GOD
Holofractale de l'hypervérité
Stolen from:- http://www.azimov.co.uk/?q=node/7
After reading the recent scare stories ( http://transform-drugs.blogspot.com/200 ... ot-it.html ) in news papers and online, I have come to the conclusion that the policy of come one come all drug banning and criminalization is not just stupid its also ignorant of the real issues.
The 'drug of choice' among teenagers, according to most news papers, statistic you find etc is cannabis. The mythical super skunk is being treated as deadly, a cause of psychosis etc etc. Never mind the fact that the evidence is limited, never mind the fact that there has been about 1 death than can be attributed to cannabis poisoning in the last I don't know how many years. Never mind that 250, 000 people in this country have schizophrenia (thats right, psychosis is a symptom not a disorder) and that many multiples of that number have smoked cannabis or do so on a regular basis ( ironically according to the same scare monger statistics) . All of this is forgotten when one person says: drugs are bad.
Lets, for a moment, step back. How successful are hard line policies at stopping the drug trade? Not very, in fact logic dictates that they have an adverse affect that doesn't directly affect the demand but increases the supply. Take this for example, say you make it illegal for anyone to smell of drugs and if a sniffer dog smells someone they get arrested even if they haven't done anything. This forces drug prices up because they are harder to get through. Addicts don't stop taking the drugs, bored teenagers don't stop trying them all that happens is they end up poorer but the big time drug dealers end up richer.
In any other market seemingly unrelated price changes in one area can affect others, the sale of shoes, for example, can affect the cost of shipping shoes because it will affect how many people buy them and thus the demand. In drugs trade the only market is the drugs themselves because all other markets want to avoid being shut down too. What happens? A bunch of rich drug traffickers are born. More and more people see the profit and so the market gets even more salesmen.
So you make it harder for the drugs to get to the streets, after all, thats where the real battle is. But heres the problem, if theres a will, theres a way. Drugs will sell. Look at prohibition of alcohol in America in the 1920's all you had was a bunch of rich violent criminals that could make money that was completely tax free. There was the odd legal risk but meh, who cares about that when theres cash? Alcohol isn't even physically addictive in mild doses. Cannabis, is even less addictive. People don't smoke cannabis because they have a craving, they smoke it because they like it. They smoked it when it was class C, they will smoke it when it is class B, they will smoke it when it is class A, its a plant. It grows naturally. In many cases it grows in spite of people hens the name 'weed'.
This brings me onto my next point. What does the drug classification actually mean? The danger of the drug? The price range its under? No, none of this, the legality of the drug. Where does the legality come from? Ill informed political fat cats. Drugs have individual dangers and individual side affects, saying all class C drugs are the same is like saying that you have equal chance of dying from being hit by a car as sitting in a chair doing nothing for an evening. Ketamine, for example, is class C, the same class as cannabis. Ketamine is physically addictive and extremely harmful in large doses. A large does of cannabis will make you throw up and pass out (you probably won't have a hangover when you wake up). Ketamine can cause brain damage, according to certain studies at least.
Now I'm not saying that Ketamine should be made "more illegal", I'm trying to point out the hypocrisy of drug law in the UK. There are too many variables to simply put drugs into box A, B or C it doesn't make sense. Instead judge a crime by its harm. This would be is justice, justice is not the law. I guess this applies to the full spectrum of the law but thats a whole separate issue that I don't want to go into right now. ..
After reading the recent scare stories ( http://transform-drugs.blogspot.com/200 ... ot-it.html ) in news papers and online, I have come to the conclusion that the policy of come one come all drug banning and criminalization is not just stupid its also ignorant of the real issues.
The 'drug of choice' among teenagers, according to most news papers, statistic you find etc is cannabis. The mythical super skunk is being treated as deadly, a cause of psychosis etc etc. Never mind the fact that the evidence is limited, never mind the fact that there has been about 1 death than can be attributed to cannabis poisoning in the last I don't know how many years. Never mind that 250, 000 people in this country have schizophrenia (thats right, psychosis is a symptom not a disorder) and that many multiples of that number have smoked cannabis or do so on a regular basis ( ironically according to the same scare monger statistics) . All of this is forgotten when one person says: drugs are bad.
Lets, for a moment, step back. How successful are hard line policies at stopping the drug trade? Not very, in fact logic dictates that they have an adverse affect that doesn't directly affect the demand but increases the supply. Take this for example, say you make it illegal for anyone to smell of drugs and if a sniffer dog smells someone they get arrested even if they haven't done anything. This forces drug prices up because they are harder to get through. Addicts don't stop taking the drugs, bored teenagers don't stop trying them all that happens is they end up poorer but the big time drug dealers end up richer.
In any other market seemingly unrelated price changes in one area can affect others, the sale of shoes, for example, can affect the cost of shipping shoes because it will affect how many people buy them and thus the demand. In drugs trade the only market is the drugs themselves because all other markets want to avoid being shut down too. What happens? A bunch of rich drug traffickers are born. More and more people see the profit and so the market gets even more salesmen.
So you make it harder for the drugs to get to the streets, after all, thats where the real battle is. But heres the problem, if theres a will, theres a way. Drugs will sell. Look at prohibition of alcohol in America in the 1920's all you had was a bunch of rich violent criminals that could make money that was completely tax free. There was the odd legal risk but meh, who cares about that when theres cash? Alcohol isn't even physically addictive in mild doses. Cannabis, is even less addictive. People don't smoke cannabis because they have a craving, they smoke it because they like it. They smoked it when it was class C, they will smoke it when it is class B, they will smoke it when it is class A, its a plant. It grows naturally. In many cases it grows in spite of people hens the name 'weed'.
This brings me onto my next point. What does the drug classification actually mean? The danger of the drug? The price range its under? No, none of this, the legality of the drug. Where does the legality come from? Ill informed political fat cats. Drugs have individual dangers and individual side affects, saying all class C drugs are the same is like saying that you have equal chance of dying from being hit by a car as sitting in a chair doing nothing for an evening. Ketamine, for example, is class C, the same class as cannabis. Ketamine is physically addictive and extremely harmful in large doses. A large does of cannabis will make you throw up and pass out (you probably won't have a hangover when you wake up). Ketamine can cause brain damage, according to certain studies at least.
Now I'm not saying that Ketamine should be made "more illegal", I'm trying to point out the hypocrisy of drug law in the UK. There are too many variables to simply put drugs into box A, B or C it doesn't make sense. Instead judge a crime by its harm. This would be is justice, justice is not the law. I guess this applies to the full spectrum of the law but thats a whole separate issue that I don't want to go into right now. ..
