h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Cannabis being reclassified as a Class C drug.
Opinions?
Personally I think it was a mistake - Either it should have been properly legalised, or kept illegal, not this stupid half-measure.

It will make no difference to the way people behave. Dope is so prevalent and easy to get hold of anyone could have smoked it anyway. It is still illegal however, so law-abiding, upstanding citizens who don't so it for that reason still won't touch it.

However I can see it freeing up police resources, which is why it was reclassified in the first place. They should have reclassified ecstasy too, putting it in the same class as heroin and crack is mad.

It will be interesting to see what happens.

I'm suprised that this is the first thread about this news story actually.

Ste

Must agree with Steve, as I thought this would have popped up sooner...

No problems with de-classifying...

big problem with supply as until you take out the people that make the big profit unlawfully you don't start to deal with the other problems it causes...

you just have to look at the tobacco smuggling that goes on due to the high duty... the government may claim that duty is so high to help cut smoking numbers, but all they did was create a whole black market...

it'll be interesting to see where this debate goes...

Jack-oh

"Personally I think it was a mistake - Either it should have been properly legalised, or kept illegal, not this stupid half-measure."

Well said, sir.

I'm sick of all this wishy-washy stuff about "decriminalisation". The trade remains in the hands of organised crime (who make a fortune out of it) and untaxed. It should, in my opinion, be legalised.

"It should, in my opinion, be legalised."

Agreed. But what are the chances of that happening? People want decriminalisation because they know there isn't a snowballs chance in hell of full-on legalisation in the current political climate. This is a good first step. I think that shows a sign of a more realistic outlook on the whole drug issue instead of the usual "all drugs are evil" claptrap.



Ste

That's the point though - drugs are not evil, but criminalisation is - people take drugs, they always have, always will. If you make that behaviour illegal, they will no longer respect the law. If you force them to make contact with 'serious' criminals in order to buy the stuff then they are more likely to be drawn into that criminal lifestyle. Drugs don't make you into a criminal, criminalising a harmless aspect of someones lifestyle does.

Agreed. But let's be realistic. Will decriminalisation happen? Not really, no. There has to be patience and a slow shift of public perception of drugs from "evil" to "the same as a pint or a cigarette". This is especially the case after so much sensible debate is lost beneath the sensationalist screechings of The War on Drugs.

IMHO, this is a good first step.

Ste

A look at what the illegal trade in drugs goes to fund - war, hunger, desease and the American global monopoly. I don't know about you, but i'd rather see guy queueing up at the chemists to pay for a clean, regulated and available fix (and that goes for other recreational drugs too like viagra etc) and see that fund my NHS prescription charges.

Again, agreed Not much of debate so far, huh? ;) There's one here if anyone's interested: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/F70143?thread=149717... Ste

The biggest problem with cannabis in the past was that nobody could prove it was harmless, because it was illegal even for doctors to experiment with it. Now that it is a class C drug, research can be done to find out whether it has any harmful effects. If there are none, then the case will be much stronger for legalising it completely.

The anecdotal evidence for it being harmful is acdtually pretty strong.
Peter Tosh and Lee 'Scratch' Perry-both paranoid, bordering on scizophrenic.(And I have a good friend who was recently diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic. His Doc's first advice was stop smoking the weed, my friend. It makes you worse.) Bob Marley, dead of lung cancer before his 50th birthday. The list of caualties in the Jamaican music scene is scary and virtually endless. Could all be coincidence, who knows?

As for legalization of Class A and B drugs. Well, tough. It ain't gonna happen, nor should it. I for one don't want my taxes used to subsidise the sort of weak minded fools who pump herion/crack/mdma into their veins without the slightest regard for either themselves or the society in which they exist.

The cannabis relaxation is simply to free up police time. Don't kid yourselves that it marks any great step forward to 'right thinking' on the legalisation of all drugs.

The most harmful aspect of cannabis (over) use is how incredibly boring it makes you. People who smoke all the time are dull dull dull. Bright and interesting people are rendered dull as ditchwater, unless you you'reself are smoking heavilly too - so dope becomes a ghetto. Like any other drug, it's amout moderation, and removing the 'lifestyle' element.

Well maybe autist!

Yes indulging in heavy use makes you boring, just as heavy use of alcohol does.

However as a moderate user, I dont drink alcohol at all, none of my friends (most of whom dont use) have accussed me of being boring! many other things but not boring!!

The reclassification of cannabis is a purely political move, to free up police and court time. To "process" someone for possession of small amounts of cannabis currently takes 2 cops of the streets for 2 hours, involves hours of CPS and court time at an average cost in the thousands of pounds in return for a fine that rarely exceeds £100.

It is patently no longer cost or time effective to deal with possession as an arrestable offence.....................

This law doesn't change a thing really. Anyone been caught with a small amount of dope in the last few years will know that a caution is already the standard charge for this 'crime'. Personally I don't think this change does anything except try and make the government appear to be more inclusive of a hugely alienated cross-section of society.

Have to agree with most of what's been said already by Ste and autist though. It's a step in the right direction, but really too little too late. If the law seriously wants the respect of youngsters, then a complete re-evaluation of the drug laws is paramount, expecially of ecstacy.

As an aside, please don't give that holier than thou crap about 'weak minded fools' who use hard drugs BS. I respect your opinions on most subjects, but that comment smacks (no pun intended) of ignorance. I have friends who have recovered fully from heroin addiction, and they are definitely NOT weak minded. In fact I would go so far as to say that they probably have some of the strongest characters out of anybody I know.

That comment smacks of 14 years watching a trail of of detritus crawling through the Crown Courts of this country doing damage to law-abiding citizens who want nothing more than to live their lives in peace.

Without wanting to be arrogant about it, I'll wager I've met and dealt with the consequences of more drug users than the rest of the posters in this thread put together.

Sorry if you don't like it, but we have a saying about people who break the law in our office: They are *all* volunteers.

It does seem a bit ridiculous when you consider that my son's prescribed medicine is a class B drug!

Fair enough BS.
I apologise for calling you ignorant.

I don't have to agree with your perspective, but I'll respect it.

It is more of a personal gripe I have against people who often don't know what they're talking about making unfounded judgements against people who I care for because of the lifestyle that they lead.

Clearly you have massive experince of talking to these people who frequent your court rooms, and have made the most of the opportunity to find out about the predicament that they find themselves in.

As someone also with first-hand experience of dealing with the effects of hard drug abuse and the effect this can have on friends/family/the community I can fully empathise with you about the kind of misery that surrounds people in these situations.

It is simply that I have obviously drawn massively different conclusions to you about how this phenomenon should be looked at by wider society.

Anyway I don't want to turn this into personal digs at each other, so I'll throw this open as a twist on the question:

Why is it that drug abuse is looked down upon so much? If someone I know is on drugs then that is their choice to do so, and their problem if it gets that far that they put their health at risk. If it makes them unpleasant to be around, then I won't be around them as much. If it makes them lie to me, I will also find this unpleasant. But why is so much importance attached to these people as criminals?
It is actually the law that turns them into criminals not the use of the drug, yet they are demonised for this. Surely, as autist suggested above, a complete change in people's attitudes towards drugs and drug users is necessary.

Perhaps the only way to achieve this is to remove the black market for these drugs by providing addictive substances for registered addicts on prescription.

BS
GWL

By that I mean I could get sent to prison for carrying it around, when people using cannabis are simply warned and left to get on with it.

The drug your son is on is a class B drug because were you to decide to sell it rather than give it to your son, then that would be pretty dangerous. I'm surprised it's not on schedule 3 along with Temazapan and others of that ilk though.

I have no real problem with Cannabis users. It's effects are not anymore damaging or anti-social than alcohol or tobacco. Class A drugs though, do kill, at random, whatever precautions are taken by the user. I don't think it's reasonable to put that burdon on friends, family, societry ar large (who have to ffot the medical bills when you OD), or that you should expect to finance that habit through crime, which is the normal route for feeding addiction, particularly to crack and heroin.

Ritalin is highly addictive - it's probably only becaue it has some medicinal value that it's not an A.

I don't begrudge people using cannabis, although I don't like the way people are when they are stoned, I don't really like it when people are drunk either. At least a stoned person isn't going to start a fight!