the war on drugs: is it time we admit what we're all thinking?

[PP34]

Was just about to post this.

http://mixmag.net/read/victorian-police-could-get-new-powers-to-search-festival-goers-news

They're so out of touch it's unbelievable.

Would love to see the harm pills, coke, LSD, grass etc is doing at music festivals and compare that to the scourge that is ice. Why are the government and police so determined to act like music festival attendees drug use is similar to ice?

Wouldn't even be comparable yet I don't think I've heard one politician in this state make a big deal about ice.

Harm definitely needs to be reduced, but this is the total wrong way of doing it.

First of all as someone who attends festivals, what an absolute joke I can be stopped and searched despite doing absolutely nothing wrong. Where are my rights?

Secondly, this really is something dangerous. Having been around nightclubs and festivals a fair bit the last few years, this sort of s**t does not help at all. It only leads to more dangerous situations. There's been a s**t ton of GHB use that has been evident the past few years and in the past few months we've seen reports of hospitalisations from bad batches of it. I'm guessing that many of these users are taking it because of the price, inability for it to come up in drug tests and the worry over what's in ecstasy pills. You give the government this ridiculous level of search power and more and more people are going to turn to GHB, a drug that is shockingly easy to overdose on.

What staggers me most is the attitudes towards pill testing at festivals and nightclubs. It's clear the government and police are happy for people to die. It's sickening. If they went out and asked anyone who hasn't used drugs why they never have I'd be staggered if many said it was because of the dangers of what's in your pill, baggie etc. Majority wouldn't have tried drugs because they don't appeal to them.

These politicians and policemen/women are always happy to come out and tell us how they're a parent and they wouldn't want someone telling their kid something is safe. They act like people are calling for shoddy drug testing to come in. Lab level testing is going to be pretty damn accurate and easily pick up substances that have potential to kill people. People will throw away that s**t in an instant.

Go speak to the parents of those who have lost a son or a daughter. See how they feel about you shutting down a clear way to reduce the harm that is associated with drug use.

For *s sake it doesn't hurt to trial pill testing.

 

[BEaston]

Great post PP34.

What a ridiculous measure they are considering. On top of everything you've already posted, all this will do is push the festivals/parties more to the underground. There will be more illegal parties in warehouses, in the bush, etc where police and other safety measures (medical care) will be thrown by the wayside. This will only INCREASE the use of dangerous drugs in life threatening situations.

 

[LFTWNG11]

Great post PP34.

What a ridiculous measure they are considering. On top of everything you've already posted, all this will do is push the festivals/parties more to the underground. There will be more illegal parties in warehouses, in the bush, etc where police and other safety measures (medical care) will be thrown by the wayside. This will only INCREASE the use of dangerous drugs in life threatening situations.

The most ridiculous thing in all of this; the government will consult with health experts - these health experts are essentially unanimous that pill testing be introduced and that sniffer dogs do more harm than good. The government will then double down on sniffer dogs and their search powers... Literally the exact opposite of what they are being advised to do. As always, just follow the money.

 

[Snake_Baker]

Fail a drug test? Prepare to give up the ciggies! pr0n too!!!

This is what "income management" means - this is what happens after ONE positive drug test

How Income Management works

We will work with you to manage your payments, including Department of Veterans' Affairs payments, so you can meet priority needs such as rent, bills and food. This does not reduce your payments, but the way you receive them will change. The rest of your payments will be paid as usual, and you can spend that money as you wish.

Money that is income managed cannot be spent on:

• alcohol
• tobacco and tobacco products
• pornographic material
• gambling products and services
• homebrew kits or concentrates

https://www.humanservices.gov.au/customer/enablers/about-income-management

 

[cannot]

Fail a drug test? Prepare to give up the ciggies! pr0n too!!!

This is what "income management" means - this is what happens after ONE positive drug test

How Income Management works

We will work with you to manage your payments, including Department of Veterans' Affairs payments, so you can meet priority needs such as rent, bills and food. This does not reduce your payments, but the way you receive them will change. The rest of your payments will be paid as usual, and you can spend that money as you wish.

Money that is income managed cannot be spent on:

• alcohol
• tobacco and tobacco products
• pornographic material
• gambling products and services
• homebrew kits or concentrates

https://www.humanservices.gov.au/customer/enablers/about-income-management

lol

 

[Snake_Baker]

When cops finally come to their senses

 

[Fryman]

These politicians and policemen/women are always happy to come out and tell us how they're a parent and they wouldn't want someone telling their kid something is safe.

You can't blame the police. They are just enforcing the law, in no way can they be seen as condoning drug use in any form. I'm sure a lot of them don't agree with it but have a job to do.

Politicians are another matter. Neither major party is going to risk being painted as 'soft on drugs'.

 

[Snake_Baker]

Imprisoning Drug Offenders Doesn’t Affect Use, Study Says

JUN 20 2017, 9:12 PM ET

Sending more people to prison for drug offenses won't have an effect on drug use and deaths, according to a new analysis released this week.

Researchers from the Pew Charitable Trusts crunched state-by-state data on drug imprisonment, drug use, overdoses and drug arrests and found no evidence that they affected one another.

That lack of a pattern shows the flaw in a central philosophy in the war on drugs: That doling out harsh penalties makes people less inclined to use drugs or join the drug trade, said Adam Gelb, director of Pew's public safety performance project, which works to reform state-level drug policies.

"There seems to be this assumption that tougher penalties will send a stronger message and deter people from involvement with drugs. This is not borne out by the data," Gelb said......

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/imprisoning-drug-offenders-doesn-t-impact-use-study-says-n774346

 

[Gough]

Good piece from Jeff Sparrow. He makes some good points about Australian attitude to reform as well.
https://www.theguardian.com/comment...rk-for-alcohol-and-its-failing-for-marijunana

Why haven’t we legalised marijuana already? It’s a question brought to mind after reading Fairfax crime writer John Sylvester’s recent report on Melbourne as, in the words of assistant commissioner (crime) Steve Fontana, “the engine room of the country’s cannabis industry”.

Sylvester takes the reader behind the scenes of the old-style anti-pot crusade being waged by Fontana and his men, as “detectives from the Drug Taskforce […hit] crop houses at a record rate”.

Squint a little and it could be Chicago in the 1930s, with prohibition-enforcing lawmen pledging to take down the syndicates.

“We are determined to break the back of this industry,” says Fontana, like a modern-day Eliot Ness.

Well, we know how that movie ends. Prohibition didn’t work for alcohol and it’s patently failing for pot.

For evidence, you only need to look at the US, the spiritual homeland of drugs hysteria.

In 2011, Alabama police caught a man called Lee Carroll Brooker with three dozen dope plants in his backyard, grown to treat his chronic pain. Under the state’s anti-drug mandatory sentencing policy, the judge had no choice but to send Brooker to jail for life – with no possibility of release.

Yet here’s the thing: even in conservative America, the times they are a-changing.

Eight states now allow recreational marijuana – and many others are scrambling to join them.

That’s because the legalisation of weed in Colorado and elsewhere hasn’t brought the sky crashing down. Those Americans able to buy their pot from a chic dispensary rather than a seedy biker gang aren’t all inflicted by reefer madness. On the whole, the experiment has proved remarkably successful, with no spike in drug consumption, no increase in traffic fatalities, and – as you would expect – a marked decrease in drug arrests.

The Drug Policy Alliance explains: “Arrests in all states and Washington, D.C. for the possession, cultivation and distribution of marijuana have plummeted since voters legalized the adult use of marijuana … saving those jurisdictions millions of dollars and preventing the criminalization of thousands of people.”

So where’s the push for legalisation here?

Sure, we’ve seen very, very tentative easing of restrictions on marijuana as a treatment, beginning with Victoria’s Access to Medical Cannabis Bill 2016 and then spreading across the other states.

But there’s no sign whatsoever of a shift in respect of recreational use. On the contrary, anti-drug enforcement’s ramping up everywhere, as the Sylvester piece reminds us.

The lack of interest in the American example is particularly strange given Australia’s infestation by self-styled libertarians, forever popping up on the ABC to bray about the nanny state.

The besuited young men introducing themselves as “classical liberals” – where are they as the classically illiberal war on drugs drags hopelessly on?

Our inability to legalise marijuana – or even to hold a sensible conversation on the subject – provides a depressing example of a broader paralysis.

Michael Slezak recently published an article on how what he calls “a culture of extreme pragmatism” dominates debate about climate policy in Australia, with scientific advisers tailoring their reports according to what they think might be acceptable to politicians.

If you were to approach an almost existential crisis like climate change in a logical fashion, you’d assess what’s necessary to avert calamity and then work out how to make it politically possible.

In Australia, we do things differently. In Australia, we judge what’s possible and then declare that sufficient.

The “small target” approach embraced by both major parties over the last decades means politicians now see even the mildest change as a terrifying gamble. Marriage equality; euthanasia; abortion; censorship: you can reel off a long list of areas where the status quo’s palpably broken and yet no one seems capable of providing a fix.

Legalising marijuana is the same. The abolition of anti-pot laws wouldn’t induct us into the Age of Aquarius. As we’ve seen in America, it’s actually a pretty small step – but it might spare a few kids from the brutality of the prison system, while freeing up resources that could be put to better use elsewhere.

More to the point, if we can’t embrace the mild and obvious reforms, how will we ever tackle difficult ones?

 

[Snake_Baker]

New Zealand once again proves that it's not as backward as Australia

Greens promised referendum on personal cannabis use - Ardern wants national discussion

Incoming Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will work with her Cabinet and take advice before holding a referendum on legalising recreational cannabis.

She said her Executive would decide when the referendum went ahead and was personally open to the discussion. Ardern said there was a need to balance overly harsh criminal sentencing with the drug's capability to cause harm.

"During the campaign I've always been very vocal about the fact that I do not believe people should be imprisoned for the personal use of cannabis. On the flip-side, I also have concerns around young people accessing a product which can clearly do harm and damage to them," she said.

Ardern made the comments during a press conference to unveil the members of her party who would eventually get ministerial portfolios.

Earlier, an internal Green Party email revealed a raft of policy concessions for the Greens in Government, including a referendum on the full legalisation of the personal use of cannabis.

Read More: https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/po...-promised-referendum-on-personal-cannabis-use

 

[Snake_Baker]

 

[Snake_Baker]

Rates of HIV/AIDS among drug users have decreased HUGELY since Portugal decriminalised all drugs

http://www.tdpf.org.uk/blog/success-portugal’s-decriminalisation-policy-–-seven-charts

 

[Snake_Baker]

Law Student Dies En Route to BBC Radio 1’s Big Weekend After Consuming 2.3 Grams of Molly

Karlie Powell October 22, 2017

Calum Gill, a 21-year-old law student, was hanging out with friends when he began “acting strangely.” Then, on a double-decker traveling toward the festival grounds he suffered a seizure. He died hours later in the hospital after experiencing multiple heart attacks.

Drugs were certainly the cause, as Gill reportedly consumed 2,313 mg (2.3 grams) of MDMA.

Pathologist Dr Laszlo Karsai told the Hull coroner’s court: “Levels above 1,800 mg are in the toxic range and anything beyond that can be fatal.”

The student was described as “on the cusp of life with the world at his feet”.

Source: The Sun

http://www.youredm.com/2017/10/22/l...dio-1s-big-weekend-consuming-2-3-grams-molly/

 

[PP34]

Anyone seen the scaremongering ads from the government on TV right now about drugs?

There was one the other day on about MDMA and a kid taking one pill and dying. Gee maybe if he had access to pill testing or there was some sort of control maybe he would be okay?

That s**t is just a huge waste of taxpayers money and people my age aren't paying any attention to it. Today's government are so out of touch with the younger generation.

 

[Gough]

Anyone seen the scaremongering ads from the government on TV right now about drugs?

There was one the other day on about MDMA and a kid taking one pill and dying. Gee maybe if he had access to pill testing or there was some sort of control maybe he would be okay?

That s**t is just a huge waste of taxpayers money and people my age aren't paying any attention to it. Today's government are so out of touch with the younger generation.

Allowing pill testing is like admitting the war on drugs has been a failure, and a colossal one at that. Governments of all hues would rather see people die than admit that.

 

[Power Raid]

Anyone seen the scaremongering ads from the government on TV right now about drugs?

There was one the other day on about MDMA and a kid taking one pill and dying. Gee maybe if he had access to pill testing or there was some sort of control maybe he would be okay?

That s**t is just a huge waste of taxpayers money and people my age aren't paying any attention to it. Today's government are so out of touch with the younger generation.

yep

should have the ads warning about the risk of man boobs with all the soy milk being consumed these days

 

[PP34]

Allowing pill testing is like admitting the war on drugs has been a failure, and a colossal one at that. Governments of all hues would rather see people die than admit that.

I think up until recently the governments have probably been in denial about the culture of drug taking amongst young people. MDMA really seems to have become big again. Surely eventually they have to come to their senses.

The fact that politicians can't even agree that safe injecting rooms are a good idea says it all. Totally out of touch. The quicker some of these fossils get out of office the better for all of us.

 

[Gough]

Governments have been in denial about recreational drugs among young people since Donald Trump was a boy. It really s**t me when Obama talked openly about his drug use as a lad while raids on weed dispensaries increased on his watch.

 

[Snake_Baker]

 

[Bodicifer]

is it time we admit what we're all thinking?

Fair enough...I dont know about you but im thinking of boobies

 

[JCHolmes]

Its actually very hard not to do drugs regularly in today's society. One cold hard rational look at it as a whole or in parts is enough to want to just say * it, smoke weed every day yo.

 

[Procrastinator35]

The current opioid epidemic now raging throughout the U.S, in claiming upwards of 1,000 lives a week, (both highly addictive & lethal) all comes back to a single family's duplicity, greed & corruption.

Big pharma, oxycontin & the Sackler family (Purdue pharmacy).....Who also traded in Valium/ (A marketed 'cure-all'), which made their family fortune, manufactured by Roche.

This makes the Chinese opium wars look second-rate by comparison....The distributors are every bit as complicit in this societal epidemic.....Deaths for profits.

The DEA was handcuffed by legislation passed in 2016 under Obama into putting a stop to the epidemic.....They are now flooding the international market with these drugs.

 

[Snake_Baker]

 

[roscreasl98]

This is easily the weakest post I've ever seen......

 

[Thats Wright]

This is easily the weakest post I've ever seen......

Anything with bill does get a free reign. Just one of those things.