Drug legalisation

Cannabis legalisation

Eamonn McCann is quite right. Cannabis should be allowed to take its place as an equal partner with tobacco. Tobacco has been a solace and a boon to people, since its introduction from North America in 1500s. How disastrous it would have been to attempt to ban it then. We would have been denied its many benefits.

Alcohol: chief crime source

Foyle’s Police Chief thinks alcohol is far worse than illegal drugs as a source of crime. This shows the absurdity of the claim that legalising drugs would reduce crime.

Letter to the editor Re “A far greater harm” from Alexandra Gibbs 4/2/06

Libertarian legalisers live in a ludicrous fantasy world. Does Alexandra Gibbs really believe that the illegality of heroin and cocaine means “a lack of health warnings and advice for users”? Is she convinced that cheap and reliably available heroin and cocaine ( and they must be cheap, potent and readily available if the criminal suppliers are to be displaced) will produce a better world?

My son died from smoking heroin supplied on the premises of the Guild of Students at the the University of Birmingham. It was unusually pure, and he might be alive today if he had known what he was buying. But I do not believe that legalising drugs will benefit us in totality: far better to aim at a drug free world using all means possible, including the illegality of drugs.

The thought processes of drug legalisers are very odd. Peter Coltman wrote last Sunday that alcohol abuse costs the NHS more than any other drug abuse. Which is probably quite right. Many more people use alcohol (and tobacco) than other drugs.

He continues, to quote him, “the government doesn’t deal with alcohol because it raises revenue from sales, whereas it gets nothing from the illegal sale of cannabis, heroin and other drugs. The logic is to decriminalise these drugs and treat them like alcohol and cigarettes”

Does he mean this? Does he not suspect that alcohol and tobacco do more harm because they are more widely used and that they are more widely used because they are legal?

One of the advantages of old age is the experience of deja vu.

An Aukland University study of one thousand plus drivers, published in Addiction, found that habitual (more than weekly) cannabis smokers were nearly ten times more likely to have a serious car accident.

But the researchers think that maybe, it is just that cannabis users are the sort of person who has car crashes.

Forty years ago researchers said that, maybe, the personality type that smoked tobacco was the personality type which contracted lung cancer.

Your report (Monday 14th July) on drug testing of drivers is welcome indeed.

The statistic that 18% of drivers and 22% of passengers involved in fatal

accidents have taken illegal drugs shows the urgency required of the police in

pursuing testing policies. It also displays the paucity of the legalisers claim

that drug takers harm no one but themselves

Curious that a cannabis den should be opening in Liverpool, just as the Dutch government, becoming conscious of the harm cannabis can do, is restricting the numbers in Holland.

Letter to Daily Post. April 2005

Mr Sharpe is a very persuasive, eloquent and frequent letter writer. I hope he is paid per letter. I would be interested in how he would blame so called ‘drug prohibition’ for the following event reported by the London Times, 13th March 2002.
Flight terror
A passenger who terrorised 200 holidaymakers when she tried to open an aircraft’s doors at 30,000ft was jailed for four months at Newcastle Crown Court (Russell Jenkins writes). Charmain Pitt, 26, a heroin addict, was already high on sedatives and alcohol when she and her sister boarded the Boeing 757 JMC flight to Newcastle, from Palma, Majorca, last June. During the two-hour flight she assaulted one woman, knocking off her glasses, and dived for the exit door to try to prize it open.Pitt, of Thornaby, Teesside, had been given the holiday by her father as a gift for completing a probation order.

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Perhaps the reason that drugs are available in prison is related to the views of Chief Constable Brunstrom. He said on Channel 4 News, “If you’re not mugging old ladies and not stealing from shops and not stealing cars, what actually is the problem?” “Why shouldn’t you be taking drugs? Why are these things illegal? What was the purpose behind it? If prison authorities share his attitude it is not surprising that there are drugs behind the prison walls.
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Kirk Muse, who often writes to British newspapers advocating drug liberalisation, says British murder rates will increase if we adopt US drug policies. London’s homicide rate is much less than Amsterdam’s.That may change if we adopt Dutch drug policies.
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Dare To Mislead
Two questions:
1. What is the evidence for Myron Von Hollingsworth’s claim that cannabis is “much less harmful, dangerous, addictive and deadly than the legal drugs alcohol and tobacco.” ?

2. Does she mean for the individual or for society in total?

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“Legalising Cannabis” Dennis Grattan 26.02.02 The NHS may supply cannabis based drugs to be taken as pills or a spray. Not what I suspect Dennis Grattan is thinking of. Heroin, has long been available as a drug on the NHS. It is known as diamorphine. Its availability does not seem to deter drug dealers. Nor does it prevent deaths. In October 1995, Alex Johnson was sentenced to 5 years at Birmingham Crown Court to supplying it to a student at Birmingham University.
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Allan Randell writes asking why certain drugs are banned. “Is it to reduce the harm to users by reducing consumption? It can’t be that, because the most dangerous drugs of all, alcohol and tobacco, are legal”. Alcohol and tobacco are dangerous because they are decriminalised. If other drugs such as cannabis were decriminalised, they would soon cause as much harm as alcohol and tobacco. We do not need to add to the list.

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Drug Law Reform Congratulations to the gubernatorial candidates for resisting drug ‘reform’. I think any reforms should mean enhancing and strengthening the anti-druggie laws. New Mexico is sending a strong clear light to England.

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Marijuana in England Not everyone by any means is happy about cannabis ‘cafe’s’ in England. A recent poll run by the pro druggie Observer newspaper gave 62% saying ‘no’ to the legalisation or decriminalisation of certain drugs that are currently illegal. After all the homicide rate in Amsterdam, the home of the cannabis den, is three times that of London.
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Drug legalisation The former Mayor would like some facts about drug legalisation. One little known fact is this. The murder rate in Amsterdam is three times that in London.

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Another of Geoff’s succinct letters – this one in response to a programme about cannabis cafes opening up in Britain.
I often wonder how the first tobacco smoking dens were regarded. Were they opened by brave entrepreneurs, selling a wonder herb that would cure the community’s ills? 300 years later we know better.

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How does my dog Toby apply?

Sir,

I have read the letter from Professor Sir Michael Rawlings defending the recommendations of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. If there is a vacancy for the job of chairman of the ACMD, how does my dog Toby apply?

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Authorities turn a blind eye to the sale of cannabis

It is worth noting that advocates of cannabis legalisation, like ”Everyone Does it”,are very quiet about Dutch proposals to outlaw the sale of the more powerful forms of cannabis. The Dutch cabinet has agreed to commission a study to determine whether skunk has the addictive and psychological impact that would classify it as a hard drug. It will be banned if it’s found to be excessively harmful. The last few years have seen a sharp reduction in the number of licences issued to ‘Coffee shops’. The authorities turn a blind eye to the sale of cannabis in these outlets although the transaction is technically illegal.

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Below are also some examples of comments made by others who agree with our mission statement.

 

The NDPA would like to thank Ben from More Than Words for helping us to distribute drug prevention information to secondary schools in the UK.

‘More Than Words (Marketing) Ltd. – More Than Words, an established email marketing agency and supplier of B2B telemarketing services, is proud to work with the National Drug Prevention Alliance to get its important message out to students within British secondary schools.’

• https://www.morethanwordsuk.co.uk/
• https://www.morethanwordsuk.co.uk/email-marketing-campaigns/
• https://www.morethanwordsuk.co.uk/telemarketing-company/b2b-telemarketing/

 

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Comment to  the Conservative Woman Sept 2015

‘Bogbrush’ is right – marijuana is very harmful – but he is wrong to suggest it should be legalised.  ‘sfin’ comments on the rights of the individual, not expecting those who make decisions to use drugs then being treated on the NHS via his tax contributions, and excepting children who are not responsible for their actions. We then get into the

  What is missed here is that by legalising the substance the subliminal message is that it is relatively harmless,  and those adolescents currently not using because it is illegal would be more likely to experiment – ‘to see what it’s all about’.  Despite what current users of the drug would claim this is an addictive substance – the more who decide ‘just to try’ , the more who will eventually become regular users. .  In my work with drug users seeking help in trying to give up a habit I found that it was usually about two years before parents discovered their child was using – at which point most did their utmost to help.  Ask any parent with a marijuana user in the family how it affects all their lives.   And ask them if they would prefer the substance to remain illegal or if they would be happy for it to be even more easily available. Saying legalise for adults  over l8’s is a nonsense since  those coming to our agency for help were mostly over l8,  and many had been using since the age of 12 or 13. 

It took over 50 years before tobacco was universally acknowledged to be harmful – not only to the individual but to society as a whole – increased health problems being

just one consequence.  We would be foolish indeed to listen to the siren voices of big business to legalise yet another harmful and addictive substance.

 

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Response posted to Sunshine State News, Florida after an article by Dr. Bertha Madras had been ‘trolled’ by many drug users.    March 3^rd 2016

More and more evidence from respected, educated scientists and doctors shows that marijuana is not a harmless substance.  In particular the higher content THC in marijuana now being sold is particularly harmful.  Whenever an article or piece of research is published adding to the evidence of harm the pro-pot lobby send in hundreds of responses denying the facts.   The majority of these responses are clearly from users and usually contain personal attacks on the authors and rude, sometimes obscene, comments.  No wonder they call it dope.

People are entitled to their own opinions but they are not entitled to their own facts.

Anyone who has lived with or worked with a heavy marijuana user will disabuse those who declare the substance to be non-addictive.  I have counselled users of tobacco, alcohol, marijuana and heroin  –  every one of them found the most difficult substance to give up was marijuana.

Those of us working in drug prevention are grateful to Dr. Madras and her colleagues for helping to get accurate information out to the general public – and in particular to our youth.  Unfortunately Big Marijuana Business is fighting the legalisation battle with plenty of money and no regard for the health of the younger generation.  Much of the media seems to be in thrall to those who want to see drugs legally available for all –  but

the results from more and more research will eventually prove that marijuana is harmful and should remain illegal.  Extracts of the substance, pharmaceutically produced to high standards may well prove helpful for some medical conditions and could be prescribed by reputable doctors.    Ann Stoker  NDPA

 

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Comment to Daily Mail on 16^th June 2016 re Report suggesting all drugs should be legalised.

This is just another ridiculous report with ridiculous suggestions which no government is going to take notice of.  Even this report admits that drug use has fallen over the last decade so our laws are succeeding – unlike the sorry state in the USA where Big Business is making millions of dollars from selling harmful substances and families face the results when young people drop out of school or college and often experience physical and mental ill health plus a need for treatment which is not always available.  The very nature of addictive drugs means users will always want more – legalise them and dealers will still be around offering substances at a lesser cost. Legalise drugs and the message will be interpreted by young people as ‘drugs must be harmless if they are legal’ and use will escalate.   Kathy Gyngell is right – children should be taught that drug use is unacceptable, unhealthy and unnecessary for a happy and productive life.

 

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