We need to legalise drugs!

Executive Steve

Drugs are getting cheaper and more affordable year in year out

The average purity of most drugs on the market has been rising year in year out

Please don't legalise them, it's grand the way it is.

youcrazyjesus!

Joey the lips wrote: »

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055584877


If you lived beside this I think you would have a different view on drug legalisation!

Why? What would change?

Mac Masters

It depends I can understand peoples views on the negative aspects but realistically legalising drugs would be alot better for the economy. So much money is leaving the country through the black market. So large quantities of money are leaving the country and going unrecorded! This means when interest and inflation are calculated they are based on bigger numbers than they should be! So to help us in this economic climate we should legalise drugs, then there are also the other benefits such as that for which Amsterdam benefits such as the mature approach to taking drugs there. Plus think how many more tourists we would get!

In times like these, you've got to do what you got to do! :cool:

turgon

[cm]tyranny wrote: »

Please don't legalise them, it's grand the way it is.

Ah sure tis grand - theres only blood wars in Limerick in Dublin and intimidation everywhere. And lets not get started on the farmers abroad forced to grow drugs with their live threatened. Sure tis all grand.

SeanW wrote: »

What annoys me a little about social conservatives with their determination to impose and maintain these kinds of laws against personal behaviour & choices like drugs and prostitution, is that in calling for these things to remain banned, they're saying not only is it their business to tell everyone else how to live their lives, they're also saying its MY business to do this as well since these laws are made as much on my behalf as a citizen as anyone else.

+1. Live and let live.

turgon

The principal argument against legalisation is moral: people thinking that smoking pot is immoral. Which is fair enough when applied to ones own life and I personally have never once used any drug.

However these social conservatives feel they need to force everyone to believe this. My question to Joey: why cant you let people make up their own mind? Why do they have to be forced to believe what you do?

The other arguments against such as bad for health etc are just excuses and nothing more. Social conservatives are great at doing this: forming excuses for their tendency to be totalitarian on social issues. However its all untrue and the only single reason they are against it is because they believe it immoral.

And Im saying this as someone who, under 1 year ago, had virtually the exact same opinion on this issue as Joey does now.

Joey the lips

SeanW wrote: »

@JoeyTheLips: if you want to see what the drugs laws have done to our society, just take a look at the Prohibition of Alcohol in the U.S. in the 1920s and 1930s. It mirrors almost down to the last detail, what the drugs laws are doing today.
And I mean literally everything: from the poor quality and hazardous products, to the massive underworld created by the Prohibition (Prohibition was the bread and butter of the Al Capone gang, which made most of its blood money smuggling bootleg alcohol) to the secondary effect on society of all that crime.

.

With due respect I did say at the start this would happen I refuse to get into an arguement withourt example and by that i mean propper examples.

Cigerattes are legal but yet a black market in crime flurishes because supply is there all that the black market needs to do is change the control of supply and they make massive profits

with the exception of Turgon I have not read a decent arguement that tells me why drugs should be legalised nor have I seen an actual test case working.

You can direct all comments and be as critical as you want but without proof you have not a chance and if you cannot prove it to me. Good luck proving it to the realworld.

While i agree with Turgons link it to needs more substance to make it work in the real world and for those who say they cannot be interested in proving it to me... Fine you dont need to but like i said if you cant convince me. Goodluck at getting it legal!

TheInquisitor

Joey the lips wrote: »

With due respect I did say at the start this would happen I refuse to get into an arguement withourt example and by that i mean propper examples.

Cigerattes are legal but yet a black market in crime flurishes because supply is there all that the black market needs to do is change the control of supply and they make massive profits

with the exception of Turgon I have not read a decent arguement that tells me why drugs should be legalised nor have I seen an actual test case working.

You can direct all comments and be as critical as you want but without proof you have not a chance and if you cannot prove it to me. Good luck proving it to the realworld.

While i agree with Turgons link it to needs more substance to make it work in the real world and for those who say they cannot be interested in proving it to me... Fine you dont need to but like i said if you cant convince me. Goodluck at getting it legal!

There is a massive difference in legalising drugs and using cigarettes as an example for a black market. First of all cigarettes are imported illegally in here because of the high cost of cigarettes in ireland and low cost elsewhere also because cigarettes are so easy to get into the country because they are not illegal. People from poland couldn't stuff their cases full of cannibas and come over here.

Cannibas and other drugs would be manufactured in ireland and sold at high quality and low cost compared to other suppliers(drug dealers) for the simple reason that most of the costs of drugs are in the cost of importing them which makes up more than 80% of the total cost.

Ireland Inc would always be able to undercut drug dealers so it would be impossible for a large black market to stay afloat or thrive, in fact the black market would collapse.

MikeC101

Joey the lips wrote: »

With due respect I did say at the start this would happen I refuse to get into an arguement withourt example and by that i mean propper examples.

Cigerattes are legal but yet a black market in crime flurishes because supply is there all that the black market needs to do is change the control of supply and they make massive profits

with the exception of Turgon I have not read a decent arguement that tells me why drugs should be legalised nor have I seen an actual test case working.

You can direct all comments and be as critical as you want but without proof you have not a chance and if you cannot prove it to me. Good luck proving it to the realworld.

While i agree with Turgons link it to needs more substance to make it work in the real world and for those who say they cannot be interested in proving it to me... Fine you dont need to but like i said if you cant convince me. Goodluck at getting it legal!

Well, Portugal decriminalised personal possession of all drugs at the end of 2002, Time have a fairly good article on how it worked out here:
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1893946,00.html

They say between 2001 and 2006 "rates of lifetime use of any illegal drug among seventh through ninth graders fell from 14.1% to 10.6%; drug use in older teens also declined. Lifetime heroin use among 16-to-18-year-olds fell from 2.5% to 1.8% (although there was a slight increase in marijuana use in that age group). New HIV infections in drug users fell by 17% between 1999 and 2003, and deaths related to heroin and similar drugs were cut by more than half."

Scientific American found much the same in their article

"the number of deaths from street drug overdoses dropped from around 400 to 290 annually, and the number of new HIV cases caused by using dirty needles to inject heroin, cocaine and other illegal substances plummeted from nearly 1,400 in 2000 to about 400 in 2006"

Both of those articles are based on the same report from the Cato institute, but it seems, based on strictly empirical evidence, the Portugese experiment was a success.

MikeC101

As an aside, it's interesting that it's Portugal - which I'd have thought to be a bit on the conservative side, and very Catholic - that has the most liberal drug laws in the EU isn't it, rather than the more obvious Netherlands?

Zuiderzee

I have found the Dutch are generally conservative, particularly outside of the Randstaad.
But their main ethos is tolerance in the same way that Irish people generally believe in freedom for smaller nations and self determination

anonymous_joe

MikeC101 wrote: »

As an aside, it's interesting that it's Portugal - which I'd have thought to be a bit on the conservative side, and very Catholic - that has the most liberal drug laws in the EU isn't it, rather than the more obvious Netherlands?

The Dutch being liberal is a stereotype. I went out with a Dutch girl and talking to her about politics, they weren't radically different from anyone else.

Regarding the Portugese experiment, you point out your surprise that a potentially conservative country would be an unlikely candidate for such measures, and therein lies the problem - people's issues with drugs are moral, not legal.

If someone smokes weed to get high, (ignoring any laws here) many people would view it as a morally wrong act. Those same people would happily ignore the fact that many people drink alcohol to get drunk. It's merely moral repugnance at the idea that keeps it from being pursued.

And here would be one point I'd make - we don't really know what would happen if drugs were legalised, but the Portugese experiment (which I was unaware of) is indicative of the trends many of us would suggest would be noticed after certain drugs were legalised. Without any experimentation we've no idea if we could make things better.

Joey the lips

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arguments_for_and_against_drug_prohibition


Actually in the simpleist of places I have just found both sides. I am following the locals at the moment but when I read it. As i states earlier I will probably eat my shorts! Then again is eating the moths knickers allowed! at least I will enjoy it

jonsnow

Having seen a tv documentary on the decriminalisation of drugs in Portugal I,m all for it.It lowered the use across the country and this was even with the fear that it had become a mecca for junkies from across the EU.And for you law and order lovers the portugese police could still go after the dealers (as quantities over a certain amount were still illegal) and doubled the amount they captured.They could put all their resources into real police work instead of chasing bottomfeeders.
To anyone who thinks fighting a war on drugs is a worthwhile endeavour though watch The Wire or The Corner.It always becomes a war on the underclass of a society and it is pointless.

MikeC101

anonymous_joe wrote: »

The Dutch being liberal is a stereotype. I went out with a Dutch girl and talking to her about politics, they weren't radically different from anyone else.

I should have been a bit clearer maybe - I just meant liberal in relation to their drug laws - that the Netherlands is probably the first place that would spring to mind for liberal drug laws.

anonymous_joe wrote: »

Regarding the Portugese experiment, you point out your surprise that a potentially conservative country would be an unlikely candidate for such measures, and therein lies the problem - people's issues with drugs are moral, not legal.

If someone smokes weed to get high, (ignoring any laws here) many people would view it as a morally wrong act. Those same people would happily ignore the fact that many people drink alcohol to get drunk. It's merely moral repugnance at the idea that keeps it from being pursued.

And here would be one point I'd make - we don't really know what would happen if drugs were legalised, but the Portugese experiment (which I was unaware of) is indicative of the trends many of us would suggest would be noticed after certain drugs were legalised. Without any experimentation we've no idea if we could make things better.

Yes would have to agree with this. It's also interesting to note that while it was the Socialist Party, backed by the Communist Party that introduced the decriminalising of drugs, when the conservative Social Democrats came to power a year later, they chose to leave these laws in place. I suppose that they could see it was having a good effect, and the actual benefits outweighed their moral opposition to it.

Joey the lips

So yes having read the articles and being of the mind unless someone convinces me otherwise I would accept the legalisatation of drugs. Taking certain classes first and seeing how the expirament goes if you catch my drift. 2 questions come to mind

1. How do you do away with the dealers! In the case of Portaagal they still have dealing as an offence. Does ireland Inc grow the drugs market and distribute the drugs themselves. Is this possibly the first success Ireland inc could have in privatisations. Could the wall being built around the bubble that is thornton hall be used to grow drugs behind

2. There is an arguement in the articles that you will get no politician to agree the legalisation of drugs. They accept it behind the scenes but will never be seen to accept it.To me it equates to a man saying he likes kinky sex. He never admits it to the friends but women constantly talk what they are expected to do. btt -so how do we go about raising the debate? As was obvious with the running of ming the mercelious recently it wont work canvassing in its present format. Do we get a drug conncillor ro run as independent! Then if he fails how would he get his job back. In our society it hardly seems acceptable to allow someone try reform a drug addict when they believe in it....


You see what we really need in liberal ireland is to bring drugs out. I thing the first stage of a debate is to encourage a national debate on the subject.....

anonymous_joe

Joey the lips wrote: »

So yes having read the articles and being of the mind unless someone convinces me otherwise I would accept the legalisatation of drugs. Taking certain classes first and seeing how the expirament goes if you catch my drift. 2 questions come to mind

1. How do you do away with the dealers! In the case of Portaagal they still have dealing as an offence. Does ireland Inc grow the drugs market and distribute the drugs themselves. Is this possibly the first success Ireland inc could have in privatisations. Could the wall being built around the bubble that is thornton hall be used to grow drugs behind

2. There is an arguement in the articles that you will get no politician to agree the legalisation of drugs. They accept it behind the scenes but will never be seen to accept it.To me it equates to a man saying he likes kinky sex. He never admits it to the friends but women constantly talk what they are expected to do. btt -so how do we go about raising the debate? As was obvious with the running of ming the mercelious recently it wont work canvassing in its present format. Do we get a drug conncillor ro run as independent! Then if he fails how would he get his job back. In our society it hardly seems acceptable to allow someone try reform a drug addict when they believe in it....


You see what we really need in liberal ireland is to bring drugs out. I thing the first stage of a debate is to encourage a national debate on the subject.....

You do away with the dealers by requiring licencing or some kind of control mechanism to show who can and cannot sell drugs.

Maybe head shops, off licences, chemists, whatever, but some means by which you control who does it. Dealing is presumably very lucrative, in that any middleman makes a lot of profit.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Beau

You don't have to mix tobacco with cannabis by the way, most people don't in Canada.

Joey the lips

So does anybody have any proposals to do something about it. Like i said considering the approch of ming wont work.....????

joseph brand

Joey the lips wrote: »

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055584877


If you lived beside this I think you would have a different view on drug legalisation!

This is a society where heroin is ILLEGAL! Everything is fine and dandy with prohibition is it?

There are no junkies on Dublin streets because they told us it is illegal to do so. :P

Take your head out.

eezarthegreat

TheInquisitor wrote: »

The war on drugs has well and truely been lost. America has been fighting drugs for decades longer than us and has not stopped its encroachment on society and it never will.

I think we need to legalise drugs for the following reasons

1) Bring in tax to the economy which is much needed
2) Free up garda resources to deal with other crime
3) Standardise the drugs so that they are much safer than normal to consume, as in since they won't have all the extra crap(rat poison, washing powder etc) in them they will be safer to consume
4) Get rid of the drug dealers that are such a blight on our society. I would antipate a massive fall in murders etc

I think this could work in a pharmacist kind of way. The goverment supplies the pharmacies with the drugs( which they grow in protected green houses) and then the pharmacies can sell them on. The governement brings in hundreds of millions in taxes and creates thousands of jobs, also possibly increasing tourism like amsterdam.

Anyone have any ideas on if this could work?

*facepalm*

TheInquisitor

eezarthegreat wrote: »

*facepalm*

WOW- Suddenly i realise how wrong i am. Well done eezarththegreat, amazing argument

Joey the lips

joseph brand wrote: »

This is a society where heroin is ILLEGAL! Everything is fine and dandy with prohibition is it?

There are no junkies on Dublin streets because they told us it is illegal to do so. :P

Take your head out.

The only person that need to take there head out is you and follow the thread. That staged was passed when I ate the moths knickers.

Get the picture!

Pygmalion

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

To be fair crime was already on the increase before both those periods. But the massive, sudden drop as soon as prohibition ended does show how many people turned their backs on crime at this point.