Drug Classifications

[Kickstart]

Hi

Short bit on the BBC that might interest people.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markeaston/2010/07/tension_at_heart_of_drug_classification.html

All the best

Keith
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Traxpics, track day and racing photographs - Bimota Forum - Bike performance / thrust graphs for choosing gearing

[Raffles]

You ought to have included a poll with this post, Keith, in order to gauge peoples' opinion.
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A good loser will always be a loser.

[Frost]

The problem is that people think drugs are legal/banned based on how dangerous they are and that this has been rigorously tested and verified before the laws made.

The problems is that this is in no way the case. For example Mephedrone was legal, so it was fine. Weed is illegal so it will kill you. In many instances this leads people to think that the whole system is complete bollocks once they've sampled something from the naughty list and not only live to tell the tale, but actually enjoy it. If anything this encourages people to find out what else off the naughty list is harmless fun.

The governments policy on drugs is just echoing the flawed american system. The government likes to deamonise drugs and people who are involved with them in the hope of stopping others getting involved. Relaxing policy can then make them look like they are encouraging something.

Harmfulness of a drug to the individual is just one aspect. e.g great new drug, no bad effects to health: £100 a go and its as addictive as fuck. Thats rapidly going to get people in a lot of money problems. Social problems also must be considered, but i think alcohol related violence is the biggest of these by a long way. But banning something people love is not going to win votes.

I think all the government can do is attempt to justify it's current stance by backing it up with well researched facts. A good thing to do would to widely distribute a chart like this:

Personal Expense, Danger to health, Adcitiveness, Risk to others
Cannabis 5, 3, 2, 1
Tabacco 2, 9, 9, 2
Alcohol 3, 6, 3, 9

The government could then use this chart to justify price increases to rise the cost to individuals to offset the cost of dealing with the health effects and policing. This would form a legal basis for the decriminalisation of weed in order to licence and tax it to prevent it being seen as the more attractive option. This way the government could look to be in control, justify taxation, better inform the public to raise support for their actions and more sensibly use police time.

But what the fuck do it know, i'm just some crackhead 'the skunk' smoker.

[J0Al1]

The fact it keeps changing doesn't give any re-assurance that they really understand it.


I dont think banding makes a difference to the 'usage', most people are sensible enough not to tough the highly adicative stuff that really can cause peoblems.

Lower graded stuff (cannabis), if just less likely to cause problems.


Anyway, what problems do they care about? Problems it causes to the user or problems the user could cause to others.

Smoking cigaretts often causes helth issues ot the user and thats not illegal (as with alcohol).

So, my conclusiong is that they are more bothred about the potential effects these drugs have on others.

Or maybe its just money driven like most tings these days.

Not really interested in drugs as don't do them these days, see them as a gowing up phase (weed/speed/coke/pills etc).

[Oz.]

Its all Political, the reclassification of Cannabis was for political reasons.

There is evidence all over the place that decriminalisation of drugs does not harm society.

See:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=portugal-drug-decriminalization

Education rather then criminalizing people works a hell of a lot better. Prohibition just provided another way for the more dangerous people of society to fund there activities.

[smegballs]