Elton John Speaks Out: Legalizing Cannabis is a Grave Mistake

[Jingthing]

 Breast milk is a gateway drug 

 

Philadelphia freedom me arse.

[zmisha]

It`s not a grave mistake, but rather an example of a deliberate policy that the metropolis is pursuing in relation to the colonies ("Opium Wars" for googling).

[billd766]

On 12/14/2024 at 7:38 AM, quake said:

 

Yes very hard indeed, had 3 attempts, got it on the 4,  27 years now. ( was a 40 a day Marlboro habit )

 

I quit successfully 5 times in all, the last in 1970 and I haven't smoked since then. I was in Singapore and had access to duty free cigarettes. That was where I started again for the 5th time as I was bored with not smoking. I quit after about a year and gave the rest of my cigarettes and the duty free coupons to a mate.

[BritManToo]

I'd prefer cannabis to be legal and homosexuals to be illegal.

[johnnybangkok]

On 12/13/2024 at 6:23 PM, pacovl46 said:

You didn't get it! The only way that makes sense when it comes to drugs is legalization or at the very least decriminalization. 

 

How much tax money do countries spend annually on the war against drugs they can't win? Drugs are everywhere and it's criminals that make huge amounts of money with them. We also don't know exactly how many people take any given drug in which amounts and what diseases might spread amongst them. All we have is guesstimates. Then there's the fact that in the case of hard drugs, addicts will fairly quickly reach the point where they can't finance their addiction with their income anymore. So now they have to resort to criminal activities themselves to feed the monkey, which results in a overwhelmed court system and overcrowded prisons. There's also lots of gang activities going on because they fight over turf.

 

If governments were to produce the drugs, tax them and sell them through pharmacies at a much cheaper price and much better quality than ghe gangs, no one would buy the expensive cut-up sh.t on the streets anymore. Hence the gangs would have no turf to fight over anymore because they'd lose their customer base pretty much over night. This reduces overall criminal activity and if they sold it at a price so cheap that people could afford it with their income and still make ends meet, addicts wouldn't have to resort to criminal activities either. Pair that with an anonymous form where they have to state their gender, age group, drug of choice and amount and an annual anonymous health check, then you'd have real numbers after a year instead of guesstimates. Plus, the government could save a sh.tload of money that they are wasting on the war against drugs they cant win, instead they'd have tax income, which could then be spent on large scale anti-drug campaigns in every classroom of every school once a year. Make those as disgusting as possible, you know, take a speed freak with no teeth in there, an alcoholic who's totally effed up and a heroin addict with track marks all over who hasn't had a shower in a couple of months who lives on the street and show them what that stuff really does to you, instead of the little speeches and a few pictures they're using now. 

 

In the end there will always be people who want to take drugs and as long as there's money to be made there will always be people willing to satisfy that demand and making it illegal won't change that one bit! All it does is create a black market and all the negative sh.t that comes with it.

 

Legalization/decriminalization is definitely the lesser of the two evils! 

 

Lastly, as long as alcohol and cigarettes are legal, by the way, booze does more damage to an addict and their social environment than any other drug, I don't see why weed should be illegal., and gateway drug number one is booze! 

 

 

 

Interesting argument and although I agree the war on drugs has been an expensive disaster and can never be won, I'm not sure any government would ever produce the drugs themselves (and therefore in effect be labled a drug dealer) and the question would still remain, who would then produce them? Any legalising would more likely legitimise drug cartels who would still have a firm control over production. This is obviously not ideal. A much better idea would be to follow the Portugese model and simply decriminalise drugs thus making the possession of drugs for personal use treated as an administrative offence, meaning it is no longer punishable by imprisonment and does not result in a criminal record and associated stigma. Drugs however are still confiscated and possession may result in administrative penalties such as fines or community service. Drug dealers still face prosecution but drug users are given more help than punishment. 'By ‘accepting the reality of drug use rather than eternally hoping that it will disappear as a result of repressive legislation’, Portuguese reform allows drugs to be treated as a health, rather than criminal justice, issue.'   https://transformdrugs.org/blog/drug-decriminalisation-in-portugal-setting-the-record-straight

 

There certainly needs to be some 'thinking outside of the box' and since the Portugese model has produced lower incarceration rates, lower overall usage and less valuable resources spent on petty drug users, I believe this could and should be a world-wide model.

[Neeranam]

13 hours ago, pacovl46 said:

Then you've been doing it the wrong way. Giving up smoking can be very easy, at least from my own experience. Alan Carr's method works like a charm. All it takes is about 3 weeks until the first day comes around when you don't think about smoking all day long and those 3 weeks were nowhere nearly as bad as I was making it out to be in my head beforehand. The most difficult thing about quitting is to set a point in time on which you're gonna stops. Once you've done that you're already halfway there. 

Yes, smoking is all in the mind, except I had one sleepless night as I cold turkeyed a huge amount of Swedish Snuss which got me off the habitual thing. 

[JonnyF]

He just wants to keep it illegal for the little people.

 

I'm sure he isn't lecturing about it when he holds his exclusive hedonistic elitist parties.

 

The guy is the worst type of fake virtue signalling celebrity.