Decriminalisation of drugs... your thoughts?

[Number37]

You are the only person i have ever heard suggest that we should legalise murder.
Its a slightly unhinged suggestion even as a comparison

But you have no problem with the logic when it comes to drugs.
How unsurprising.

 

[M Malice]

Why should taxpayers fund criminal behavior? They make the choice to take drugs, they accept the consequences. If anything get tougher, if you take drugs you void your medicare and all insurance. If they die charge whomever gave or sold.them the drugs with murder since they committed a crime that led to a death.

The illegal nature of the drugs is what makes it expensive to the community though, through increased tax dollars to provide police enforcement, incarceration and the clogging up of the courts. Treat it like alcohol and regulate it and tax it, a portion of the money generated through tax and the massive amount of money saved policing its illegality could be put into counselling and rehabilitation services for those that struggle with addiction issues similar to alcohol.

 

[CheapCharlie]

But you have no problem with the logic when it comes to drugs.
How unsurprising.

Its false equivalency

There are hundreds of millions people worldwide advocating for drug decriminalisation or legalisation

How many are advocating for legalising murder?
Yourself. Thats one so far

 

[Nuggs Bunny]

But you have no problem with the logic when it comes to drugs.
How unsurprising.

"The logic" does not translate between the two as easily as you might think. I don't believe it's necessary to explain how the actions of taking drugs and committing murder are vastly different in nature, I'm sure you understand that much for yourself.

Making drug use illegal has led to a net increase in drugs over time.

Spoiler: Rates of drug deaths

Making homicide illegal has led to a net decrease in homicides over time.

Spoiler: Rates of homicide

It's clearly not a logical proposition to make murder legal, when the "prohibition" of murder works so well, on the basis that we're also making drug use legal, due to the prohibition of drugs working rather poorly.

 

[Number37]

"The logic" does not translate between the two as easily as you might think. I don't believe it's necessary to explain how the actions of taking drugs and committing murder are vastly different in nature, I'm sure you understand that much for yourself.

Making drug use illegal has led to a net increase in drugs over time.


It's clearly not a logical proposition to make murder legal, when the "prohibition" of murder works so well, on the basis that we're also making drug use legal, due to the prohibition of drugs working rather poorly.

Is legality the sole driver of drug use/supply?

Cherry picking stats doesn't help your argument.

 

[Number37]

Its false equivalency

There are hundreds of millions people worldwide advocating for drug decriminalisation or legalisation

How many are advocating for legalising murder?
Yourself. Thats one so far

Did I advocate legalising murder or did I use murder to show how ridiculously simplistic your logic is?

 

[Nuggs Bunny]

Is legality the sole driver of drug use/supply?

Cherry picking stats doesn't help your argument.

The argument for drug decriminalisation is very simple; the rate of drug use, drug dependency and drug homicides continues to go up in spite of the law and the millions of dollars spent enforcing it.

You mentioned murder (why, I don't know) despite the rate of murder going down and one would argue, justifying the continuation of the current approach.

My "cherry picked" stats (and if you can find anything more broad and more relevant than the homicide rate and the drug fatality rate, please let me know or feel free to post it for yourself) shows the contrast between the two in order to highlight why making murder legal because we've also made drug use legal isn't the least bit logical. You know, in case we also forgot the huge moral difference between a person making a risky decision with their own life and literally murdering somebody.

tl;dr murder and drug use is a false equivalence

 

[CheapCharlie]

Did I advocate legalising murder or did I use murder to show how ridiculously simplistic your logic is?

Your logic failed using that comparison

 

[M Malice]

Simple- Legalize and treat drug dependency as a health issue not a criminal one.

 

[CheapCharlie]

It simply follows your logic...there was a war on somefing...it didn't work because the thing the war was on didn't stop...therefore we should legalise that thing...simples.

You should stop this comparison thing.
You are not very good at it
You choose poor examples and it continues to harm your case against drug decriminalisation

 

[Number37]

The argument for drug decriminalisation is very simple; the rate of drug use, drug dependency and drug homicides continues to go up in spite of the law and the millions of dollars spent enforcing it.

You mentioned murder (why, I don't know) despite the rate of murder going down and one would argue, justifying the continuation of the current approach.

My "cherry picked" stats (and if you can find anything more broad and more relevant than the homicide rate and the drug fatality rate, please let me know or feel free to post it for yourself) shows the contrast between the two in order to highlight why making murder legal because we've also made drug use legal isn't the least bit logical. You know, in case we also forgot the huge moral difference between a person making a risky decision with their own life and literally murdering somebody.

tl;dr murder and drug use is a false equivalence

There are plenty of countries where the rates of murder have gone up or down independent of the law of murder.

That should tell you that the rates of murder are not always correlated with murder laws.


The 'war on drugs' is a simplistic/jingoistic explanation for drug related deaths.

If you care to look at the stats for drug related deaths in Australia they CLEARLY show that there are other things that lead to drug deaths OTHER THAN legality. One thing that stands out is what is termed 'poly drug use'. Mixing drugs. Legal and illegal. Poly drug use accounts for the majority of drug deaths.

If you were being reasonable then you would acknowledge that poly drug use has very little /nothing to do with legality.

If you look at Portugal, the only change in hard core drug use is the support services (safe needles, injecting rooms, community workers)...all of these things can be directly attributed with saving lives. Legality cannot.

 

[Deliverance]

A significant proportion of overall disease burden is cause by alcohol and tobacco. Let's legalise more drugs to add to this.

 

[Number37]

You should stop this comparison thing.
You are not very good at it
You choose poor examples and it continues to harm your case against drug decriminalisation

You don't understand logic.
Stick with the simplistic jingoistic nonsense.

 

[CheapCharlie]

You don't understand logic.
Stick with the simplistic jingoistic nonsense.

I understand logic

What you are using is magical logic

 

[Nuggs Bunny]

There are plenty of countries where the rates of murder have gone up or down independent of the law of murder.

That should tell you that the rates of murder are not always correlated with murder laws.


The 'war on drugs' is a simplistic/jingoistic explanation for drug related deaths.

If you care to look at the stats for drug related deaths in Australia they CLEARLY show that there are other things that lead to drug deaths OTHER THAN legality. One thing that stands out is what is termed 'poly drug use'. Mixing drugs. Legal and illegal. Poly drug use accounts for the majority of drug deaths.

If you were being reasonable then you would acknowledge that poly drug use has very little /nothing to do with legality.

If you look at Portugal, the only change in hard core drug use is the support services (safe needles, injecting rooms, community workers)...all of these things can be directly attributed with saving lives. Legality cannot.

Unsafe drug use actually has a lot to do with legality, because the illegality of drugs makes it extremely difficult for drug users, both habitual and first-time, to access any sort of support service without feeling like they're admitting to breaking or wanting to break the law. It can make people hesitant to use community centres like injecting rooms out of fear that they will be caught by the authorities when they do so.

It also makes it very difficult for medical practitioners to give advice on safer drug use because they're then an accessory to helping people break the law.

So in other words, by making drug use legal, or at the very least not locking up or otherwise punishing drug users, more people will access those support services and presumably, will lower the rates of unsafe drug use and help a lot of current addicts on the path to being full rehabilitated.

What do you conceivably have to gain by making murder legal?

 

[Number37]

Unsafe drug use actually has a lot to do with legality, because the illegality of drugs makes it extremely difficult for drug users, both habitual and first-time, to access any sort of support service without feeling like they're admitting to breaking or wanting to break the law. It can make people hesitant to use community centres like injecting rooms out of fear that they will be caught by the authorities when they do so.

It also makes it very difficult for medical practitioners to give advice on safer drug use because they're then an accessory to helping people break the law.

So in other words, by making drug use legal, or at the very least not locking up or otherwise punishing drug users, more people will access those support services and presumably, will lower the rates of unsafe drug use and help a lot of current addicts on the path to being full rehabilitated.

What do you conceivably have to gain by making murder legal?

Medical practitioners accesssory to law breaking? That is just complete nonsense.

 

[Nuggs Bunny]

Medical practitioners accesssory to law breaking? That is just complete nonsense.

And yet, there's still an enormous gray area over what advice GPs and the like can provide patients without being unethical.

 

[CatFan79]

But if we unregulate murder then murder will be safer and people can choose whether they want to murder or not.

Calm your farm chief, laws/regulations and personal responsibility are not mutually exclusive.

Personal responsibility is trumped by community responsibility.

Maybe in the coddled world of the idealistic Gen Y'er.

Individuals must be personally responsible for their actions, to suggest otherwise is ludicrous.

 

[Father Jack]

The current approach to drugs clearly hasn't worked and will never work so it's well past time to try a new approach.

 

[M Malice]

Psychedelics are non addictive, Psilocybin/Mushrooms, Ayahuasca/DMT and LSD can have beneficial outcomes. Plenty to look at on pubmed.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=psychedelics

Abstract
Scientific interest in serotonergic psychedelics (e.g., psilocybin and LSD; 5-HT2A receptor agonists) has dramatically increased within the last decade. Clinical studies administering psychedelics with psychotherapy have shown preliminary evidence of robust efficacy in treating anxiety and depression, as well as addiction to tobacco and alcohol. Moreover, recent research has suggested that these compounds have potential efficacy against inflammatory diseases through novel mechanisms, with potential advantages over existing antiinflammatory agents. We propose that psychedelics exert therapeutic effects for psychiatric disorders by acutely destabilizing local brain network hubs and global network connectivity via amplification of neuronal avalanches, providing the occasion for brain network "resetting" after the acute effects have resolved. Antiinflammatory effects may hold promise for efficacy in treatment of inflammation-related nonpsychiatric as well as potentially for psychiatric disorders. Serotonergic psychedelics operate through unique mechanisms that show promising effects for a variety of intractable, debilitating, and lethal disorders, and should be rigorously researched.


Abstract
Psychedelics (serotonergic hallucinogens) are powerful psychoactive substances that alter perception and mood and affect numerous cognitive processes. They are generally considered physiologically safe and do not lead to dependence or addiction.

 

[Brunswick Trap King]

You don't understand logic.
Stick with the simplistic jingoistic nonsense.

What in your life turned you so anti-drug?

 

[Mofra]

The current approach to drugs clearly hasn't worked and will never work so it's well past time to try a new approach.

"I would like to congratulate drugs for winning the war on drugs".

Decriminalise, licence and tax it - 'budget emergency' solved.

 

[Herne Hill Hammer]

They are only questionable substances because of prohibition.
Pill testing will at least address the questionable part

This issue is not even about drugs. This is about politics and money and kids will continue to die because of it...

What has the expert panel from Snozz Berejiklian achieved ? They ruled out pill testing before the " experts " could even convene.
Then they stacked the board with the Chair of Liquor and Gaming Authority - Philip Crawford lol!
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw...er-music-festival-deaths-20180918-p504gw.html

Kids will continue to die because they're popping pills of questionable origin, not because of politics or money.

If the government funds a pill testing program for music festivals and a group of mates go to a testing station and they all have their gear tested, if the doctor doing the testing gives them the all clear and they ingest and one of the users dies, then what? Who's responsible, the kid who died, the doctor that told them their gear was ok or the government for funding the program that told them their pills are ok?

Can someone in this thread please step it out for me, in dot point format if needed, how decriminalisation would work, from whoa to go?

Who can grow and supply the drugs, government or private?

What drugs will and won't be included?

Who can buy, what age, how much and what price? Any restrictions at all on quantities per transactions?

Who guarantees the quality, and what does it get benchmarked against? Will we have an Australian Standard with minimum requirements like there is for everything else or will they be assigned a UN number like all other hazardous and dangerous goods and be accompanied with a MSDS?

With decriminalisation, what would be an offence, if any, for which you could be charged and incarcerated?

How do we treat addicts and how many bites of the cherry do they get if they need repeat treatments over the years? Who pays for the treatment?

That's a start, I'm sure other questions will pop into my head.

 

[Father Jack]

Kids will continue to die because they're popping pills of questionable origin, not because of politics or money.

If the government funds a pill testing program for music festivals and a group of mates go to a testing station and they all have their gear tested, if the doctor doing the testing gives them the all clear and they ingest and one of the users dies, then what? Who's responsible, the kid who died, the doctor that told them their gear was ok or the government for funding the program that told them their pills are ok?

Can someone in this thread please step it out for me, in dot point format if needed, how decriminalisation would work, from whoa to go?

Who can grow and supply the drugs, government or private?

What drugs will and won't be included?

Who can buy, what age, how much and what price? Any restrictions at all on quantities per transactions?

Who guarantees the quality, and what does it get benchmarked against? Will we have an Australian Standard with minimum requirements like there is for everything else or will they be assigned a UN number like all other hazardous and dangerous goods and be accompanied with a MSDS?

With decriminalisation, what would be an offence, if any, for which you could be charged and incarcerated?

How do we treat addicts and how many bites of the cherry do they get if they need repeat treatments over the years? Who pays for the treatment?

That's a start, I'm sure other questions will pop into my head.

Pill testers do not give pills the 'all clear', they state that they're risky from the outset, what they do do though is remove the outright deadly ones from circulation. No one is giving them the green light for anything, it's either a red or orange light. It's education.

 

[LFTWNG11]

Whoever is responsible for implementing pill testing will be blamed when s**t goes bad via the grieving family.. Law suits. You'd have to be naive to think otherwise.

Shouldn't happen.

Except there is no legal route the family can take to bring about a law suit that would even have a remote chance of being successful. You need to probably educate yourself a bit more before assuming others of being naive.

If the experts have research and evidence to say pill testing will work - then I defer to their expertise. What's your expertise?