Caught this on C4 news this evening, quite a big item. Possession of marijuana (up to an ounce) is now legal in Washington State, and Colorado follows suit in January. Although you will probably have to commit a criminal act to get hold of it.
tinyurl.com/b9gfof3 (Independent)
UK to do the same?
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>> UK to do the same?
>>
Fat chance until our politicos grow the do dahs* to take on the Mail/Melanie Phillips tendency.
*The word used first was C O Jones but apparently we retain the HJ latin american naughty word filter.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Thu 6 Dec 12 at 20:00
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But not 'the' States Focus, alas. Just two more States.
Still, an example to everyone else.
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Sorry - just an attention-grabbing headline. I like to think Iffy would have been proud.
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An ounce is quite a lot, a friend and I bought arf an ounce once, and it lasted us from Friday night to Sunday night.
o-o
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They effectively tried to do it in the UK by re-classification from a Class B to a Class C, effectively making not illegal to possess. I seem to remember that it was re-classified back to B in around '09 after some call "vertigo" over more powerful strains. Doubt whether it will happen here any time soon - vote loser amongst the Daily Mail reading types..
Last edited by: R.P. on Thu 6 Dec 12 at 20:41
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>> Doubt whether it will happen here any time soon - vote loser amongst
>> the Daily Mail reading types..
Vote loser from the Telegraph reading types as well.
It was re-classified for a reason.
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Legalise it.
Tax it.
Job jobbed.
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Oh I know - the good Professor Nutt (?) - I used to take an interest in stuff like that once ! :-)
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Like smoking, it has never interested me, but I cannot help thinking that if drugs were legalised in the same way that alcohol and tobacco are then the damage done by violence in Mexico and other countries around the world would be reduced and the influence and impact of drugs barons would also be severely reduced.
The medicine companies could then make loads of money by making patches to wean you off them and the Govt. could make loads of money by taxing it.
Last edited by: zippy on Thu 6 Dec 12 at 21:21
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I bet most on here have, err, sampled same.
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If you look at the advertising around nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) now, you'll notice the insidious change to the manufacturers suggesting NRT can be used instead of tobacco over the longer term.
I presume NRT is not taxed in the same way as cigarettes, and equally presume it costs a pittance to make - the fact is costs a similar amount as smoking 10-15/day is not entirely co-incidental.
www.nicorette.co.uk/cut-down-to-stop
One of my pals tried to stop smoking previously with nicotine gum - funnily enough 6 months later he was struggling to give up the gum :-)
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>> I bet most on here have, err, sampled same.
Not yet...
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>> I bet most on here have, err, sampled same.
Not me - never, ever.
Never been offered it and never been tempted to try and seek it out.
It's a slippery slope....................................................
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Best steer clear of alcohol, fags and tea as well.
Next stop: injecting heroin into your eyeballs.
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>>Best steer clear of alcohol, fags and tea as well<<
That's what makes I larf ... peeps say "oh, I've never touched drugs in my entire life"
Well, HELLO - what do y'all think alcohol is then??
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>> >>Best steer clear of alcohol, fags and tea as well<<
>>
>> That's what makes I larf ... peeps say "oh, I've never touched drugs in my
>> entire life"
>>
>> Well, HELLO - what do y'all think alcohol is then??
>>
I don't think it's really a drug ?
I suppose it depends how you define 'drug' I don't think most people would lump them together.
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>> >> Well, HELLO - what do y'all think alcohol is then??
>> >>
>>
>> I don't think it's really a drug ?
>>
>> I suppose it depends how you define 'drug' I don't think most people would lump
>> them together.
Alcohol is a chemical consumed with intention, at least in part, of altering state of mind.
Cannabis much the same really though I don't know if the act of consumption is as pleasurable as a good wine or scotch.
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I suppose you could say they were chemically constructed, I meant in common language and thought. There's a pretty big jump in that between the two.
Have you ever taken drugs?
Yes, I had a pint last night.
I think that answer might throw the person asking the question. Right or wrong.
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Alcohol really is a drug, but it's not included in the culturally accepted term "drugs", as that term implicitly means "illegal drugs".
So yes, it's a drug. But if you're asked if you've ever taken drugs, the questioner is asking about illegal ones.
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>> Alcohol really is a drug, but it's not included in the culturally accepted term "drugs",
>> as that term implicitly means "illegal drugs".
>>
>> So yes, it's a drug. But if you're asked if you've ever taken drugs, the
>> questioner is asking about illegal ones.
>>
Precisely my point. When we think of drugs, it means illegal ones. Meaning alcohol isn't really considered as a drug.
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>>When we think of drugs, it means illegal ones. Meaning alcohol isn't really considered as a drug<<
What ever way you try to dress it up sooty - alcohol *is* a drug, legal or otherwise.
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I'm not trying to dress it up as anything. I just wouldn't consider it as a drug, like I said it may well be in a chemical sense. I just won't lump them both together.
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>> >> Alcohol really is a drug, but it's not included in the culturally accepted term
>> "drugs",
>> >> as that term implicitly means "illegal drugs".
>> >>
>> >> So yes, it's a drug. But if you're asked if you've ever taken drugs,
>> the
>> >> questioner is asking about illegal ones.
>> >>
>>
>> Precisely my point. When we think of drugs, it means illegal ones. Meaning alcohol isn't
>> really considered as a drug.
That's not precisely your point. I'm saying it's a drug, you're trying to make out it isn't.
Anyway, I'm off to buy a nice bottle of French red drugs for tonight.
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>> That's not precisely your point. I'm saying it's a drug, you're trying to make out
>> it isn't.
>>
>> Anyway, I'm off to buy a nice bottle of French red drugs for tonight.
>>
Like I said above, it may well be, I just wouldn't use the same word for it.
That's the spirit :-)
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>> Like I said above, it may well be, I just wouldn't use the same word
>> for it.
Ah. Large river in Africa syndrome.
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Je ne comprends pas
Ah right got. No not really, but anyway it was just a minor point really about the common use of words that was all.
Last edited by: sooty123 on Fri 7 Dec 12 at 12:34
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>> I don't think it's really a drug ?
>>
>> I suppose it depends how you define 'drug' I don't think most people would lump
>> them together.
>>
Gives you a high, causes you to behave irrationally and makes you feel ill as you come down.
Looks like a drug to me...
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Best steer clear of alcohol, fags and tea as well.
Next stop: injecting heroin into your eyeballs.
Well said.
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>> It was re-classified for a reason.
Down to C or back to B??
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Maruhana has been legalised for years in Holland ,hence the coffee shops.Stopped illegal dealing in the stuff.Don't know if it is right or wrong.Nicotine addiction is more difficult to stop.
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>> It was re-classified for a reason.
Not a very good one though Westpig. Sulky or crazed teenagers tell cock and bull stories about how they were spaced out on drugs, hysterical uninformed parents scream the place down... it used to happen back in the sixties, 'I was on drugs, I didn't know what I was doing...'
Complete bull. There aren't any drugs like that, more's the pity I sometimes think. There are drugs that can do harm - cannabis is a very very long way down the list - and drugs that are habit forming. And then there are idiots who do stupid stuff or harm themselves and have to find some crummy excuse for it. Seems to me that's the nearest thing people have to a reason for panicking about 'drugs', well known to be pretty harmless statistically compared to the legal ones.
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In the US voters had a choice.. to vote directly for it.
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People use legal/illegal drugs for all kinds of social and personal reasons, and whatever the motives, experience has demonstrated that the state is virtually powerless to influence this.
The only choice the state has is whether to permit legal growers and distributors, and tax them, or to hand the trade over to illegal racketeers and bootleggers. For unknown reasons, Britain prefers to encourage drug barons, vast untaxed profits, and a host of associated criminal activities.
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>> The only choice the state has is whether to permit legal growers and distributors, and
>> tax them, or to hand the trade over to illegal racketeers and bootleggers. For unknown
>> reasons, Britain prefers to encourage drug barons, vast untaxed profits, and a host of associated criminal activities.
>>
Exactly.
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>>. For unknown reasons, Britain prefers to encourage...
For unknown reasons? Do you not remember the outcry when cannabis regulations were changed? Can you imagine a politician trying that with cocaine? Can you imagine it not being a vote battle ground?
Peter Lilley just suggested reassessing cannabis regulation and .....
"But shadow home secretary Ann Widdecombe warned that legalising cannabis would lead drugs barons to push even more hard drugs.
Miss Widdecombe - whose proposals for zero tolerance of cannabis fell flat when a succession of shadow cabinet members admitted to having tried the drug - said: "The current position of the Conservative Party is that we are opposed to legalisation and, indeed, decriminalisation.
"I would myself wonder what we would expect the big drugs barons to do if we legalise cannabis. I think it is very unlikely that they would just go home.
"It would be far more likely that they would put a huge amount of their effort into marketing hard drugs and probably targeting ever younger age groups," she told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme."
Last edited by: No FM2R on Fri 7 Dec 12 at 11:31
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>> The only choice the state has is whether to permit legal growers and distributors, and
>> tax them, or to hand the trade over to illegal racketeers and bootleggers. For unknown
>> reasons, Britain prefers to encourage drug barons, vast untaxed profits, and a host of associated
>> criminal activities.
>>
Quite simple really. It is likely:
The Daily Mail - strongly associated with its anti drugs campaign - is actively supported by drugs barons who also contribute to anti drugs causes.
Now I have ZERO evidence for the above so don't take it seriously but it would make economic sense as legalisation would put many dealers out of work and make them much poorer.
I but they also write letters decrying legalisation... and subsidise a few politicians on the sly...
Last edited by: madf on Fri 7 Dec 12 at 12:54
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A friend of mine would appreciate some as a pain killer.
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>>A friend of mine would appreciate some as a pain killer.
So buy some, its not hard. And if you;re buying modest amounts, nobody will ever do a thing about it.
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The are numerous and much more effective sources of pain relief.
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Interesting report on "Planet Money" about the banking impact of the legalisation (see: www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/12/04/166514067/episode-420-the-legal-marijuana-business )
I have to admit as I was driving home listening to the report I had to check it wasn't a 1st April re-broadcast!
Last edited by: Knips on Fri 7 Dec 12 at 12:02
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I don't smoke but on very occasions I have had the odd err joint. About once a year if that. It causes major problems BUT so does cigs and alcohol. I am in favour of it being legalised surely it is better to make money from taxing it than the current underground situation we currently have of drug dealers making money for them selves.
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>> numerous and much more effective sources of pain relief.
Morphine and its derivative heroin are extremely effective in relieving pain and discomfort. If they weren't they wouldn't be as widely used medically as they are. On the two or three occasions that I have been given morphine in hospital it has worked brilliantly.
On quite a few occasions in youth, out of curiosity, I tried heroin to see what all the fuss was about. Never liked the stuff and always threw up soon after taking it. But others - perhaps chronically unhappy, so in 'psychic pain' - took to it in a big way and some got serious habits. That was all right when they knew what they were doing and the stuff came from the nhs so everyone knew how strong it was and how much to take. These days junkies and would-be junkies buy illegal stuff of unknown purity. Usually it is heavily cut (diluted with filler, baby powder etc) but every now and then some more or less pure stuff gets into ignorant eager beaver young hands, and that can kill.
Ignorance is the real enemy. That is why the faffing, deliberately misleading public discourse on drugs is so damn malevolent. Evil, actually.
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Well said, AC.
People want drugs and they will find a way to get them. Banning drugs merely shows that we have learned nothing from the US Prohibition era.
The responsibilities that the state has in this are:
a) is to adequately warn everyone of the effects of drugs (including, I may say, my own drug of choice: alcohol), and to make it crystal clear that any harm done to others while done to others will not be mitigated by the defence "I was off my head because of the drink/drugs".
b) to provide rehabilitation help for those who wish to escape from dependence
c) to protect minors from exploitation in any way
The best way to do this is to have a legalised framework for drug use, IMHO. Drugs are a social issue, not a criminal one.
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Given that half the Government front bench, and more than half the people who voted for them have dabble with weed at some point or other in past experience, it cant be said to be a terrible mind altering scourge can it.
Oh, on second thoughts...
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Pot legalised in the States - Bromptonaut
