drug dealer free.. has the world gone mad?

catallus · 18-01-2014 04:54PM

And the users too.

RDM_83 again · 18-01-2014 05:03PM

Whatever about the arguments about the war on failing as its currently structured we're talking about heroin here, this isn't weed or pills or even coke, it is without argument a debilitating and harmful drug. Yes there is functional addicts but even in those cases it impacts on their lives its not the same as having a glass of wine or the occasional spliff.

We can look at the Swiss model or even the Portuguese one but neither of them are that applicable to Ireland, Switzerland has a very different culture to here with a relation to social responsibility and social attitudes in general, people also don't realise that the Swiss option also wasn't that soft either involving the shipping home of addicts and confinement. The involuntary "repatriation" being a very important element.

In terms of Portugal yes the system appears to have worked there but Portugal was starting from an extremely low base in terms of treatment and harm prevention before it initiated de-criminalization.

If we move to make heroin de-criminalized here it has to be made an unappealing option because we only have to look at how heroin use can explode in smaller towns and cities when it becomes more widely available to see that there is a significant amount of people that will try it if its available.

goose2005 · 18-01-2014 05:11PM

Locking him up could reduce the availability of heroin in Ireland by as much as 0.00%.

end of the road · 18-01-2014 06:20PM

kneemos wrote: »

Breaking the law is the reason for the mess.

a pointless law that was never going to work

SamAK · 18-01-2014 06:29PM

kneemos wrote: »

Criminals will disappear if they legalise drugs?

I don't quite see how you managed to extract that idea from my comment..! I didn't suggest anything like that.

I'm trying to get the idea across that reducing the value of illegal substances would go a long way towards reducing the profits, power and resources of criminals that don't give a flying fcuk about anything other than making money. Is this not a logical thought?

As it stands we have the following situation:

Dealers do not care if you're under 18, so no I.D required. If it's illegal, there's money to be made, so of course we end up in a position where all a kid wants is a bag of weed, and Mr. Dealer says 'hey, i've got these pills, want to try them?'

This blows the anti-drug 'gateway' theory out of the water. The only reason people have access to harder drugs(let's remember that not all drugs are equal, Cannabis is NOT the same as heroin) is because of blanket prohibition.

And, i'm sure we've all seen the occasional news reports about people being taken ill or dying from contaminated drugs, be it dirty pills or Cannabis weighed down with sand, powdered glass or lead pellets(no i'm not joking, in my younger days I was unlucky enough to come across the glass weed, it's horrifying). Again, the sole reason this happens is because of the aforementioned criminals that just do not give a damn about consumer safety. They are in it for the exorbitant profit.

I'm not here to try and win an argument, i'm here to discuss ways of reducing harm, controlling quality of product and taking resources out of the hands of dangerous people. No plan would be perfect, but why wouldn't it necessarily be less damaging and costly to society than our current system?

I'm all for legalizing and taxing weed, because it's by far the most benign of all 'controlled' drugs. But....different substances are a different story. Like I said earlier, I don't claim to have an answer for everything.

end of the road · 18-01-2014 06:33PM

catallus wrote: »

The laws have worked perfectly well to limit the damage done by drugs to a small section of society;

they haven't though, those who wouldn't take drugs wouldn't if legal more then likely, the laws do nothing at a cost of trillions for nothing in return, the section of society on drugs is a lot bigger then either of us would believe

catallus wrote: »

legalising the stuff will only result in more people using drugs;

then again it may not, if it did it would really be only for a little bit. but indefinitely no, and even at that it would be people who would probably start using at some stage anyway.

end of the road · 18-01-2014 06:37PM

WilyCoyote wrote: »

Deploy an FCA Special Forces Unit to Afghanistan with a scorched earth policy on the poppy fields. This will be a twin win win scenario ........ cutting off the funding for the Taliban and keeping Europe high (thanks to prevailing wind).

was actually done and i believe still is being done, but has failed to achieve anything

Amirani · 18-01-2014 06:46PM

catallus wrote: »

legalising the stuff will only result in more people using drugs

Where's the evidence that this is the case?

RDM_83 again · 18-01-2014 07:09PM

NiallSparky wrote: »

Where's the evidence that this is the case?

Its definitely a risk though, at the peak of the head shop craze you could see queues of literally hundreds of people outside some of the city centre ones when the pubs closed and I know from my friends quite a few were buying them who wouldn't normally buy speed or coke.

SeanW · 18-01-2014 07:14PM

kneemos wrote: »

We've being locking up burglars for years as well.

A burglar has actually done something to someone else, i.e. broke into someones house.

Bit different to smoking a spliff, no?

kneemos · 18-01-2014 07:19PM

SeanW wrote: »

A burglar has actually done something to someone else, i.e. broke into someones house.

Bit different to smoking a spliff, no?

Both break the law.

Stavros Murphy · 18-01-2014 07:37PM

Fr_Dougal wrote: »

He must have given the Gardai a lot of names and other info to get off so lightly.

Elmo is a rat.

Really? Stating guff like that could well get someone battered or killed.

SamAK · 18-01-2014 09:32PM

SeanW wrote: »

A burglar has actually done something to someone else, i.e. broke into someones house.

Bit different to smoking a spliff, no?

kneemos wrote: »

Both break the law.

And who is the victim of this most heinous crime of spliff smoking?

We aren't debating IF someone broke the law or not, we're debating whether the law is justified in its persecution of otherwise law-abiding citizens. And we seem to be going a bit off topic, sorry OP!

Also, kneemos, i'd appreciate it if you'd actually respond to some of the points i'm making, rather than taking the easy way out and resorting to the old chestnut of 'breaking the law is bad'.

kneemos · 18-01-2014 09:48PM

SamAK wrote: »

And who is the victim of this most heinous crime of spliff smoking?

We aren't debating IF someone broke the law or not, we're debating whether the law is justified in its persecution of otherwise law-abiding citizens. And we seem to be going a bit off topic, sorry OP!

Also, kneemos, i'd appreciate it if you'd actually respond to some of the points i'm making, rather than taking the easy way out and resorting to the old chestnut of 'breaking the law is bad'.

How is breaking the law not bad?

Law abiding citizens don't get "persucated"until they break the law.You can't pick and choose the ones you don't agree with.

Femme_Fatale · 18-01-2014 09:56PM

kneemos wrote: »

How is breaking the law not bad?

When it's not harming anyone. I don't agree with people who feel compelled to "sock it to the man" about everything, but neither do I agree with blind acceptance and questioning nothing because "that's just the way it is."

SamAK · 18-01-2014 10:00PM

kneemos wrote: »

How is breaking the law not bad?

Ever heard of civil disobedience, activism, dissent or protest? Do these words not mean anything to you?

“One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.” - Martin Luther King

“Protest beyond the law is not a departure from democracy; it is absolutely essential to it.”
― Howard Zinn

“It is not always the same thing to be a good man and a good citizen.”
― Aristotle

If you can't work it out, then I'm not sure where we go from here. The fact that you still choose not to challenge any of the perfectly valid points I made earlier speaks volumes.

SamAK · 18-01-2014 10:02PM

Femme_Fatale wrote: »

neither do I agree with blind acceptance and questioning nothing because "that's just the way it is."

kneemos · 18-01-2014 10:08PM

Femme_Fatale wrote: »

When it's not harming anyone. I don't agree with people who feel compelled to "sock it to the man" about everything, but neither do I agree with blind acceptance and questioning nothing because "that's just the way it is."

Selling drugs does harm people .

Drugs of any sort have all sorts of financial,social,physical and mental health consequences.

timthumbni · 18-01-2014 10:26PM

Femme_Fatale wrote: »

I will ta.

Silly tarring tbh. My brother and his wife are solicitors just doing their job and raising their child and living their lives. Must tell them they're rotten to the core and part of a scam.

Why oh why must so many of you Boards folks decide to apply the behaviour of a minority to everyone in that group?
Is it really so difficult not to analyse things a bit further?
This place should have higher standards than TheJournal.ie, Independent.ie comments and even Facebook. FFS.

I am speaking from my personal experience with lawyers. Legal aid is a scam. Maybe your relatives are dead on but that is not the point. They may be just doing their job but what of it? The legal profession is rotten to the core. A friend of mine was advised by her solicitor to say her ex husband was a big drinker and beat her when he was drunk. As he was neither she told the lawyer to feck off. They said they advised all clients to say this to paint their ex in a bad light.

Ambulance chasers describes them perfectly. All IMO of course.

kneemos · 18-01-2014 10:29PM

SamAK wrote: »

I don't quite see how you managed to extract that idea from my comment..! I didn't suggest anything like that.

I'm trying to get the idea across that reducing the value of illegal substances would go a long way towards reducing the profits, power and resources of criminals that don't give a flying fcuk about anything other than making money. Is this not a logical thought?

As it stands we have the following situation:

Dealers do not care if you're under 18, so no I.D required. If it's illegal, there's money to be made, so of course we end up in a position where all a kid wants is a bag of weed, and Mr. Dealer says 'hey, i've got these pills, want to try them?'

This blows the anti-drug 'gateway' theory out of the water. The only reason people have access to harder drugs(let's remember that not all drugs are equal, Cannabis is NOT the same as heroin) is because of blanket prohibition.

And, i'm sure we've all seen the occasional news reports about people being taken ill or dying from contaminated drugs, be it dirty pills or Cannabis weighed down with sand, powdered glass or lead pellets(no i'm not joking, in my younger days I was unlucky enough to come across the glass weed, it's horrifying). Again, the sole reason this happens is because of the aforementioned criminals that just do not give a damn about consumer safety. They are in it for the exorbitant profit.

I'm not here to try and win an argument, i'm here to discuss ways of reducing harm, controlling quality of product and taking resources out of the hands of dangerous people. No plan would be perfect, but why wouldn't it necessarily be less damaging and costly to society than our current system?

I'm all for legalizing and taxing weed, because it's by far the most benign of all 'controlled' drugs. But....different substances are a dirdfferent story. Like I said earlier, I don't claim to have an answer for everything.

Sounds reasonable.

ScumLord · 18-01-2014 11:30PM

catallus wrote: »

The laws have worked perfectly well to limit the damage done by drugs to a small section of society; legalising the stuff will only result in more people using drugs;

This is simply untrue, by all accounts prohibition has only promoted drug use and we've seen drug use increase year on year since prohibition was introduced. Not only has prohibition increased the use of drugs they intended to eradicate (by 1980 :rolleyes:) we've seen the introduction of new drugs.

in the case of the thread topic, heroin legalisation would be a marketeers wet dream.

Just like tobacco and alcohol are wet dreams to marketers? If drugs were legal we wouldn't allow advertising so your argument there is defunct.

sdeire wrote: »

Jailing him for the heroin might have been a mistake, but he should have done time purely for admitting doing cocaine and causing the entire debauchal to happen.

So anyone that ever admits to taking drugs ever in their life should be jailed?

Femme_Fatale · 18-01-2014 11:39PM

timthumbni wrote: »

I am speaking from my personal experience with lawyers.

Your personal experience is not the full story and it's not difficult to grasp this.

Maybe your relatives are dead on but that is not the point. They may be just doing their job but what of it? The legal profession is rotten to the core.

No it isn't. Quit saying dickish stuff about the many many people who work in that profession whom you don't know.

A friend of mine was advised by her solicitor to say her ex husband was a big drinker and beat her when he was drunk. As he was neither she told the lawyer to feck off. They said they advised all clients to say this to paint their ex in a bad light.

Ambulance chasers describes them perfectly. All IMO of course.

One solicitor firm = them all being ambulance chasers. FFS. Beyond simple-minded. Like something a child would say.

timthumbni · 18-01-2014 11:49PM

Femme_Fatale wrote: »

Your personal experience is not the full story and it's not difficult to grasp this.

No it isn't. Quit saying dickish stuff about the many many people who work in that profession whom you don't know.

One solicitor firm = them all being ambulance chasers. FFS. Beyond simple-minded. Like something a child would say.

Fair enough femme. I know most if not all my friends describe the legal profession the same way as myself. I will stick to my view of them being mostly ambulance chasers and you are the opposite. C'est la vie. :-)

In my younger days I even went out with a solicitor (albeit a junior one)and what she told me would do nothing but confirm my suspicions. A very corrupt and dishonest profession. (In my opinion of course femme so don't bust a gasket)

Femme_Fatale · 18-01-2014 11:53PM

timthumbni wrote: »

Fair enough femme. I know most if not all my friends describe the legal profession the same way as myself. I will stick to my view of them being mostly ambulance chasers and you are the opposite. C'est la vie. :-)

In my younger days I even went out with a solicitor (albeit a junior one)and what she told me would do nothing but confirm my suspicions. A very corrupt and dishonest profession. (In my opinion of course femme so don't bust a gasket)

You're being a dick about countless people you've never met, end of. Your friends sharing your idiotic view doesn't make them right.

periodictable · 19-01-2014 12:03AM

I think that in order to practice law you have to jettison any moral compass you may possess. It's a game, and a shameful one at that.

ScumLord · 19-01-2014 12:04AM

Femme_Fatale wrote: »

No it isn't. Quit saying dickish stuff about the many many people who work in that profession whom you don't know.

I would agree that the legal profession is rotten to the core. That's not to say that the people involved are bad just that they have to conform to the corrupt system to succeed.

Our system of justice turns smart people into dumb cogs in a machine that simply doesn't work as intended.

Femme_Fatale · 19-01-2014 12:14AM

ScumLord wrote: »

I would agree that the legal profession is rotten to the core.

In what sense? It being an edgy soundbite?

timthumbni · 19-01-2014 12:18AM

Femme_Fatale wrote: »

You're being a dick about countless people you've never met, end of. Your friends sharing your idiotic view doesn't make them right.

I don't agree that I have an idiotic view. That's your opinion. I have my own view On ambulance chasing solicitors which is obviously shared by some others. I'm not getting into an argument. This is a message board where conflicting opinions are obviously going to crop up.

Calling people idiotic or a dick because they have a different viewpoint is not very constructive femme. (And I quite like your posts on a number of issues previously)

:-)

Bepolite · 19-01-2014 12:22AM

ScumLord wrote: »

I would agree that the legal profession is rotten to the core. That's not to say that the people involved are bad just that they have to conform to the corrupt system to succeed.

Our system of justice turns smart people into dumb cogs in a machine that simply doesn't work as intended.

What are you on about?

Judge Ellen Ring is a recently promoted DC Judge who dealt with 'scumbag' after 'scumbag' and can spot one a mile off. She took very little crap in the DC and was very well deserving of a promotion to the Circuit Court.

I have no idea what you're talking about in relation to the profession being rotten to the core, or the participants being dumb. Barristers are generally not well paid and do the job because they have a passion for doing it. Most would be earning more managing a Tescos.

What exactly are you trying to say beyond as someone has put well, making a sound bite?

Femme_Fatale · 19-01-2014 12:24AM

timthumbni wrote: »

I don't agree that I have an idiotic view. That's your opinion. I have my own view On ambulance chasing solicitors which is obviously shared by some others.

Well I can see you're whittling it down from all solicitors to most solicitors to ambulance-chasers, so that's progress.
But it is absolutely idiotic to smear the entire profession (which is what you did) the way you did - and not even based on this jurisdiction either.

This is a message board where conflicting opinions are obviously going to crop up.

And people will challenge inflammatory posts like yours.

drug dealer free.. has the world gone mad?

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