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.

 

 

[wombat]

On 12/14/2024 at 9:22 PM, 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. 

To much psycho babble...you stop and put up with the mental excrement that goes with it.

There is no such thing as an ex junky...your a junky that hasn't scored today is as good as your going to get

[pacovl46]

On 12/15/2024 at 4:42 AM, johnnybangkok said:

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.

Producing the drugs wouldn't be a problem. Pharmaceutical companies already do that. In the US you have large scale producers of weed who supply the medicinal weed stores. Buying from them wouldn't be an issue. If you don't outcompete the drug cartels in terms of price and quality, you'll always have a black market and the issue that users of hard drugs won't be able to finance it with thwir income, if they have to buy it on the street. What Portugal did was great because unlike in Germany, consumption of drugs was also illegal. Since the decriminalization lots of people free willingly went into rehab because they didn't have to fear being prosecuted for it. In regards to being labeled a drug dealer, how about booze and nicotine then? Every bottle or pack of cigarettes I buy is taxed. If I get sick because of my addiction and I need medical treatment that will be taxed. All the medication, surgeries are also taxed. And don't even get me started on hiw many people are addicted to prescription drugs, which are also taxed No one has a problem with that! Thw traditional way of combating drugs has clearly failed. It's time to find a way that works for everyone. 

 

Zurich is a great example. They have a park called Platzspitz right next to the main train station that was built as a family retreat. In the 90s it became a hotspot for drug addicts and homeless people, with used needles and trash and crime everywhere. Eventually the citizens had enough of it and asked the government to step in. So they opened Fixerstuben, a place where junkies could go, buy pharmaceutical heroin and shoot it up right there an then with fresh and sterile needles. All they had to pay was 35 Swiss Franks per shot. I've seen a documentary about it. They followed a homeless junkie around who had a 300 Swiss Franks per day heroin habit.  After the Fixerstuben opened, his consumption went down to 70 Franks a day, a shot in the morning and a shot at night because the quality was way better and it wasnt cut with the usual rubbish. They went back to see him a year later and he had managed to find a job and a place and became a productive member of society again, despite his addiction, while Platzspitz turned pretty much over night into a family park again because all the junkies relocated to the Fixerstuben. 

[pacovl46]

4 hours ago, wombat said:

To much psycho babble...you stop and put up with the mental excrement that goes with it.

There is no such thing as an ex junky...your a junky that hasn't scored today is as good as your going to get

Sorry, but that's so NOT how it works. If it was that easy then we wouldn't be having this discussion, now would we! 

 

Also, there's next to no "psycho babble" in Carr's book! 

 

Yeah, I'm familiar with the saying once a junkie always a junkie, and while that generally speaking is true, there's lots of people who went down the addiction rabbit hole all the way until they've reached the point where they truly wanted to stop and then they do and they just leave it behind and have no desire to pick it ever again. 

 

The reason why most people fail is because they were forced to stop due to outside pressure and that is usually destined to fail because they key is that you really need to want to stop yourself. If that's not the case there's no point in even trying. 

[wombat]

12 hours ago, pacovl46 said:

Sorry, but that's so NOT how it works. If it was that easy then we wouldn't be having this discussion, now would we! 

 

Also, there's next to no "psycho babble" in Carr's book! 

 

Yeah, I'm familiar with the saying once a junkie always a junkie, and while that generally speaking is true, there's lots of people who went down the addiction rabbit hole all the way until they've reached the point where they truly wanted to stop and then they do and they just leave it behind and have no desire to pick it ever again. 

 

The reason why most people fail is because they were forced to stop due to outside pressure and that is usually destined to fail because they key is that you really need to want to stop yourself. If that's not the case there's no point in even trying. 

From your last paragraph it's obvious that you are speaking from book learning and not your own personal experience...you have no idea what you are talking about 

[johnnybangkok]

16 hours ago, pacovl46 said:

Producing the drugs wouldn't be a problem. Pharmaceutical companies already do that. In the US you have large scale producers of weed who supply the medicinal weed stores. Buying from them wouldn't be an issue. If you don't outcompete the drug cartels in terms of price and quality, you'll always have a black market and the issue that users of hard drugs won't be able to finance it with thwir income, if they have to buy it on the street. What Portugal did was great because unlike in Germany, consumption of drugs was also illegal. Since the decriminalization lots of people free willingly went into rehab because they didn't have to fear being prosecuted for it. In regards to being labeled a drug dealer, how about booze and nicotine then? Every bottle or pack of cigarettes I buy is taxed. If I get sick because of my addiction and I need medical treatment that will be taxed. All the medication, surgeries are also taxed. And don't even get me started on hiw many people are addicted to prescription drugs, which are also taxed No one has a problem with that! Thw traditional way of combating drugs has clearly failed. It's time to find a way that works for everyone. 

 

Zurich is a great example. They have a park called Platzspitz right next to the main train station that was built as a family retreat. In the 90s it became a hotspot for drug addicts and homeless people, with used needles and trash and crime everywhere. Eventually the citizens had enough of it and asked the government to step in. So they opened Fixerstuben, a place where junkies could go, buy pharmaceutical heroin and shoot it up right there an then with fresh and sterile needles. All they had to pay was 35 Swiss Franks per shot. I've seen a documentary about it. They followed a homeless junkie around who had a 300 Swiss Franks per day heroin habit.  After the Fixerstuben opened, his consumption went down to 70 Franks a day, a shot in the morning and a shot at night because the quality was way better and it wasnt cut with the usual rubbish. They went back to see him a year later and he had managed to find a job and a place and became a productive member of society again, despite his addiction, while Platzspitz turned pretty much over night into a family park again because all the junkies relocated to the Fixerstuben. 

I'm not disputing that it is possible for Pharma companies to produce drugs but lets take for example cocaine where it takes over ninety days, around one hectare, and one tonne of coca leaf to produce just one and a half kilograms of coca paste. Bolivia, Peru, and Colombia already have vast tracks of land soley in use for the cultivation of the coca plant (run of course by drug cartels and supported by pliant governments). The investment by Pharma companies would have to be huge but if legal (and therefore coca plant cultivation is legal), it would make more commercial sense to just buy from those organisations already producing the coca leaf. This would then basically legitimise the very cartels legalising is suppsed to stop.

 

It's an interesting conversation and I would again reiterate something drastic needs to be done and wholeheartedly agree with initiatives such as the Zurich example you gave, but I'd also profer it's not just as straight forward as legalising these drugs and letting the free market run amok as when you are talking this amount of money, you may just end up helping and legitimising the very people you were actually trying to stop. 

[pacovl46]

9 hours ago, wombat said:

From your last paragraph it's obvious that you are speaking from book learning and not your own personal experience...you have no idea what you are talking about 

Trust me when I tell you that I unfortunately know more about that subject matter from personal experience and watching friends go through heroin addiction than you'll ever know! That's a fact!

[mikebike]

On 12/16/2024 at 2:21 PM, wombat said:

There is no such thing as an ex junky...your a junky that hasn't scored today is as good as your going to get

That's one way of looking at it. Another is my friends who have been junk-free for decades and living their best lives... Like most things in life, it is not a "one size fits all" thang.

[pacovl46]

5 hours ago, johnnybangkok said:

I'm not disputing that it is possible for Pharma companies to produce drugs but lets take for example cocaine where it takes over ninety days, around one hectare, and one tonne of coca leaf to produce just one and a half kilograms of coca paste. Bolivia, Peru, and Colombia already have vast tracks of land soley in use for the cultivation of the coca plant (run of course by drug cartels and supported by pliant governments). The investment by Pharma companies would have to be huge but if legal (and therefore coca plant cultivation is legal), it would make more commercial sense to just buy from those organisations already producing the coca leaf. This would then basically legitimise the very cartels legalising is suppsed to stop.

 

It's an interesting conversation and I would again reiterate something drastic needs to be done and wholeheartedly agree with initiatives such as the Zurich example you gave, but I'd also profer it's not just as straight forward as legalising these drugs and letting the free market run amok as when you are talking this amount of money, you may just end up helping and legitimising the very people you were actually trying to stop. 

As you've stated, there's already enough coca farmers you can buy from. Not a problem at all. The key is to outcompete cartels and other criminal organizations when it comes to quality and price. The reason why drugs on the black market are so expensive is that you have to produce it, which probably requires some tea money, you'll then have to smuggle it, which costs money, then it goes through numerous hands until it finally ends up in your possession and everyone in between wants to make some money. If you were to plant your own poppy you can forgo all that. Also, heroin can be produced synthetically. Not sure about coke, but pharma already produces medical cocaine. Meth can be done in a lab. Then there's also the option to subsidize it, in case the income from sales won't cover the cost completely. If you take into consideration how much an inmate costs per month, the cost of growing your own coca probably pales in comparison. In the US 70 or 80% of all the inmates are imprisoned for drug related offenses. Either way, the way it's been done so far clearly doesn't work. It's time to think outside the box. 

 

[johnnybangkok]

18 hours ago, pacovl46 said:

As you've stated, there's already enough coca farmers you can buy from. Not a problem at all. The key is to outcompete cartels and other criminal organizations when it comes to quality and price. The reason why drugs on the black market are so expensive is that you have to produce it, which probably requires some tea money, you'll then have to smuggle it, which costs money, then it goes through numerous hands until it finally ends up in your possession and everyone in between wants to make some money. If you were to plant your own poppy you can forgo all that. Also, heroin can be produced synthetically. Not sure about coke, but pharma already produces medical cocaine. Meth can be done in a lab. Then there's also the option to subsidize it, in case the income from sales won't cover the cost completely. If you take into consideration how much an inmate costs per month, the cost of growing your own coca probably pales in comparison. In the US 70 or 80% of all the inmates are imprisoned for drug related offenses. Either way, the way it's been done so far clearly doesn't work. It's time to think outside the box. 

 

You make it sound like these coca farmers are aa cute bunce of local farmers all lining up to be part of the free market - they are owned and paid for by drug cartels and if they do happen to be 'independent' do you honestly think for one moment they would be allowed to remain independent after coca production is made legal? I think you're being a bit naive if I may say so.

 

This also applies to your other points - legalising coca leaf production then means no more smuggling or the 'numerous hands' you mention but it doesn't negate the fact they will still be buying from drug cartels who will adapt VERY quickly to the new, legal model.

 

Heroin is an opioid and therefore in the same group as fentanyl, morphine, codeine, oxycodone and hydrocodone. However, unlike the latter which are all synthetic and produced in labs, heroin cannot be easily replicated in labs (not impossible but difficult) and if you are going to produce it synthetically you would just produce fentanyl, morphine, codeine, oxycodone and hydrocodone. Now I'm no expert but I'm guessing tht since heroin is still very much alive and kicking, it must be giving you a different high to all the other, easier to produce opiods. 

 

But yet again, I don't disagree that something has to be done other than the usual failed 'war on drugs' - I just don't think it's as easy as legalising it all.

 

https://foreignpolicy.com/2011/06/22/legalizing-drugs-wont-stop-mexicos-brutal-cartels/

[pacovl46]

4 hours ago, johnnybangkok said:

You make it sound like these coca farmers are aa cute bunce of local farmers all lining up to be part of the free market - they are owned and paid for by drug cartels and if they do happen to be 'independent' do you honestly think for one moment they would be allowed to remain independent after coca production is made legal? I think you're being a bit naive if I may say so.

 

This also applies to your other points - legalising coca leaf production then means no more smuggling or the 'numerous hands' you mention but it doesn't negate the fact they will still be buying from drug cartels who will adapt VERY quickly to the new, legal model.

 

Heroin is an opioid and therefore in the same group as fentanyl, morphine, codeine, oxycodone and hydrocodone. However, unlike the latter which are all synthetic and produced in labs, heroin cannot be easily replicated in labs (not impossible but difficult) and if you are going to produce it synthetically you would just produce fentanyl, morphine, codeine, oxycodone and hydrocodone. Now I'm no expert but I'm guessing tht since heroin is still very much alive and kicking, it must be giving you a different high to all the other, easier to produce opiods. 

 

But yet again, I don't disagree that something has to be done other than the usual failed 'war on drugs' - I just don't think it's as easy as legalising it all.

 

https://foreignpolicy.com/2011/06/22/legalizing-drugs-wont-stop-mexicos-brutal-cartels/

Again, pharmaceutical coke is already produced, you can just get it from them. And if they can grow their own weed then they can also grow their own coca, if they really wanted to. Stop wasting billions a year on a war you can't win and invest that money in greenhouses.

 

Heroin is produced from opium and poppies can also be grown in greenhouses. And there's next to no heroin on the market anymore because the Americans left Afghanistan in 2018, I believe, and then the country went back into the hands of the Taliban, which wanted to be a accepted by the west and therefore gave in to the pressure of the west to destroy the poppy fields, which they did. Apparently they destroyed 95% of all the fields and since Afghanistan produced 85% of the global heroin, there's next to no heroin on the market anymore, which is why Canada and the US, amongst lots of other nations now, have a massive fentanyl crisis on their hands. Fentanyl, by the way is way worse than heroin because it's therapeutical window, you know, the distance between the dosage you need to get the desired medical pain killing effect and the dosage that kills you, is quite a bit smaller than that of heroin and that's why junkies have been dieing in droves. Of course that also has a lot do with the fact that the Chinese and Mexican cartels don't produce fentanyl tabs professionally like pharmaceutical companies do. So there's inconsistencies in terms of dosage per tab and distribution of the fentanyl within the tabs. So, it's possible that all of the fentanyl is concentrated on one side of the tab and if you need only half a tab and you consume that one, you'll die.

 

But let's say they would by it from the cartels directly, this would cut out all the middlemen, which reduces the price and preserves the purity because everytime it goes through another hand it gets stepped on to the point where its barely narcotic anymore by the time it gets to the user, which is also the reason why junkies have to spend so much money on that low quality sh.t. They won't have to smuggle it, which cuts down the price and the drug gangs in the US would still be completely cut out of the business, which would reduce the crime rate drastically in the US. 

 

I never said my solution is perfect. The keywords are "lesser of the two evils" and my solution is definitely the way better option of the two and you can throw in your ifs and buts for as long as you want, doesn't change the fact.