I know this clip is 6 months old, but if I have ever have the opportunity to cause Peter Hitchens some disadvantage I shall seize it with both hands.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDtIZZiySgA
What an utter, utter pfd
Last edited by: VxFan on Mon 19 May 14 at 01:45
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Sweet little piece of crap, isn't he?
Alas though, that line is a majority line. I'd be willing to bet more people on this site agree with him than disagree.
Not many ordinary citizens know much about this sort of thing. Superstition and hysteria rule. Huge resources have been devoted to keeping things like that for a century. And very few people are capable of reaching a sound opinion on their own.
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Right on every point AC.
Hitchens is an anagram of the king who got his feet wet for sure.
And if you are to proscribe use of certain drugs for recreational purposes then logically the first thing you need is deterrence at some points in the chain of supply and consumption, so in that respect I agree with him.
But a study of Prohibition in the USA might be instructive. There were more saloons in New York during it than prior. By 1927, after only 7 years of it, there were according to life insurers more people dying of alcohol related disease than ever. A multi billion dollar industry was handed over to the control of ruthless mobsters. The analogy is not perfect but the parallels are inescapable.
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My view of drugs is that legalisation will never happen as too many politicians are paid by the illegal industry to preserve their business i.e keep drugs illegal...
It makes sense...
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>But a study of Prohibition in the USA might be instructive.
I've said it before, one cannot control anything by attempting to restrict supply. Not during Prohibition, not drugs, not sex, not porn, not nuffin.
So, if the world wants to solve the drug problem, if indeed it believes that it both has one and needs to;
First legalise it because instantly the big profits will disappear and a huge covert distribution approach is no longer needed or fundable.
Second, attack drugs as smoking has been attacked.
Third, help people give up with whatever support seems to work.
Fourth, tax it.
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>>Fourth, tax it.
No. Make it free. To registered users. Turning up to clean sterile drug units and shooting up.
Anybody know how much the nation spends on treating overdoses? The US is apparently USD1.2bn.
Anybody know how much damage is done by drug addicts getting the cash for their next hit? I've no idea, but a broken window and a nicked stereo will cost an insurance company £1,000 for the sake of a £20 hit.
£200m of electricity is stolen annually for growing cannabis.
Eliminate the drug trade and you eliminate all that. Moreover, you can pay the Afghans to grow opium poppies - pretty much the only thing that grows there - and you'll be paying them more than the gangs pay them, and prosperity drives peace (look at Northern Ireland).
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prosperity drives peace (look
>> at Northern Ireland).
>>
I also look at the other side of that; cold-blooded murderers given a veneer of respectability.
The only saving difference being that Adams, McGuinness and co. at least did it for "the cause" which they genuinely believe in and are now putting their energy into making Ireland a better place. I don't think the drug barons tend to be that public-sprited.
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>>cold-blooded murderers given a veneer of respectability.
In fact, utter scumbags now treated as human beings for the sake of peace.
However annoying and galling that is, and I find it very much so, it is perhaps one of the lower prices of peace.
>>that Adams, McGuinness and co. at least did it for "the cause"
I don't think they even had that. That was just part of their spiel.
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>> >>cold-blooded murderers given a veneer of respectability.
>>
>> In fact, utter scumbags now treated as human beings for the sake of peace.
>>
>> However annoying and galling that is, and I find it very much so, it is
>> perhaps one of the lower prices of peace.
It's the very definition of a peace treaty. You end up with people who were your implacable enemies having dinner and shaking hands with your head of state.
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>> >>that Adams, McGuinness and co. at least did it for "the cause"
"the cause" was personal power, status, control and money. On both sides.
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>
and prosperity drives peace (look
>> at Northern Ireland).
Err bad example. Peace drives prosperity. No-one invests anything if its going to get blown up.
Last edited by: Zero on Tue 15 Apr 14 at 23:33
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>> Err bad example. Peace drives prosperity. No-one invests anything if its going to get blown
>> up.
>
Symbiotic I think Peace drives prosperity but peace and employment opportunity, fairly divided, break barriers and spread peace.
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>>Peace drives prosperity.
Other way round. Unemployed people pick fights. Employed people are generally (miners excepted) too busy with their jobs and life to get into a fight.
Without prosperity, no possibility of peace.
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>> >>Peace drives prosperity.
>>
>> Other way round. Unemployed people pick fights. Employed people are generally (miners excepted) too busy
>> with their jobs and life to get into a fight.
>>
>> Without prosperity, no possibility of peace.
Without peace no possibility of prosperity.
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Thee are many peaceful countries that aren't prosperous. I am unaware of any strife torn nation that is prosperous. Peace is therefore essential for prosperity but not necessarily a precursor to its achievement.
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>> I am unaware of any strife torn
>> nation that is prosperous.
>>
Lebanon was often said to be the exception. But that was probably only in relative terms, and only when mildly strife-torn.
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>>Without peace no possibility of prosperity.
Quite the reverse. One can make a fortune out of war, and many people do.
However, with prosperity comes a decreasing need to take from others, and thus peace.
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www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/10768847/Even-casual-use-of-cannabis-alters-brain-warn-scientists.html
You really happy to legalise it?
I'm playing devil's advocate I know, as I can see the merits in the legalise it argument ..but.. there's no easy answer.
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>> You really happy to legalise it?
My own eye was drawn instantly to that story Wp. But it's the usual vague balderdash, the research done and its result publicised under pressure from the usual malevolent twonks.
Just think about it a moment: would anyone bother to smoke dope if it didn't have psychotropic effects? That's what it's for. The worst thing about it is the smoke, which is bad for the lungs.
I agree though that it isn't good for young adolescents, let alone children, to jump the gun on this one, or on alcohol or any other drug. It's better to be more or less grown-up first, to the extent anyone ever is grown-up. But owing to the moronic public discourse on drugs, of which that piece is a typical example, there's no proper information let alone 'control'.
I don't mind the US being idiotic but I find it sad that our own great and good run along behind it wagging their dirty silly tails and yapping pathetically about 'signals'.
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Have we not had this same discussion some years ago?
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>> had this same discussion some years ago?
Seems to me we have it about every twenty minutes.
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>>You really happy to legalise it?
Yes.
If it needs dealing with, resolving, helping, managing, whatever then it needs to be above ground and visible.
Driving it underground and trying to force it to stop by telling it to simply results in it hiding and breeding.
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>> >>Without peace no possibility of prosperity.
>>
>> Quite the reverse. One can make a fortune out of war, and many people do.
Usually controlled and financed from an area of peaceful prosperity.....
Last edited by: Zero on Wed 16 Apr 14 at 11:53
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I can honestly say that I have never been offered ,or wanted to try, any mind altering drug - I would not recognise the smell of cannabis - other than a mild ingestion of alcohol.
Even then it is always in moderation, as I hate the sensation of not being in control of myself and my actions.
Last edited by: Pigs-Might-Fly on Wed 16 Apr 14 at 14:40
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I've taken lots in my day Rastaman, and I can say hand on heart that the only one that has ever made me lose control of 'myself and my actions' is alcohol.
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Drug Addiction / Courts - Armel Coussine
