Drugs....

[Asmodean]

Norway is supposed to have the best healthcare in the world right?

I don't know. Neither my physical nor metaphorical penis need percieved enlargement, so I do not compare myself to others in terms of "best in the world"

[DeterminedJuliet]

I'm pretty sure marijuana is decriminalized in Canada now - you only really get into trouble if they find evidence of you trafficking. My father-in-law is a police officer and he says that his police force virtually never worries about your average Joe smoking a doob.

A lot of people complain about Canada's public health-care, but I love it! I've had great care with our system - pre-natal exams, bloodtests, ultrasounds, vaccines, delivery, post-natal exams. We even had a public health nurse visit our home the week after our son was born to check up on us. You just have to flash your provincial health-card. It's nice to know that it'll always (hopefully) be there.

[Ecurb Noselrub]

I am in favor of legalizing marijuana, at least for a trial experiment.  My suspicion is that it would cut into the profits of the Mexican drug cartels and perhaps somewhat minimize their influence in the USA.  Furthermore, it would be an extra source of revenue for the government. The government could grant licenses and regulate use, and sell lower than the cartels do.  That would drive the cartels out of the market on marijuana.  As with alcohol, if anyone drives under the influence or creates a public disturbance, there would be criminal/civil penalties. But possession, consumption and sale (under government license) would be legal.

After a few years of this, we might experiment with some other drug.  Humans generally should be free to choose, but of course some drugs are so addictive that choice itself is eliminated.

[Crow]

I'm in favor of legalizing all drugs, it wouldn't change my stance on whether I used in fact I wouldn't but its for bigger reasons that are political. I would need to write an entire dissertation on why I think drugs should legalized but in brief the TV series "Our Drugs War" sums up a small area of the reasons why, I have included the program synopsis with the links for those that don't want to watch the episodes.

Our Drugs War - Everyone's at It

One in six British citizens have used class-A drugs. Focusing on Scotland - named by the UN as Europe's drug capital - the first episode shows the stark contrast between Edinburgh's rich city centre and its underprivileged estates, where up to 60-70% of the residents can be drug users.

Film-maker Angus Macqueen visits one such estate with two volunteers for drugs charity Crew. They show him how the drug trade operates on a day-to-day basis in front of - and often with the participation of - children, some as young as eight. While all social classes use drugs equally, 70% of addicts have left school by the age of 16 and 85% are unemployed.

The police fail to control supply - in Scotland seizing just one per cent of the heroin consumed - criminals make money, and demand only increases. With the advent of synthetic drugs like GBL, which itself was until recently quite legal and easily available online, banning and policing are becoming ever more random and ineffectual.

Angus meets parents whose children have died as a result of drug abuse. Suzanne Dyer's son Chris died from an addiction to GBL, a compound found in some industrial cleaners and widely used by clubbers. GBL became a popular 'dance' drug when GHB, another similar, and less potent, substance was banned.

John Arthur from Crew, which supported Suzanne Dyer and her son, sees the obsession with the banning and classification of drugs as increasingly irrelevant to what is happening on the streets. John's not alone. Angus speaks to former government drugs advisor Professor David Nutt, who was famously sacked when he began to say in public that present policy is not based on scientific evidence

Our Drugs Wars - The Life and Death of a Dealer

The Queensbridge Estate in New York lies within sight of the Manhattan skyscrapers, but is seemingly a world away. The largest housing complex in Queens, it is regularly raided by police to break up massive drug operations.

Here, award-winning filmmaker Angus Macqueen looks at the social cost of America's war on drugs through the life of 28-year-old Thomas Winston: a small-time drug dealer struggling to stay out of prison and away from the lure of easy money that illegal drugs offer. As his probation officer says, here is a man who can earn $15,000 a week in the drugs world or $200 before taxes working in McDonald's.

Thomas is first seen campaigning against the 'Rockefeller' drugs laws in New York State, where sale or possession of small amounts of drugs are given a mandatory sentence equivalent to second degree murder, and have long been seen to be both discriminatory and draconian.

Human Rights Watch have published a series of reports making clear that Whites, Black and Hispanics sell and consume narcotics in equal numbers, yet over 80% of the prisoners in New York State are Black or Latino. Inside a prison, barely a white face can be seen.

The film tracks Thomas's moving story over a number of months, as he interacts with the legal system and as his probation officer and lawyer attempt to help him; but gradually he is drawn back to his old life. By the end of the film, Thomas has been stabbed to death.

Thomas's story illustrates the failure of America's zero tolerance drug laws, which don't stop supply or address addiction, but rather consign whole groups of society to a tragic cycle, undermining the very fabric of whole communities: be it here in Britain or in the US.

Our Drugs Wars - Birth of a Narco-State

The third and final part of Angus Macqueen's exploration of the failure of present drugs polices takes the viewer to the frontline. Birth of a Narco-State shows how the war on drugs is actually fuelling the long-term civil war in Afghanistan, possibly creating what he calls a 'Narco-Theocracy': a toxic mixture of drugs money and religious extremism.

Meanwhile, western demand for heroin generates huge profits that finances both sides in the civil war, corrupting the very government that British soldiers are fighting to protect.

This film gets under the skin of the drug trade in Afghanistan, from the deserts of the Afghanistan-Iran border to the smuggling centre of Herat and the courts in Kabul, engaging with those working to establish some sort of order in the face of overwhelming odds; all the time questioning whether it is our drug laws or our drug demand that is causing the problems in the first place.

Macqueen meets General Aminullah - former head of security at Kabul International Airport - who was sacked after exposing widespread corruption and then placed under investigation himself. We see shocking footage he took of a young, female Afghan burqa-clad drug smuggler demonstrating brazen disregard for the law, who then got off scot-free. Rarely has such an open example of what 'corruption' means been caught on camera.

Filming in the newly-opened - US and UK-financed - drugs courts, it becomes clear that many of the traffickers who are arrested are still 'small fish'. The big players always seem to get off; even the judges admit that they are too well-connected, often high up in the government, to the very people the British troops are fighting for and dying to protect. Afghanistan's president himself, Hamid Karzai, pardoned five convicted drug traffickers connected to his election campaign.

Allied policy to the drugs issue has been in confusion since the invasion of 2001: our troops have been told in some years to eradicate all poppies, and in others to leave them so as to win hearts and minds of the peasants. Sometimes different policies are carried out in different areas.

And all the time around 60 to 70% of the Taliban's funding comes from the heroin trade. The profits are staggering, with 10 kilos of opium - valued at around £400 in Afghanistan - making one kilo of heroin worth £40,000 by the time it reaches Europe.

[pytheas]

Information is the gateway for wise use and self-protection
At least hypocritical to license guns but not drugs for recreational use
The law can only cause direct increase in morbidity because of the taboo and the lack of mindful information, and indirect associated problems such as mainstream criminal underground industry growth.
the insane thing is you have lived it with alcohol before, spawed the american gangster and learned nothing. But that's not true. Revenue generation is the ruling control, in spite of "collateral damage", it does not depend on how much individuals learn.
"If elections could change things the police would not carry guns", a humorous quote from the Dario Fo play  the accidental death of an  anarchist.

Addiction is a personality disorder, I have seen people addicted on gambling, sex, proper drugs, tranquilisers, their dentist,  whatever!

yes smoking crack will cause a strong withdrawal urge with the first ever puff.

It's ulysee's sirens that you cannot normally resist. He KNEW that however and PREPARED FOR IT
Heroin can be licenced at it's normal price, 1 dollar for 5 shots, and its use and abuse should be legally unrelated to any crimes commited. FACE VALUE. we are free thinking individuals who make conscious choices.

Psychedelics belong in churches. priests should use them to find their mark and  freely administer them to the interested public.

[The Magic Pudding]

The 60s generation is now old.
I think Barack said something like "yes I did smoke and I did inhale, that was point of it."
It's still against the law, and if Barack had been caught he possibly wouldn't be where he is.
It's my impression the prospect for law change is as remote as ever it was, more remote probably.  There was the thought that people who had used in their youth would relax laws when they moved into positions of power, it never happened.

[pytheas]

The 60s generation is now old.

older still are statues on mushrooms from indian mesoamerican history and statues of naked breasted women holding poppies up in thir hands from minoan times

There was the thought that people who had used in their youth would relax laws when they moved into positions of power, it never happened.

although age may temper the implementing, it is not always so, yet  power corrupts. the more there is available the quicker and more thorough the corruption (adolescents for presidents means a world with no armies)
obama is as good as they can get given the dreafull circumstance, and prior performance

in some ancient greek states if you hanged on to your term in office-which was deliberately short-you would get voted into exile banishement. In a few enlightened places, if you personally owned more than when you entered office, you could loose your life.

the illegality of it has invented big bussiness. it was creative economics with an agenda the legislation history

and eg. in holland they ventured off to terminate that type of rogue power buildup

so if one man can do it, anyone can, a grandad from the mountains, told me