why must we always go backwards? instead of making progress with the cannabis issue - like getting closer and closer to legalization, no no let”s go back. [and who said the government didn"t have a reverse gear?]
that miserable charles clarke ( is it sth with Home Secrataries - they just don”t like anyone having any fun?perhaps sth in the job title - will have to look that one up..) wants to reclassify cannabis. why? well he says that reclassifying cannabis from Class B to C ( which happened about 2 years ago now) confused the public. Right sure. So let”s confuse everyone even more by re-re-classifying it yet again. ( re re wind..) [ isn"t he supposed to be so busy looking for terrorists and keeping dodgy foreigners out ( heh heh) to have no time to worry about who"s getting stoned or not?]
anyway i can”t see what the fuss is. all those poor policemen will have to spend all their time chasing people who”re lying around procrastinating and not bothering anyone. oh but we”ve heard about the argument how all these marijuana “users” will become “criminalized” ( ha its so funny that people should use that argument to keep it illegal. you”d think anyone rational would realize that if that”s what the main concern is - why then they ought to be jumping on the legalization bandwagon. tehse people can”t really be very clear about the concept/ relationship of “illegal” and “public” and “open” and “shady” and “black markets” can they.
Certainly more education should be encouraged: obviously you”d think you ought to have that anyway (about all substances anway doh- and not just some silly leaflet at university or sth) ..why we always have to go down the “let”s brush it under the carpet and try and criminalize the situation - that will work won”t it -” route i can”t think. What are we a world of ostriches?
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Dame Ruth Runciman, who chaired the Police Foundation report that first recommended the downgrading of cannabis, said “That there had been no significant increase in use of the drug since it was downgraded. She said the move had been sensible but had been very badly handled and created much public misunderstanding.
“To rereclassify is as ill-judged as it can be in my view,†she said on Jan 6th. “I think it will add greatly to the confusion. I think it is a very ill-judged thing to do and that it actually puts cannabis where it does not belong in the scale of relative harm.â€Â
Milestones of Reclassification
They are right to reclassify it. really, what reasons have you or they got not to reclassify it? I know you seem to think the majority of weed smokers are uni students…. not surprisingly you call it “pot”…. though thanks for the comments, much appreciated to hear your views. However, the reality is that many weed smokers, particularly those smoking the more potent variaties, do experiance some level of addiction and mental health issues. Then theres the related issue of underachievement and crime. It is not that the smart ones achieve less after smoking, it is that those that are not achieving, achieve even less after smoking. I dont see what educating people about it is to do, when the idea is to educate them not to use such vices at all. Ive heard no positive arguement for legalisation, and as ive said before, dont quote holland to me as the rate of crime and drug abuse there is very high and rising.
you talk in generalities and seem to display an extremely simplistic sort of thinking - certainly with regards to this issue.
In any case my general point is that if society wants to monitor something they are a bit silly to ‘ban’ it as all that happens is that ‘it’ goes underground and then what.
Also my fundamental starting point is that if people want to be able to smoke/use cannabis what’s it to anyone else. Like take the cigarette smoking debate - yes people don’t want second-hand smoke, fine, yes its not good for you, fine, having said all that, if someone wants to stick themselves in an airtight room and damage their health its their own fucking problem isn’t it. okay the doctors might not like it, and want to encourage them to do otherwise, and that’s fine as well. So - same with cannabis. Where’s the danger to society? There’s much more danger with issues like drink driving - and - for example there - it would be silly to ban alcohol in a blanket way - instead of saying okay, there’s a problem if people will drink and drive, so don’t do that, but if you want to have a drink fine. So again, if there are perceived issues where cannabis use may be a danger to the wider society - let’s hear it out in the open, and talk about it sensibly. Fact is that if you understood anything about society and people you’d know banning things usually has the effect of making it oh so much more attractive.
So then - it brings me back to why you’re so bothered about it. It sounds like you’ve never had a spliff anyways - so perhaps you’re not qualified talk knowledgeably about it anyway ( ha ha)
Underachievement indeed. Perhaps for some people - but that’s back to the point of a simplistic understanding of causality. Look at the issue with alcoholism - yeah big problem for lots of people. does it mean if anyone has a drink they’ll become an alcoholic or a ‘bum’? Yeah substance abuse can be the tipping factor with people with problems - absolutely - which is why you’d want people to know what they’re doing and have things out in the open so it would make sense to see what’s happening where and who it may be that might need some help. Blanket bans don’t achieve that do they - so what’s your reasoning about keeping it illegal? If it’s the welfare of the ‘underachievers’ you’re worried about - well then you’d better re-think legalization.
and re: crime - that’s perfect -again - if it were legal, where’s the crime involved? Oh we had to commit a crime to go buy some weed. Really why?
Does one automatically assume that advertising all the worlds’ wonderful consumer products that encourage a lot of people ( including a lot of mentally unstable types) to spend all their money shopping ( and getting into debt) and shopping and more shopping lead people to commit crimes to keep up their ‘addiction’? { Oh but we’re encouraged to shop to keep up our economies. oops its considered a GOOD thing..wow.}
so assuming legalizing weed takes it out of the realm of the criminal and out of the black markets and into the ‘market’ where we can all observe ( due to all that ‘perfect information’ floating around - hah ha) where’s the direct causality between cannabis as any other product and crime?
You might also want to start thinking along the lines of - a) distinguishing between what you think are the effects of the substance itself ( in this case - cannabis, a substance which is hallucinogenic and not a narcotic) and b) the social consequences of ‘illegality’ and thereby association with the black market economy and whatever one may think are related issues.
Perhaps by isolating what you think are the various issues instead of unscientifically hysterically jumbling up ideas ( and about sth clearly you don’t have personal experience of ! or really much real idea of beyond the usual moral panicsattitude) you might be worth engaging in debate with.
I’m a cannabis smoker, I smoke pretty large quantities (1/2 oz per week minimum) of the strongest cannabis I can get, and yet I have a secure job at a large bank and no dependency on harder drugs.
I find that treating cannabis as some kind of hard drug is usually a mistake, since I also have experience of harder drugs (ecstasy, speed, ketamine) I will explain why. Cannabis produces a very particular feeling. Half comfort, mixed with a dash of light-headedness and introspection. At no point does this lead me to do the kind of foolish things I used to do in my youth on harder drugs. I would put the public nuisance of cannabis somewhere below alcohol and somehwat above smoking.
And this is the crux of this argument. Do we assume an individual has the right to smoke cannabis as long as they do not harm others, as with smoking and drinking, or do we ban it as too harmful to an individual?
Why should we take the latter view? Tobacco kills its smokers as surely as cannabis. No study I have seen showing a casual (rather than causal) link between cannabis and schizophrenia has offered any kind of figures showing how likely cannabis smoking is to trigger or cause a mental health problem, they just state that there is a link. I know many men on the streets of Sheffield who are alcoholics and have mental health disorders, I have seen no study linking alcohol with this.
And as for Sonia’s comments, I could not agree more. The Americans found out what happens when you ban something harmless: criminals take over distribution. I would rather some people harmed themselves than we gave a darker element the chance to harm others.
Jamal is concerned about the adverse effects of cannabis - there is a lot of speculation and very little hard evidence about this. We need more research there.
Boy argues that cannabis is less of a public nuisance than alcohol - maybe or perhaps just a different kind of nuisance. Passivity, depression, and other adverse effects in users can be a public nuisance.
Sonia argues that is up to the individual if they want to damage their own health - this might be so if people who harm themselves didn’t require help and support from the rest of the community. The truth is that they can be a considerable burden to the health service and other services.
There are also some beneficial effects - probably in some medical conditions.
However the question is whether there is any benefit in classifying cannabis as a dangerous drug or in it being illegal.
The answer is - no benefit whatsoever and many serious disadvantages.
yep Shakespeare’s got a good point re: potentially being a burden on health services etc. That’s a sensible sort of thing to look at in terms of issues impacting the wider group a.k.a. society and why people’d need education/a bit of sense if they want to use drugs/substances. and it would be good if the debate could move on a bit from where its at so that we could address stuff like that. For example with smoking clearly that’s an issue - its not illegal but its harmful and makes sense from a health perspective not to do it. also you hear medics who have to deal with the fallout of ‘binge drinking’/alcohol related stuff at the A&E which they often resent as they feel it uses up resources. why can’t people drink sensibly they say ( well we know the answer to that one - peer pressure,[ so we could say we had a great time on friday nite.. but never mind for now ;-))
Clearly valid points that need to be addressed and which aren’t necessarily resolved by making something illegal.
i suppose my net point is a societal observation which is that if we want to actually address the real issues ( e.g the health- physical or mental- question) we need to move away from a ‘moralizing’ sort of debate and attitude, to a practical one.its more realistic instead to get people to think about taking control of their lives and understanding the health risks etc. - and all this has to be out in the open, not hidden away.
My wider issue is generally, if society and ‘government’ don’t think about what it means for individuals to take responsibility for themselves, they end up with the sort of societies that they’re always having to police. and why’s that? very simple if you treat people like kids who aren’t in control of their own lives, they will behave like naughty kids!
heh.
All drugs should be legal.
Drug addiction should be treated as a medical problem, not as a criminal problem.
People should be treated like adults and allowed to find out for themselves what their own limits are - they can then take responsibility for themselves.
Some people are alcoholics. That doesn’t mean we should ban beer, does it?
i bet folks like jamal would want you to! that’s prob cos in his viewpoint its wrong. from other conformist folks’ point of view, if alcohol is part and parcel of what they are expected to do socially and as such, then certainly wouldn’t think of banning beer, oh no. for a lot of people it seems to depend on what their peers see as ‘acceptable’ or not.
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