, the Netherlands has a lower rate of consumption amongst the youth than that bastion of liberal drug policy, the USA.

rockynavan

Orando Broom wrote: »

Pot, smack and Coke, pilla and all that sh**e are for eejits.

Porther is a real man's drug.

I'd jail every C*** for using those pansy drugs.

pot calling the the kettal black.you go to any court in ireland and see how many stoners are there for smashing someones face in zero alcohol on the other hand?

admiralofthefleet

i dont think the head shops should have been closed down.

they should have been heavily taxed and regulated

Pace2008

admiralofthefleet wrote: »

i dont think the head shops should have been closed down.

they should have been heavily taxed and regulated

I think they were right to ban mephedrone.

liah

The problem I had with the headshops wasn't the fact that they sold drugs, but the kind of drugs they sold were completely untested.

When Whack hit the scene it was pure unadulterated chaos. That stuff was absolutely insane; the horror stories I've heard, people I know going into a mental hospital and never coming out.

This shouldn't be encouraged at all, we shouldn't have to ingest untested, potentially highly dangerous drugs just because no one wants to legalize the ones we actually know how to handle (from both a medical and societal viewpoint).

If headshops sold tested drugs then yes, they should've been legally taxed and regulated. I still don't think they should've been closed down. But what was happening was, in fairness, insane.

mikom

rockynavan wrote: »

pot calling the the kettal black.you go to any court in ireland and see how many stoners are there for smashing someones face in zero alcohol on the other hand?

Used as a sneaky defence of diminished responsibility.
"My client was acting totally out of character your honour, as it was those damn drugs what did it."

Scum play this card all the time.

up for anything

They'd trust us with drug drugs but not with Solpadeine. Strange old world.

Jagle

up for anything wrote: »

They'd trust us with drug drugs but not with Solpadeine. Strange old world.

in the words of katt williams, i dont understand why weed is illegal, aspirin is perfectly legal but if you take 12 of them motherf*ckers itll be your last headache.

very very true

liah

JG009 wrote: »

The problem I had was the drugs weren't real.

Real in what sense? The cannabinoids and various smokeables had largely no effect, I'll grant that, or at least no impressive one. But they were most certainly real in the same sense any other illegal drug is real.

Whack was what really shocked all of us. We were frequenters of the headshops for various smokeables and snorts (never the pills though), the fact that Whack was sold just like the old generation headshop snorts such as Blow was absolutely insane.

So many people took it thinking it would just be another energy lifter, thinking it was totally harmless. There was no indication at all whatsoever that it would be any different, and then the next thing you knew half the town was in the hospital within a week.

People got violent, they saw hallucinations, underwent massive personality changes, damaged themselves, other people. Some were even unfortunate enough to have it be their catalyst to permanent mental illness. Nobody knew what to do when they saw these massive changes in their closest friends. The doctors had absolutely no knowledge of what they had taken. Like I said, it was essentially chaos.

After that I really started to cop on to how truly ridiculous the whole situation was. Loads of youth were doing these completely untested drugs for the one stupid fact that the ones we knew, for centuries, that had been tested over and over, that our hospitals knew how to handle, were deemed "too dangerous" to be legal, and in an effort to stay above board, these kids resorted to what they assumed to be safe due to the fact it was legal without bothering to put any research into it.

It's a really sick situation and a massively hypocritical one. I definitely learned my lesson from it.

super_furry

Nice handy way to keep the population docile while the country crashes down around our ears. Go for it Biffo!

liah

JG009 wrote: »

Going off topic but real in the sense that the "buzz" derived from them was not as good as say for example MDMA or shrooms etc. I am not a coke head never liked it, not because I am anti drug but because it did nothing for me, so I wouldn't see the attraction to that type of drug in the first place - maybe they were similar.

I just found it funny looking at my mallet head mates who would spend €30 on a bag of air freshener and thought they were getting stoned. That was my problem. Back on topic - can't see it happening here. Sure masturbation is still a sin.

A few were. It was never one for chemicals, if given the choice I'd just stick with weed, but the guy I lived with was a partier and there were parties at our house 4 nights out of the week. My bedroom was generally occupied and I didn't want to fall asleep near a bunch of drugged out drunk people (I don't really drink much either) so I'd lick some to keep me awake (the idea of snorting bothers me).

I didn't do whack but I know an awful lot of people who did, and a lot of people who did the rest of the headshop drugs. They certainly were very much real and had some very interesting effects. It was a strange time, being a guinea pig for Ireland.

It really just depended on the drug, but I wouldn't call them more or less 'real' because the effects aren't as strong or of a certain type.

Overheal

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

did anyone read the link?

the eu is not ready to end prohibition, they're just not going to stop it if a member state decides they want to..

I was going to read the link... but then I got hihg.

NotInventedHere

be interesting to see all the narco dollars Repatriated to Europe and changed into Euros

Amhran Nua

admiralofthefleet wrote: »

i dont think the head shops should have been closed down.

they should have been heavily taxed and regulated

Did you see what happened though? Bombs planted outside what were legitimate places of business at the time, and it wasn't the guards or the TDs who put them there. They must have been severely damaging the bottom line of quite violent criminal organisations, which lends credence to the idea that the vast majority of their bread and butter money is in the softer drugs. I'm seriously starting to come around to supporting the idea of (careful) legalisation of the lower class stuff, and a zero tolerance policy for the nastier stuff. I'm not in favour of drug use, I think its fairly ridiculous to be honest, but I'm far less in favour of violent criminal gangs.

mikom

Amhran Nua wrote: »

I'm seriously starting to come around to supporting the idea of (careful) legalisation of the lower class stuff, and a zero tolerance policy for the nastier stuff. I'm not in favour of drug use, I think its fairly ridiculous to be honest, but I'm far less in favour of violent criminal gangs.

*Hand ticks Amhran Nua candidate on ballot paper*

ScumLord

Pace2008 wrote: »

Absolutely

You don't just smoke a load of spliffs and go out on the tear. Weed and alcohol are both depressants, they're both enjoyable, but that's where the similarities end. Weed doesn't give the dutch courage and bullish confidence that alcohol will imbue, it's good for shooting the **** with close friends but causes loud, busy places with unfamiliar people to become uncomfortable. It’s a sitting-in drug rather than a going out one - if you smoke any amount of joints in the house you get comfortable in your cosy bubble, where you’ll stay for the night, with your only interaction with the outside world being one or more phone calls to your fast-food outlet of choice.

That's really your only option at the moment. You can't enjoy cannabis socially any where other than at friends of like mind. If cannabis consumption was legal you could use it out socially. You could have restaurants that sold cannabis starters or vaporiser cafes. Coffeeshops in Amsterdam are sociable enough places.

Amsterdam's coffeeshops are restricted and selling to a particular tourist market. There's no reason why legalised cannabis in Ireland has to follow that model. If we just thought it out we could find much better ways of integrating it's use into our society that could be extremely subtle while still making the most out of the best qualities of the drug.

Amhran Nua

mikom wrote: »

*Hand ticks Amhran Nua candidate on ballot paper*

Heh, its not an official policy yet, we still have to investigate it carefully and figure out the finer details before presenting it to the public; the one point of reference, Holland, is not especially encouraging, but the theory is sound. I'd hope we can have it up there one way or the other before the Christmas though. My own feeling on it is its a great way to cut most of the finance to organised crime in Ireland.

mikom

Amhran Nua wrote: »

Heh, its not an official policy yet, we still have to investigate it carefully and figure out the finer details before presenting it to the public; the one point of reference, Holland, is not especially encouraging, but the theory is sound.

Be better having a look at Portugal.

Amhran Nua

mikom wrote: »

Be better having a look at Portugal.

They haven't legalised anything though, only decriminalised it. The main supporters of this policy internationally are the Cato institute, a Libertarian think tank, which again is not encouraging. However by treating drug addicts as victims rather than dangerous people with some sort of endemic flaw, positive results have been returned there. If a good enough case presents itself, we'll advocate a step further. It's hard to see how empowering the likes of the McCarthy-Dundons is a good thing however.

Oh_Noes

liah wrote: »

The cannabinoids and various smokeables had largely no effect.

This couldn't be further from the truth. The spice products have a very strong effect, on par with most strong weed/hash. People wouldn't have been buying it in their droves if it has no effect.

mikom

Amhran Nua wrote: »

They haven't legalised anything though, only decriminalised it.

Neither has the Netherlands.

Amhran Nua

mikom wrote: »

Neither has the Netherlands.

Yes, but they by policy don't enforce the laws up to five grams, which is a whole other issue, why have laws you don't enforce as they only serve to bring the whole body of the law into contempt, but how and ever Holland is not an encouraging example, as mentioned. The decriminalisation in Portugal means that you don't get put through the justice system for possession up to a point, you just have to attend a committee where the consequences of your actions are explained to you.

Again, while this is overall a positive, the supply and use of soft drugs through organised crime is not particularly diminished, from the last time I was looking at it.

Its a question that must be approached very carefully, if you do it wrong you could end up with a cure worse than the problem.

yawha

prinz wrote: »

We have already seen that there is a significant section of Irish society incapable of dealing with alcohol maturely despite it's long legal history. Perhaps we, as a society, should master one drug first. When we have responsible partaking of one, we may be able to manage responsible partaking in another.

I keep hearing this argument, and I think it's really silly. It ignores the fact that different drugs have different effects, and the implications of use of different drugs in a society are different depending on the drug. Equally, it ignores that people might potentially use a different drug instead of the currently problematic drug in the country, potentially reducing the harm caused by the former drug.

It's a bit like saying bicycles should be illegal because there are so many car crashes.

Amhran Nua

yawha wrote: »

It's a bit like saying bicycles should be illegal because there are so many car crashes.

Not to mention that prior to the late 90s, Irish alcohol use was actually a bit below the European average. Maybe we should be asking ourselves whether or not this had something to do with the way that 40% of FF TDs were publicans.

Wolfe Tone

It will be a sad day for Ireland if drugs are legalized. The very fact that they are illegal keeps many people from taking up the habit.

Elevator

Amhran Nua wrote: »

Not to mention that prior to the late 90s, Irish alcohol use was actually a bit below the European average. Maybe we should be asking ourselves whether or not this had something to do with the way that 40% of FF TDs were publicans.

and also refusing to move into the 21st century regarding opening hours, we are the earliest closing in Europe, next down from us is Portugal with an optional closing time of 5am!!

talking about closing fast food outlets was a joke of an idea!!

bringing in a hiked up price for a late licence (stealth tax alert!!) to €400!!

there's no end to the damage done by fianna fail