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Big shot group: war on drugs has failed


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#1 duke_Qa

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Posted 02 June 2011 - 05:30 PM

Another one of these situations, bunch of well-known people argue against old conservative system that most likely won't get changed. But this seems a bit more interesting than the average sort, so I figured it was worth a thread.

http://www.bbc.co.uk...canada-13624303

It is a damning indictment. The group of world leaders, including former Presidents of Mexico and Colombia which are blighted by the trade in illegal drugs, says urgent changes are overdue. Their report says current policies to tackle drug abuse and the crime that preys on it are clearly not working, but result in thousands of deaths and rampant lawlessness.

It calls for an end to the 'criminalisation, marginalisation and stigmatisation of people who use drugs but who do no harm to others'.

The leading international figures behind the report do not pull their punches. They say sensible regulation of drugs is working in some countries but they accuse many governments around the world of pretending that the current war on drugs is effective when they know it isn't.

Drugs need to be decriminalised, they say, and addicts need to be treated as patients, not villains.


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The group has quite a few familiar(well, known) faces, like Kofi Annan, Richard Branson and Paul Volcker(former Chairman of the US Federal Reserve and of the Economic Recovery Board, US). We also got Thorvald Stoltenberg, the father of our current PM and a hero on his own for the work he has done for refugees in his youth and the rest of his life. He also has a daughter with a heroin addiction(yes, our PM has a drug-addict for a sister, I would love to see that happen in the US/UK :rolleyes: ) so you could say he has experience with the topic.

I hope this will help change the archaic attitude that most western nations have on the topic. I'm no drug user myself but I hate to see this criminal system being allowed to thrive because old dinosaurs refuse to accept the fact that sometimes the knee must bend.

Edited by duke_Qa, 03 June 2011 - 06:17 AM.

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#2 Soul

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Posted 03 June 2011 - 01:25 AM

I have a feeling they will either say they will change it but won't or will brush it off as incorrect or something of that nature. But who knows, maybe they will finally show some competence for once, but I wouldn't hold my breath.
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#3 duke_Qa

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Posted 03 June 2011 - 07:51 AM

Well the more focus they put on the topic the better. If just one nation reacts on this report I suspect many others will follow.

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#4 Ash

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Posted 03 June 2011 - 12:07 PM

Given how much of a prop the drug trade is for most South American economies, it's a wonder they haven't totally legalised it in their own borders. Lord knows burning the crops isn't exactly doing any good. And let's face it, how hard can huge farms of coca plants and opium poppies be to fucking find?

At the end of the day it doesn't matter whether the drugs themselves are legal or not (I'd say go for it - it's only your own body you're fucking up) - it's the attached crimes that are committed by the addicts trying to pay for their regular fixes. A large proportion of prolific burglars, robbers and thieves are so because they need to feed their addiction somehow. Nobody'll give someone with theft records a job (assuming that they would give a drug addict a job in any case) so they end up stuck on welfare. Which just about pays the bills, but leaves no money left over for drugs.

It doesn't matter how legal a drug is if they're having to steal and fence £200's worth of stuff a day just to fuel their habits.

In and of itself, drug use isn't necessarily a problem. Sure, someone can have a bad reaction or can mess up in the administration or dose, but recreational (or ritual) drug use has been with humanity since time immemorial, just as alcohol use has. In the Victorian era, heroin and cocaine were legal, gin wasn't. Using drugs isn't the problem - addiction is.

#5 Romanul

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Posted 03 June 2011 - 01:50 PM

I've recently read an article about opium in Afghanistan.

Did you know that they export, like, 70% of the world production?

Guess what, the NATO/UN mission there helped out clean some of their production - otherwise it would be 90% AGAIN.

Sadly, it seems that they wanna leave.

#6 duke_Qa

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Posted 03 June 2011 - 03:23 PM

If they really wanted to get rid of opium(which they don't because its also used in morphine and other painkiller drugs), they could have made some pesticide or gene-manipulated parasite that would kill it off within a few years. Problem is that it is needed and it keeps the nation somewhat more stable than the alternative.

Drugs are and will always be a pretty big part of the human existence. It is better then that we legalize and tax it. as someone said in some comment thread, the Government would add 25% vat to the drugs if they sold them through a monopoly, thus gaining a billion-dollar tax bonus that currently is going to killers and druglords. And then if the government also has a monopoly, it would also gain money from the surplus, which should be used to help those in need of help and to reinforce the psychiatric health organizations of the nation, which is where a lot of these drug addicts should have been in the first place.

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#7 Romanul

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Posted 03 June 2011 - 04:07 PM

It is better then that we legalize and tax it.


No.

Here they legalized "ethnobotanic plants", which were used as drugs, and was the worst thing ever done. Seriously.

More than 90% of them had different chemical substances in them and people did stupid things after smoking them, such as blowing up buildings, firing them, acting crazy in ambulances, in hospitals, on the streets, hell, I met them, they were worse than people who were drunk and high at the same time.

They were also addicted to them, and seriously, I'd want that for my own safety (read it again, SAFETY.) to not have such people around me.

#8 duke_Qa

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Posted 03 June 2011 - 04:58 PM

Those people are around you anyway. Abuse and destructive behavior is a crime and should be punished on their own, not because they are high on drugs or not.

Then again, I can see the problem in the less fortunate countries around the world. Oxi in Brazil is one example of drugs that are not good for society. In a more and more secular world, religion might be losing its grip in exchange for drugs. Though alcohol has always been a helper there.
I was looking for some statistics on smoking in the western world the last century, but I'm not able to find it right off the bat. I have a theory though that it has drastically fallen the last 30 years. What I wanted with that information though was to show that you can have a positive effect with anti-commercials against drugs.

Edited by duke_Qa, 03 June 2011 - 04:59 PM.

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#9 Romanul

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Posted 03 June 2011 - 07:51 PM

Actually, did you know that EU economic support on tobacco farmers is bigger than the one of any other kind of farmer?

#10 duke_Qa

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Posted 07 June 2011 - 02:33 PM

So there won't be a big change in starting to support opium farmers and weed farmers then. Although it seems strange that tobacco farmers would need any more support than what they get out of their income, but it could also be some sort of bureaucratic distribution system that pays back a certain percentage of the goods value to the farmer, because the smoking firms have lobbyists and don't want to. There are too many idiotic rules moving money around to be sure.

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#11 Vortigern

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Posted 07 June 2011 - 07:38 PM

Actually, Duke, tobacco farmers might well need government support, on account of how more or less every Western government and plenty of Eastern ones too are actively trying to remove their market, and tobacco itself isn't particularly expensive. It's all the additional taxes we smokers have to pay that are the real cost, so I doubt the farmers actually make that big a profit.

But yeah, I'd be all in favour of legalising basically everything, or at least decriminalising in a big way. Get it all on the sunny side of the law and let the good times roll.
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#12 duke_Qa

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Posted 07 June 2011 - 08:40 PM

Good times roll... Eh. As long as its done in moderation I don't care, but Drugs are and will be a massive detriment to productivity if it is allowed to rule your life. But then again, here we are slaves to the computers so I guess you pick your poison.

For me it would be important that the money the government makes on drug sales goes to the improvement of the psychological health of the populace, because in my opinion drug abuse is primarily a "get out of spiralling madness for a while" card. Most of the drug abusers I've met are usually too smart for their own good, in a society that does not care much for them to begin with.

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