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Post by Spellbound454 on Aug 5, 2011 6:02:36 GMT -5
The Liberal Democrats are set to call for cannabis to be legalised and all personal drug use to be decriminalised. The Lib Dems want cannabis legalised along with all other personal drug use Party members are expected to back a motion at their conference next month calling on the Government to set up an expert panel to consider the shift. It will become official party policy if adopted in Birmingham in a move that will stoke tensions with their Conservative partners in the coalition. The Lib Dems would like to see drug law reforms based on legislation in Portugal, where the personal use of any controlled drug is no longer a criminal offence. news.sky.com/home/politics/article/16044208............................................................................................................. How would this affect us? |
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Post by alexandra on Aug 5, 2011 6:40:28 GMT -5
How would this affect us?
Not a lot, I don't think. However if it goes further than this, and it allows production of it to become legal, taking away the present 'black market' status of this drug, then the price of it would, some might hope, fall drastically. This wouldn't happen in my opinion because any growers caught growing it and not registering themselves as growers and sellers would be prosecuted. Those doing it legally would be taxed, much the same as cigarette manufacturers are taxed. The consumers who buy it legally from a retail outlet will also be paying heavy tax on it just like smokers pay on their packets of fags today.
Would more people smoke it habitually if it was a lot cheaper and legal? Yes I think so. However, I can't see it being cheaper, and while some might try it, who haven't done so before, I think it will always be produced secretly by more than a few who are already are growing small amounts for their own personal use, as wel as others who grow more in order to sell it on. The government wont necessarilly make a lot of money out of it via taxing it highly, because then it will contiue to be grown privately and out of sight.
I think it is a good thing for some of the chronically sick, as there are many different strains of cannabis , a few of which are the ones that have the medicinal properties for pain etc.
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Post by starlight07 on Aug 5, 2011 6:55:15 GMT -5
About time, isn't it that we have drugs legalized? It will reduce crime quite a lot....I mean why one rule for alcohol and another one for powdered form drugs? It really doesn't make sense, does it?
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Post by alexandra on Aug 5, 2011 7:04:03 GMT -5
How would this affect us?
Not a lot, I don't think. However if it goes further than this, and it allows production of it to become legal, taking away the present 'black market' status of this drug, then the price of it would, some might hope, fall drastically. This wouldn't happen in my opinion because any growers caught growing it and not registering themselves as growers and sellers would be prosecuted. Those doing it legally would be taxed, much the same as cigarette manufacturers are taxed. The consumers who buy it legally from a retail outlet will also be paying heavy tax on it just like smokers pay on their packets of fags today.
Would more people smoke it habitually if it was a lot cheaper and legal? Yes I think so. However, I can't see it being cheaper, and while some might try it, who haven't done so before, I think it will always be produced secretly by more than a few who are already growing small amounts for their own personal use, as well as others who grow more, in order to sell it on. The government wont necessarilly make a lot of money out of it via taxing it highly, because then it will contiue to be grown privately and out of sight.
I think it is a good thing for some of the chronically sick, as there are many different strains of cannabis , a few of which are the ones that have the medicinal properties for pain etc.
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Post by alexandra on Aug 5, 2011 7:08:07 GMT -5
Ooops sorry. I don't know why my post went up twice. I thought I was only editing my first one for typos.
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Post by isa on Aug 7, 2011 18:48:50 GMT -5
It’s about time. Direct experience in an open environment is a much better method of education than biased misinformation in the classroom. Our drug laws have contributed more harm than is inherently available in the drugs themselves.
If by ‘us’ you mean the individual then minimally. If by ‘us’ you mean society then the effect would eventually be massive and positive.
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Post by Spellbound454 on Aug 7, 2011 18:58:34 GMT -5
Vote Libdem....Gwwaan you know you want to. ;D
However, Alcohol is cheap and easily accessible....now we have people dying in their 20s from liver disease..... which was previously unknown.
A bit of cannabis may not do any harm....but skunk can cause a drug induced psychosis.
Where does it stop....Crack? Crystal meth?
These things are not safe and should not be readily available.
Although, I do think that heroin addicts should be given heroin instead of their substitute.....It isn't poisonous in its pure form and they could lead reasonably normal lives.
They want heroin and will burgle and mug and all the rest of it to get it....So give it to them to protect the rest of us.[/color]
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Post by isa on Aug 7, 2011 19:19:02 GMT -5
Yes, indeed, various drugs can cue a psychosis, but then so can various non-drug influences. Some people go ‘mental’ due to the stress of their job for instance, whilst others are just plain doomed to their genetics. That cannabis may set loose an inherent disorder perhaps isn’t an argument for banning it, rather it could be an argument for increased education and the instilling of proper responsibility in individuals surrounding its use.
They are readily available now though - regardless of the law. Legalising them would simply pave the way for greater awareness of their actual dangers IMO. Cars, electricity, cutlery, prescription medicines, raw meat etc. aren’t necessarily safe but we don’t ban them, instead we endeavour to ensure that people know how, and intend, to use them without causing undue harm to themselves and others. I think this is what legalisation of all drugs would eventually lead to.
lol They are going for the pothead vote aren’t they? ;D
They haven't thought it through though - the pothead contingent are too busy lazing around to Pink Floyd to get down to the polling station.
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Post by Spellbound454 on Aug 7, 2011 19:28:39 GMT -5
I think Ive had some magic mushrooms just looking at your post ISA
}
Every year in all the time Ive been teaching the 14 year olds discover this secretive drug "weed" and they think they have invented it...
Its all very mysterious and a little bit bad.... there is a whole language that goes with it and they are attracted.
They start drawing cannabis leaves on their books...and think they are involved in something nobody else knows anything about.
Some get heavily involved...they start to decline....then they fail
...and there isn't a bloody thing I can do about it.
The nerve pathways aren't fully formed in the brain until a person is 21... and the heavy use of mind altering drugs in the early years is likely to cause damage which is permanent.[/color]
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Post by isa on Aug 7, 2011 19:40:13 GMT -5
Yeh, 14 is far too young. Why do some get into drugs and some don’t? Of the ones who do - why do some start early and others later?… I’m not sure but I think upbringing has something to do with it. Education starts at home I guess.
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Post by Spellbound454 on Aug 7, 2011 19:45:42 GMT -5
Some parents give it to them.
.......older siblings might get them to deal it for them.
People hang about the school gates with it in their pockets.
These are the sorts of things that go on[/color]
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Post by isa on Aug 7, 2011 19:54:36 GMT -5
 Amazing isn’t it?
A local chap I know started dealing weed for his old man when he was about 14. He had progressed onto being a heroin addict before his 18th birthday. No amount of legal restriction is going to prevent such things; education is the only hope, but it will never work whilst we are still under the influence of this 80‘s “Just say no because I say it’s bad” kind of mentality.
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Post by Spellbound454 on Aug 7, 2011 20:04:27 GMT -5
The only hope is to remove the intrigue and say "actually do you know my mother used this"
..and yes even boring teachers know what a cannabis leaf looks like.
Smelled it, looked at it, smoked it.
Whilst it has its street cred...and the stars they idolize like to look cool singing about it they will be attracted at a young age
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Post by starlight07 on Aug 8, 2011 1:55:38 GMT -5
Which is what I don't get. If laws are being reformed for drugs why is nothing being done about alcohol....why the hypocrisy there? Why not ban alcohol for what misuses it has caused to the health? Why not alcohol when it is the only drug that its withdrawal can kill you?
Sometimes educating one does not mean they won't ever try drugs or enter into the drug world. Curious minds and bad company rings bells....
I don't think everything falls onto education. I mean look at sex education....so much education given to youngsters (pros and cons) but see the teenage pregnancy and abortion rates rise and remain high. Education is good and is needed but it doesn't always work. A parent can instill all the education about drugs - good and the bad - but at the end of the day it is up to the child to take the drugs or not. I'm betting there are cases in the world that even given education at a young age about drugs those youngsters went experimenting with drugs. In other words they knew the potential risk/s. Not everything is black or white is what I am trying to put across.
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Post by Spellbound454 on Aug 8, 2011 2:35:38 GMT -5
I don't know if you saw Panorama Star but a committee was set up as a government advisory panel to make recommendations for legislation.
Almost half the people on it were from the drinks industry and agreement which had previously been made to tackle these issues mysteriously disappeared when the reports came out.
I agree...Schools are left to pick up the pieces where guidance in the home is inadequate. We are being asked to bring up other peoples kids when they should be doing it themselves.
They don't listen to us anyway....and the minute a stuffy adult (which is the way they see us) says dont do something...they do it....because kids are predispositioned to stretch the boundaries and thats what they do.[/color]
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Post by isa on Aug 8, 2011 13:45:31 GMT -5
Star, I don’t think the suggestion was that education would negate people entering ‘the drug world’, rather that they would be able to make better-informed decisions once in it.
Like Zebras you mean?
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Post by Spellbound454 on Aug 8, 2011 14:23:37 GMT -5
]They can talk to Frank
Doesnt make a lot of difference tbh
Whilst it still has its enigma they are going to be attracted.[/color]
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