What's the matter with this world??????

I think it would be better for everyone if all (or almost all) illegal drugs were not banned.

Looks at watch... not yet.

Differences between Medical and Recreational usage aside, the total criminalisation of all drugs is unlikely to have any effect whatsoever on the housing market for "criminal" bigwigs (and, coincidentally, highly-paid sports stars) . Where there's a demand, the (black) market shall provide a supply. At a profit.

If you *really* want to turn decent, hardworking druglords into badly dressed nomads, think about the reverse: Total LEGALISATION of ALL drugs (not just namby-pamby cannabis).

Given the right checks and balances, a properly regulated supply of "clean" (i.e. not cut with toilet cleaner) narcotics would provide instant "market value" and, eventually, drive the druglords into providing other "services" (Guns? Ransom? Fraud? - these all make money for the Bad Men)

I'm not an economist, but you get the idea, I hope!

so you don't think there are any druglords of cigarette and alcohol companies living in mansions.

Oh I realise this is all sort of pre drug legalisation nostalgia, and of course I want stuff to be legalised. But still there are fun aspects to the illegality.

Legal drugs should certainly be banned as should all consumer goods. Then we could spend our money on . . . er . . . hang on a minute while I go figure this one out.

First off you have to distingush between addiction and recreational drug users. Not all drugs are physically addicitve and not all people who use drugs are prone to addiction. Plenty of people go through phases in their lives that involve occasional use of illegal drugs and then they move on. Other people fall into a black hole with drugs and slowly destroy themselves. Plenty of people have a couple of drinks on the weekends or at weddings and live life fine. Others use alcohol in a self-medicating way and slowly destroy themselves. You can't create laws to keep people from hurting themselves.

Yes the illegal drug trade does have innocent victims. But note I said the *trade*. I strongly believe that if drugs were de- criminalized and government-controlled a lot of the heartache, violence and crime associated with drug use would dissappear. Those drug lords and their mansions would be out of a job if people could get safe, clean and inexpensive drugs through other means.

It all comes down to this: you can't tell people what to do with their bodies and their lives. Humans (and all animals for that matter) have always engaged in mind-altering substances and activities. This is not a moral problem. Some people are prone to substance addiction and these people will find their addiction despite the laws (what about legal drugs that people get prescriptions for but are only using to get high? what about cigarettes?). If you want to help the addict focus on what causes them to self-medicate and heal that. Leave others alone.

We all have free will. I have seen first hand how devasting drugs and alcohol can be. When I use them I am making a conscious, informed choice and understand all the consequences. This is my right and my choice.

As someone who needs prescription medicaiton to stay alive, I really don't think all drugs should be banned. Aspirin, coffee, chocolate...where will you draw the line?

I also don't think prohibition has done one positive thing in terms of drug use/abuse. Laws such as Dubya's have put thousands of african americans in jail while their white ocunterparts sit hig in the mansions flogging the crack...

Legalise it, regulate it, treat the problem instead of trying to hide it away.

I think Gale's posts are always well mannered and come from an interesting perspective even when she is saying things I disagree with.

"Hi Dan, you will have to lose a few in your family before you get well versed?? I know I have!"

This is SHIT and this is SICK. Wanting members of another poster's family dead. If you can defend that then you're sicker than she is.

"I think if people talk about drugs there is NO line to cross. They are good for nothing. People who deal in them/ take them should kill themselves fast instead of burning their brains out."

Yeah Gale, what do you mean by "they"? "Drugs" or "people who talk about drugs"? Good for nothing. People who TAKE THEM should kill themselves fast (sic). Yeah Gale, just put pink triangles on their heads and shove them in an oven, why don't you? Don't even THINK about CURING addicts, about REHABILITATING them, about FORGIVING . . . all these essential tenets of Christianity which you are so suddenly keen to overlook.

No, I gave you the benefit of the doubt back at Xmas, but you've used up all the goodwill now. I'm sick of your right-wing bastard child of Falwell/Helms hypocritical poison - and if you're not "real" but a "joke persona" then that makes it 20 times worse.

How many times do I have to say it? If people are going to POST SHIT on these boards then they are going to get SHIT BACK.

Oh, and of course yet again I'll be the bad guy here for pointing out some home truths. Well fuck that. So it's OK to be a shitbag if you're one of the inner circle. One of our "mates"? Fine, then you won't mind if I walk the other way and let you get on with it.

i) their mind might be changed somehow.

ii) your mind might be changed somehow.

iii) they are influencing other people and need to be publically disagreed with.

None of these apply to Gale, I get the impression.

but the nature of heroin is that it pretty much removes the ability to choose rationally, as any ex-opiate addict will tell you. As such its prohibition is more a protection than a denial of choice I think.

amazingly, I actually am in a situation where I disagree with what Gale is saying but defending her right to say it! I am so liberal.

I think maybe another reason people might ignore Gale's "rantings" is that she comes across as a fundamentally nice person, albeit one coming from a completely different perspective than a lot of us. Having opinions different to the rest of us is part of her "charm".

did she actually wish death on a poster's family member??? Now that's not nice at all!!!! :-(

I believe Dan woke up with a pony's head in his bed.

Incidentally, if people wish to have a go at me, please do it on these boards, not via personal email. Thank you.

but whatever.

and that drug addicts are slowly committing suicide anyway so they'd be better off just doing the job properly.

-whether or not she meant this precisely, to claim she was wishing death on anyone seems like a willful misreading of her words. (personally I'm pro-recreational drugs, but Marcello's criticism of Gale seems really over-the-top.)

And I'm still waiting for her to come back on this board to justify what she said.

Mind you, if they COULD somehow take my 'illegal' drugs away (and it will NEVER happen haha), I prob would want to kill myself...

One would hope that her silence indicates that the loony's got the message and gone back to surveying her priceless collection of "beige" shoes.

(and all together now please ... )

ONLY-EVAH-KILLED-HIS-OWN!

Look Marcello, the point is I didn't think Gale deserved the venom you spat at her. She made some emotional ranty points, the character of which I put down to her often alluded to personal tragedies. If she HAD been wishing death on another member of this board's family then that would have been horrible, but as I and others have said, I think the thing about Dan rests on your (to me) wilful misreading of her words. The other thing about drug dealers and users dying is less acceptible, but it's not personally directed and as such is not really much worse than someone saying "Man I wish the cast of Friends would all just drop dead they're so annoying". Or Eminem's death fantasies. Or Cliff Richard's incarceration fantasies. If you can't deal with death being brought up in any rhetorical or flippant way then I understand, but I don't see that as an excuse for picking fights left right and centre.

I don't see why Gale should have to argue back cause if I were her I'd just think "INTERNET MENTALIST" and back off.

Her second response, where she advocated drug users killing themselves, offended several shades of fuck out of me, particularly since her broad definition of "drug user" would have ibuprofen users sucking on 9mms.

If she has the right to express herself in that way then I have EVERY FUCKING RIGHT to respond as I consider appropriate. That, as I understand it, is democracy.

GOT IT?

Your comments on the second part of her rant - absolutely OTM.

Funny, I thought democracy meant government by the people. But apparently it means moral justification for bilious one man armies.

I wish the climate of this thread hadn't turned so hostile because I would really like for Gale to clarify her later comments. As they stand, they're completely unacceptable to me.

The other two I avoid confronting NOT because I dislike them in the slightest (nor do I dislike Doomie if it comes to that) and NOT because I agree with everything they say (I disagree with both of them, a lot), but because they seem to me to have a historically proven tendency not to read other ppl's posts very carefully, or else quite seriously to misread them. Everyone does this sometimes: I've done it, we've all done it, in anger, in tiredness. But the two I avoid straight outright argument with, even when I really feel like it, seem to me consistently poor at this.

This is by no means a crime on their part; nor am I judging them. It just means that I consider raised-voice debate with either of them — obviously I'm not talking about gentle teasing, from which no one here is safe — to be pointless. A waste — to put it in a deliberately self-centred and self-regarding way — of the way I argue, of such persuasive skills as I consider myself to have. This is certainly not altruistic — altruism wd mean me gaining other skills — but it is one way in which I am aware that all ILx is not "equal" in my to-respond-or-not eyes.

I am the deepest, most constant and most accurate reader on these boards, needless to say - ergo: FITE!

Or the other two if one of them isn't me SCANDAL!

reading back, yeah. however she didn't start abusing other posters and accusing anyone who disagreed with her of TALKING SHIT or whatever.

I think people are entitled to express opinions in a clumsy manner or to hold opinions I disagree with. I object to people who post in an aggressive style abusing other posters.

It does all make you wonder, though - what is the matter with the world?

Surely the issue is understanding why people want to take drugs in the first place? (and perhaps it’s something I don’t personally understand, and thus accounts for my views, sheltered upbringing and all that). Obviously, I know alcohol and nictone are drugs that can have devastating effects as well.

Gale misses the point, drug addicts should not be marginalised but treated and helped to control their addiction and to eventually come off drugs. The drug barons are almost untouchable, and the major case for state distribution is that they will be run out of business to a degree, though, I’m sure they will find new markets.

Well, these are my thoughts on the issue.

I wouldn't have bothered starting this debate since I just think most of what Gale said was complete shit. I couldn't be bothered trying to force my opinion (or even outline it), which probably is completely contrary to hers, on her.

Having said that I see why Marcello would get so annoyed.

is the implication that a major proportion of them are though? even sticking to official statistics this isn't the case at all. In the UK there are an estimated 3.5 to 5 million recreational drug users compared to approximately 300,000 drug addicts - which means, splitting the difference, that around 93 percent of all drug use is recreational.

A few years ago, my Dad found his only living relative, with his head blown in half, shot by his son. He wanted money for drugs. He is still in jail now he was 32 or so when he was arrested. So yes I do hate what drugs do. I have a 30 year old niece in jail for stealling for drugs. She was arrested after living almost a year on the street. We know when she gets out she will just do the samething over, as this is the fourth or fifth time for her. She just started as a weekend party girl. Now it's impossible for her to stop. I feel if I can talk one person out of drugs, it might make up for the ones we can't help. I have been called names before and it doesn't fizz on me in the least. For all the people who understood what I was trying to get across, thank you.

Drugs have pretty much destroyed the neighborhood my mother grew up in (which also happens to be the neighborhood I visited most frequently as a child when visiting relatives). I hate that aspect of how drugs are integrated into modern society. I don't think that draconian measures against drug use will make this go away; in fact, I think that draconian measures against drug use helped accelerate the decline of this neighborhood.

I also agree that drug addicts need counselling and treatment more than they need jail time, but I say this under the assumption that their only "crime" is to use drugs. People who steal and physically hurt others so that they can get their fix are criminals and should be treated as such. I don't care what you were on; all human beings should be held accountable for their actions at all times. If you get high out in the woods, I don't care, but if you walk through those woods, come across my parents' house, break in and take the stereo, your ass needs to go to jail.

Right - * clocks in * -

"And are you Marcello a few hours after you have had your anti- psychotic medication?"

Am I what Doomie? Do you mean "mean"?

Current medication consists only of Cinnarizine for recurrent vertigo and nausea which occurs every few months or so as a consequence of cerebellar damage in RTA Oct '98.

Why is "kidding themselves about the nature of their use" "dishonest"? Cannot you accept that the vast majority of recreational drug users experience no problems, undertake no "corrupt" activity? Or is it just "I Dave Q am morally pure and thus sniff upon all others as my inferiors?"

Of course, were you running the world you'd doubtless send them all off on white water rafting courses (for which you need steroids to be any good at). Strength through joy! What a good job you're not running anything.

picking upon/just trying to do mocking isn't good disagreement.

mind u i smoke krak pip in betwen but thas diffrent lik blok sed on club reps trashin the room an expected 2 pay 4 it its just not rite.

What people tend to forget at the end of the day is that demystification tended to take a lot of the mystery out of the whole thing - St Simeon of Reynards.

Isn't knowing that you are kidding yourself more honest than being honest?

Can you just explain what drugs you are talking about here and what you think the major health problems are, Jel? Aside from the addictiveness itself?

I didn't even know there were any attempts at dissing, so don't worry about it.

ia m not gareth but i think tghis is a very wrong assumption. i used to use drugs recreationally an awful lot. and now i hardly use them at all. yes i know a couple of people who have completely messed themselves up on drugs, but actually most pof myt friends find that its a phase one grows out of. and i would like to emphasise that somking marijuana does not lead to shotting up H. DOES NOT. hewlls bells its a completely differnt ball game.

Yes, most REGULAR recreational users.

**but i still believe that it being decriminalized will help people in this position**

No, the simple act of decriminalization will not help people who are already addicts, unless backed up with a program to rehabilitate. I'd make it compulsory as a condition of obtaining free heroin that you go on a program of staged withdrawal and rehab.

And the same answer comes up: "doesn't agree with Dave Q's view of the world."

Try going off and researching your fields thoroughly before forming an opinion. Then consider whether stating said opinion openly is going to do more good than harm. If you have even the slightest bit of doubt about the latter, then keep it to yourself.

Or, as Mr Rowland alternatively phrased it, shut your fucking mouth 'til you know the truth.

Hi N., I'll get back to you on this one...I'll have a look through medline and I've borrowed some books...so I might post something later this weekend. If I am wrong in my assumption then I shall admit to it.

Then consider whether stating said opinion openly is going to do more good than harm. If you have even the slightest bit of doubt about the latter, then keep it to yourself.

Which is good Christian talk. As I made clear, I'm rather convinced that Marcello fails his own test above, but I guess he's the only judge of that, it being intrinsically subjective.

Reminds me of my mum's "If you haven't got anything nice to say, don't say it", which is taking things TOO far!

Yes I’m fine now, thanks for asking – it was all a long long time ago.