Mail link, it's in the Times but that's paywalled AFAIK.
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11296157/Home-Secretary-Suella-Braverman-considers-upgrading-cannabis-class-A.html
No skin off my nose, my drug of choice is Horlicks, but I can't see it being a vote winner. Or a practical proposition.
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Ah, the unwinnable war on drugs.
Might just as well legalise it, control the quality and tax it.
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>> Ah, the unwinnable war on drugs.
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>> Might just as well legalise it, control the quality and tax it.
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The amount of misery caused by the illegal drugs trade could be removed by total legalisation and moderate taxation (not too high to avoid a criminal black market) of all drugs. You're going to get mental health issues with unregulated or regulated drugs, you may as well do it with regulated drugs.
And don't believe a word of those that say the Govt bans this stuff for the benefit of it's citizens, rubbish, it's about control, in the same way licencing hours were about controlling how much people drank. They wanted to ban coffee at one point because of it's stimulant effect.
We even went to war against China to allow the sale of Opium - so it's all down to political convenience.
And it's so hypocritical - there is no call to ban alcohol or tobacco, real killers as well.
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the tories always trot this out when they are losing the plot, stand by for harsher prison sentences to come out
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“it's about control, in the same way licensing hours were about controlling how much people drank.”
Do you think the sale of alcohol should be uncontrolled then?
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>>
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>> Do you think the sale of alcohol should be uncontrolled then?
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Age limit aside, it more or less is.
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Yes, apart from an age limit a licence to sell it, when you can sell it,strict control on it s manufacture and heavy taxation completely uncontrolled.
Last edited by: CGNorwich on Mon 10 Oct 22 at 09:19
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>> strict control on it s manufacture
much less control than once was, hence the explosion in small batch liquor (gin & vodkas mainly) makers
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You still can't make it in your shed though.
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>> You still can't shouldn't make it in your shed though.
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>> You still can't make it in your shed though.
Absolutely you can, you just need two simple to get licences. Most small batch distilleries buy in and use already produced spirit, so you need a "rectifiers" license to re-distill, and fill in an on line excise entry form.
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>> >> You still can't make it in your shed though.
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>> Absolutely you can.
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I remember in the 1970s Boots (The Chemist) would sell you beer home brew kits. The results always tasted disgusting though! (Or was that just my Dad's failure at being a home brewer?)
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>> I remember in the 1970s Boots (The Chemist) would sell you beer home brew kits.
>> The results always tasted disgusting though! (Or was that just my Dad's failure at being
>> a home brewer?)
I think the kits improved over time as did methods of keeping the beer.
We used them in the eighties/nineties dispensing from a 'beer sphere' with a float that meant the tap drew from the top of the barrel.
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Pointless distraction at best, and at worst a rubbish proposal.
Making drugs available on prescription, possibly at a premium prescription cost, would ensure higher quality, minimise related crime, allow identification and support of users etc.
It would be unlikely to increase usage, and may even reduce it through counselling services etc.
For politicians, chest thumping "we are tough on ........" dogma beats rational analysis every time.
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>> For politicians, chest thumping "we are tough on ........" dogma beats rational analysis every time.
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And unfortunately people will die for this rhetoric.
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The stats suggest that there are 1.7m regular cannabis users in U.K. and about 10m who have tried it in their lifetime. Upping it to a Class A drug would therefore criminalise a lot of people. Who have votes.
A lot of teenagers will have tried it. Are they going to be barred from certain jobs if they confess to a crafty puff on a Class A joint.
Will the police have to divert the resources applied to current (more serious) Class A drugs to the new (less serious) one.
I don’t know the answers and I would prefer there were no illegal drugs, whatever Class, being used at all. But in the real world they will be.
Unintended consequences are all too likely.
I suspect the idea will be quietly dropped.
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>>criminalise a lot of people.
Biden is proposing to pardon people convicted for cannabis possession for that reason. A conviction when younger bars people from many careers, policing, teaching etc.
That's if the GOP nutters don't manage to block him. I can't believe they won't try.
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>> I suspect the idea will be quietly dropped.
I believe it already has been. I can't find the link now - it was in a rolling report - but the Guardian 's correspondent states it was briefed as 'no such plans' by Number Ten's spokesperson yesterday.
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>> The stats suggest that there are 1.7m regular cannabis users in U.K. and about 10m
>> who have tried it in their lifetime. Upping it to a Class A drug would
>> therefore criminalise a lot of people. Who have votes.
yeah about 20% of the population have tried it in their lifetime.
Anyone here not tried it?
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>>Anyone here not tried it?
Me. Never inclined to. As a malleable youth when I might have been, the peers who used it were those I avoided anyway. Later I didn't see the point at all. Probably related to the fact that I find parties really boring and avoid them unless I absolutely can't.
I'd make the whole lot legal, with suitable conditions. Proscribing it doesn't stop people, it just creates a lot of crime.
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>> Anyone here not tried it?
Me too; lack of opportunity when I was young.
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>> Me too; lack of opportunity when I was young.
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I worked in a chemist when at school but never tried drugs.
I used to deliver hard drugs, using a " butchers bike" to various patients so certainly had access.
One old dear used to save the almost empty bottles for me to recycle so easy access.
How the world has changed. I used to put my hand through the letterbox and pull the string to open the front door. Sometimes she was crashed out so i was free to swap empties for fresh supplies.
I did have access to Menthol crystals and inserted them in cigarettes and offered them to "pals"
On first trying them ---" no effect ! " but when the heat got to the crystal it certainly cleared the sinuses.
Menthol cigarettes were popular in those days.
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>>Deliver hard drugs...
Just before lock down I was visiting a client and having a tour of their fulfilment warehouse.
They sell a consumer product and some of these are sold via mail order companies. The mail order companies don't want the stock on hand so send names and addresses to my client who then delivers direct to the consumer.
Anyway, the product sold doesn't need refrigerating, so I was surprised to notice a huge locked fridge with a huge chain around it and an oversized padlock.
I had to ask and my guide called over a colleague who proceeded to unlock the padlock, remove the chain and then unlock the fridge.
Inside were chilled supplies of morphine and similar products. Apparently the get quite a fee for holding and delivering this stuff.
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>Me too; lack of opportunity when I was young.
I tried it but don't didn't inhale.
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>>Anyone here not tried it?
Not first hand, but been around when it was used and certainly breathed the stuff. I knew where to find it if I wanted, but never been tempted to try any illegal drugs.
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>> >>Anyone where not tried it?
I didn't try it. Never appealed to me, and not a good idea for members of the armed forces.
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Nope but I’ve always people who do smoke it since I first came across it 50 years ago. Even now I know two occasional users in their respectable retired 70s
You can often smell it from gardens in our street on long summer evenings wafting over the Audis and BMWs parked in the drives.
I have however never knowingly been acquainted with a (current definition) class A user.
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Got dragged into trying it at school but I remember coughing a lot and no noticeable effect.
And not so many years ago tried it again, with the same outcome.
You'd have thought as a hardened smoker (at the time - no more!) I'd have coped better with the coughing.
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My daughter, who was in a position to know about such things, said once, where we were tut tutting over some local drug related crime, that there were many more silver haired cocaine leisure users in the areas than youngsters.
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I tried it a few times, it did nothing for me apart from making me a bit light headed.
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Never knowingly.
I think I have been "spiked" though.
Had a very weird reaction to morphine administered by the Kent Air Ambulance* team and don't like feeling I get with very strong prescription pain killers.
One bank office I worked in used to have cocaine sent around the office in internal mail envelopes (the use multiple times ones). Never interested me and I hate the smell of weed.
When I was very young and lived in a shared house another resident ordered some chemicals (LSD?) delivered on stickers. The git ordered them in my name. I didn't realise what they were until another astonished house mate pointed it out to me. The git snatched the stickers and ran with them. It was the only time that I have put in a door chasing someone - took it right out of its jamb with him flat underneath it. I could have got in to serious trouble over those and he was turfed out by the other house mates whilst I was having my shoulder x-rayed at the local a&e.
*I was taken ill in an industrial premises next door to their depot and they turned up in a very nice Land Rover Defender, not the helicopter.
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Braverman wants cannabis to be class A drug - Robin O'Reliant
