Does anybody here take the Greens seriously?

[AuroraSaab]

The difference there is that tobacco was already freely available and in the public domain. If tobacco had never been used as a substance before and someone said 'I've invented this thing called smoking, it's highly addictive and gives you lung cancer and emphysema...', it's unlikely it would have been allowed on the market.

We can't put the toothpaste back in the tube with tobacco and alcohol (though Bhutan has), we can only limit the damage, but that doesn't mean there aren't valid concerns about actions that might increase other types of addiction.

 

[AndyRM]

Shrooms, weed and opium are freely available and in the public domain...

 

[Psamathe]

Shrooms, weed and opium are freely available and in the public domain...

I live rurally and getting recreational drugs is easier and closer than my nearest supermarket. Though changed recently but still closer than local supermarket.

 

[icowden]

I get the aims, but who will the state buy the drugs from? Colombian or Mexican cartels for example? And how cheaply? Cheaply enough that our taxes have to fund hard drug supply?

We already purchase opiates, cannabinoids etc. Yes, it would be funded through taxes. We would save tax money by not having to put people in prisons. Those are really expensive.

Many drug takers are victims as you say. Other choose to take them recreationally. Decriminalisation will increase the numbers using these drugs and increase the impacts of having more addicts.

Not according to the data from Portugal.

 

[AuroraSaab]

The Guardian article I linked to previously said that out of 2000 users at a particular Portugal centre only 10 had sought help to get off drugs.
I can see how decriminalisation reduces government expenditure on the legal system, frees up police and court time etc. I don't see how it will reduce the number of users. I can see how state sanctioned drug use might make drug taking more attractive by removing the deterrent of getting a criminal record.

 

[First Aspect]

The difference there is that tobacco was already freely available and in the public domain. If tobacco had never been used as a substance before and someone said 'I've invented this thing called smoking, it's highly addictive and gives you lung cancer and emphysema...', it's unlikely it would have been allowed on the market.

We can't put the toothpaste back in the tube with tobacco and alcohol (though Bhutan has), we can only limit the damage, but that doesn't mean there aren't valid concerns about actions that might increase other types of addiction.

We managed as a society to somehow sleep walk into vapes and, worse still, disposable capes though didn't we? It isn't as bad... probably... but there was no compelling reason for letting another genie out of the bottle*.

(A better analogy, because I reckon with the right equipment I could re-fill a toothpaste tube fairly easily.)

 

[BoldonLad]

More people die from state taxed alcohol and tobacco related issues every year than any other drug.

But aye, let's carry on clutching our pearls about addicts.

That may not be a realistic comparison, wouldn't it have to be "deaths per x thousand users" to compare like with like?

But, I agree about the clutching of pearls.

 

[icowden]

The Guardian article I linked to previously said that out of 2000 users at a particular Portugal centre only 10 had sought help to get off drugs.

No, that isn't what it said.

Since its inauguration, Porto’s centre has clocked up 63,000 visits from more than 2,000 drug users – the vast majority of whom use either crack cocaine or heroin. Only two overdoses have occurred, both of which were treated successfully on the spot. Castro also points to the 1,500 or so screenings undertaken, and the 89 individuals now receiving treatment for hepatitis C as a consequence. About 10 people have also entered detox programmes of their own volition.

I can see how decriminalisation reduces government expenditure on the legal system, frees up police and court time etc. I don't see how it will reduce the number of users. I can see how state sanctioned drug use might make drug taking more attractive by removing the deterrent of getting a criminal record.

You didn't really read the article then?

Yet the centre offers a rare ray of hope in the scourge of drug addiction, locally and perhaps globally. First, its target users are alive and, if not exactly well, then at least using safely. Three decades ago, it was a different story. Heroin addiction in Portugal affected an estimated one in every 100 adults, and death by overdose or drug-related disease was commonplace.

Second, most of the centre’s users still enjoy their liberty. Again, rewind a few decades and the situation looked very different. At the end of the 1990s, the number of people behind bars for drug-related offences stood at 3,863. In 2017, that figure had dropped by more than two-thirds.

In 2021, Portugal registered 74 deaths from overdoses (compared with 37 in 2014). In Scotland, by contrast, a country with a population of about half the size, “drug misuse” deaths for 2021 stood at 1,300.

Drug-taking is not without its sanctions. All those caught by the police with class A drugs are required to attend a government-run “integrated response” clinic, where their use levels are assessed and a treatment programme proposed. These clinics house psychotherapists, psychiatrists, social workers, pharmacologists and primary healthcare specialists, explains Dr Severiano Pinto, a psychologist at one of three such facilities in the Porto district. “The problem of drug addiction has a lot of variables – individual, familial, social and so on. So we find it’s better to work with a collection of professionals to try and address the problem,” he says. “Normally, they want to stop taking narcotics when they first come in, but it’s a long process. It’s not something we can resolve in just a couple of weeks or even months.”

 

[CXRAndy]

View: https://x.com/i/status/2023813572661571675

 

[AuroraSaab]

We managed as a society to somehow sleep walk into vapes and, worse still, disposable capes though didn't we? It isn't as bad... probably... but there was no compelling reason for letting another genie out of the bottle*.

(A better analogy, because I reckon with the right equipment I could re-fill a toothpaste tube fairly easily.)

I agree. I am very worried about the long term effects of vaping. There's so many horror stories of serious illness and deaths. It's only value as far as I can see is as a short term crutch to help people stop smoking. That hasn't happened though; it's become a hobby in itself.

 

[All uphill]

Reducing the criminality that results from people needing £500 a week to fund their drug habit would save us a fortune in insurance premiums, fearfulness and prison places. It would make our cities more pleasant and help with their regeneration.

 

[Stevo 666]

We already purchase opiates, cannabinoids etc. Yes, it would be funded through taxes. We would save tax money by not having to put people in prisons. Those are really expensive.

Not according to the data from Portugal.

Let's see this data and the rationale for why it will be the same here.

As for doing business with drugs cartels and making them even richer, well I thought your moral compass might give you some guidance on that. Practicalities aside.

 

[icowden]

Let's see this data and the rationale for why it will be the same here.

By 2018, Portugal’s number of heroin addicts had dropped from 100,000 to 25,000. Portugal had the lowest drug-related death rate in Western Europe, one-tenth of Britain and one-fiftieth of the U.S. HIV infections from drug use injection had declined 90%. The cost per citizen of the program amounted to less than $10/citizen/year while the U.S. had spent over $1 trillion over the same amount of time. Over the first decade, total societal cost savings (e.g., health costs, legal costs, lost individual income) came to 12% and then to 18%.

As for doing business with drugs cartels and making them even richer, well I thought your moral compass might give you some guidance on that. Practicalities aside.

No one has suggested this. You seem to have dreamed it up yourself.

 

[All uphill]

Let's see this data and the rationale for why it will be the same here.

As for doing business with drugs cartels and making them even richer, well I thought your moral compass might give you some guidance on that. Practicalities aside.

Any large pharma company would be delighted to increase their production of synthetic opioids. Where do you think the pain relief drugs used in palliative care come from?

Working with addicted people and providing safe alternatives to the substances they depend on will hurt suppliers.

 

[AndyRM]

Any large pharma company would be delighted to increase their production of synthetic opioids. Where do you think the pain relief drugs used in palliative care come from?

Working with addicted people and providing safe alternatives to the substances they depend on will hurt suppliers.

Hold up.

A genuine and compassionate approach? Based on knowledge and understanding?

That will never catch on.