Drugs - Never Did Me Any Harm!
Most of you will have read the story the death of Isobel Reilly a 15 year old girl who died of a drugs overdose. She was at a friends party. The hosts father went out leaving a bunch of 14/15 year olds to themselves. (I love this laid back attitude that you just leave young people to it and they set their own boundaries.) The daughter knew her father kept a stash of drugs in his room. She and her friends went and found them and consumed them. Cannabis, Ecstacy and Ketamine. Just the sort of thing that every liberal freethinker has stashed unlocked in their bedroom. Isobel died and three others, including the 14 year daughter of the occupant, ended up in hospital. The father Brian Dodgeon, a University Lecturer and owner of the drugs was arrested and released on bail.
You may have also read that last Tuesday Mr Dodgeon jumped off a bridge in a failed suicide bid. He is in hospital with two broken legs.
Now, I am not suggesting that the case to continue to criminalise drugs hinges on the death of this young girl. The case does however highlight that liberal parents and drugs are a dangerous combination. Drugs are bad for you, whether you smoke a bit of cannabis, do some coke or ecstasy at weekends or you are a heroin addict stealing or prostituting yourself for your next fix.
We all have a responsibility to young people to set an example and encourage others not to break the law or do things that are injurious to their health and well being. Parents using drugs, no matter what their personal views, is wholly irresponsible and wrong. It isn't fashionable in today's liberal society, but it is about time public comment and influence on behaviour was reintroduced without the outcry that we should not be judgemental of peoples choices no matter how stupid they are or how much it costs us. People like Mr Dodgeon deserve to be judged.
Not sold, I'm afraid. All you've said there backs up my feeling that the main problem we have with illegal drugs is that the entire trade is controlled by criminals, as opposed to the situation with legal drugs in which the entire trade is controlled by businessmen and governments. We've shoved it all out of sight in the hope it would stop happening and not only has it not worked but we've got children secretly trying stuff which has got Christ alone know what in it, not in spite of the illegality but because of the illegality. Go down to the bottle shop and buy some booze and you can expect that what the label says is in it is what's actually there, and that it isn't going to be bad for you unless you overdo it. This is because alcohol is tightly regulated, which is only possible because it's legal. When the Yanks tried banning the stuff they had the same problem that exists with drugs today - criminals took over and what made you merry one week might make you drunk the next and blind or dead the week after that. By and large that ended at the same time Prohibition did, as did the violence of the criminal gangs controlling the trade.
ReplyDeleteJust so there's no confusion about motives here, other than caffeine in tea and coffee I take no recreational drugs of any kind including tobacco and alcohol (though I used to use both). And if the whole bloody lot were to be legalised tomorrow I still wouldn't be interested. One thing I do not disagree with is that taking drugs is pretty stupid, though stupidity isn't a crime.
So very true but a pity to waste sound reasoning on the bigoted, Angry E.
ReplyDeleteHmm... two words in response to your poke at "liberal parents and drugs"...
ReplyDeleteLeah Betts.
Should ring a few bells.
You could put up a before and after picture of alcoholics too.
ReplyDeleteFew liberalisers say heroin or crack or ecstasy or whatever are without harm. They say the best way to reduce that harm is by legalizing.
Their position does indeed involve quite a leap. What would happen to consumption? Would a lot of people not continue to buy from drug dealers? Btw, few people like them much more than you do.
Your experience as a police officer is as good as any way of judging what might happen. But you need to make a case it would be worse.
@ Angry Exile - of course criminals control the illegal drug trade but I think that the suggestion by drug legalisation campaigners that they will simply disappear if drugs are legalised is naive in the extreme.
ReplyDeleteThe arguement that licensed booze provides a reliable and safe source is disappearing as criminals are moving more and more into the alcohol trade. Millions of bottles of fake beer and spirits are being produced in China and elsewhere and you can no longer guarantee what you are buying. This will happen in the drug trade but the results are potentially far worse.
@ anonymous - just calling someone a bigot without supporting your case is like calling someone a racist or sexist if they disagree with your view on anything else. Grow up and get your own bigoted head out of your backside.
@ Carl Eve - If I recall rightly, Leah Betts died of water intoxification after drinking 7 litres of water in less than 2 hours. She had taken an ecstacy tablet and this may have contributed to her death but it was not the main cause. Her father was not a drug using liberal, but I believe he campaigned against drugs after her death, I never heard him campaigning for their legalisation. So your point was............?
@ Tubby Isaacs - this post was not really about drug legalisation but my next post will put across my views on drug legalisation in detail.
Thank to all! Lex
Late to this but:
ReplyDeleteLex,
In regards to your point made to the angry exile yes, more bootleg booze is appearing; that is more likely a combination of the last few governments attempts at neoprohibitionist behaviour and/or the belief that they can raise the price of alcohol constantly, milking the harmless drinking populace on the very thin pretext of saving a few problem drinkers prone to impulsive, abusive behaviour (which, incidentally are the ones most likely to buy all that doped alcohol).
None of this is new behaviour, albeit they are getting more refined/subtle about how they milk the plebs.
In both cases then it is the cost of drugs being made prohibitively high (in the case of alcohol/tabacco the additive costs of VAT, duty rates and the innumerable other costs of regulations/prohibitory actions above and beyond that to mitigate the negative effects of it, and with drugs many factors above mitigation by punishing users and suppliers so that it attracts those prone to criminal ways) that encourages abuse; as I'm in control of my vices (alcohol and food) I have reduced consumption in both cases and kept quality ingredients; others will choose cheaper options, and others still will choose grey or black areas of the economy to supply, increasing risky activity.
Legalising drugs, getting a firmer idea of tax levels to pay for the cost of people vices and then judiciously spending the money in the best way possible is what is needed; instead the war on drugs is costing us trillions, imprisons thousands needlessly and criminalises the innocent while the guilty enjoy unimpeachable, billionaire lifestyles.
Incidentally your picture above illustrates my point perfectly; undoubtedly the person in the picture abuses crack coccaine or crystal meth - the former and the latter created as a result of prohibitive behaviours driving criminals to create, cheaper, readily addictive alternatives to amphetamine and coccaine.
Sorry for delay Lex Ferenda, been away a lot.
ReplyDeleteMy point was, about liberal parents and drugs...
You're right, Leah Betts dad was not a drug using liberal. He was a police officer. So while liberal parents and drugs is a dangerous combination, what's the explanation for that more high-profile case (especially after what followed her death, and I don't mean her parent's anti-drug campaign)...
that picture is a real eye-opener to show you how much drugs can effect you!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteyour racist fascist and a tory and if you love justice so much how come you have been allowed to write these blogs which clearly need investigating you incite racism you incite fascism you hide behind a veiled curtain that is more than visible to any person with intelligence. Your blogs speaks mountains you are obviously blind to. Your a snob and you are using your police intelligence which i question do you have the right to use in a personal blog on a public site.
ReplyDeleteand if you hate drug dealers so much why are you working for one of the biggest suppliers???????? bet you can't answer that one and i bet you don't grass your own dealers in uniforms up either....HYPOCRITE springs to mind when i read your blogs big racist hypocrite
ReplyDeleteyou want to reseacrh legal drugs and the damage they do, oh but you won't cos the turth night come out and put all the pharma companies profits at risk.. Mr know it all but knows fuck all!
ReplyDeleteThe war on drugs employs tens of 1000s of people..They all have a vested interest to keep the war going which in the real world has never been a war but propaganda war..
ReplyDeleteThat is what you are all scared about..jobs and just jobs.
I often see the way police pour scorn on the addicts that they profess to care so much about and how much of the drugs end up back on the streets after a raid?
anyway what am i worrying about? windsor 2 will sort it all out and drugs will be legalized in the next few year due to the cuts being implemented...why do you think alcohol and tobacco is not worth causing hundreds of pounds worth of damage to peoples houses for yet a weed is...madness reigns all over our present drugs policy..
The sooner we have legalization the better for most but job losses will be large because of it..and the police dont want that so they will continue to cause damage to peoples houses for smoking a spliff..
i do not drink..i do not take drugs but i am not stupid and can see the vested interest the police have to keep it illegal.
The majority of their work is drug related..and the job losses would be enormous..
The police do not raid houses because someone is smoking a spliff. With very few exceptions, drugs warrants are only applied for in relation to dealers. Some bigger than others.
ReplyDeleteYour comments about job losses are ludicrous. Do you think that legalizing drugs will reduce the numbers of people working to try and prevent and deter drug use. Treatment will rise.There would have to be a whole industry providing legal drugs and monitoring supply.
The idea that a huge swathe of crime will disappear if drugs are legalized is ridiculous. Crime barons have already diversified into alcohol, tobacco, (they are legal already) prostitution, illegal immigration, Etc. Etc.
Lifelong criminals are not suddenly going to go straight because dealing drugs doesn't pay. It will continue to pay along with lots of other crimes until we start punishing persistent offenders effectively.