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UK drug law petition

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This brought me and a friend on to a nice little stats debate.
It started with the petition claiming £3 billion on drug war, a year. According to his business class there are 26million taxpayers in uk right now. This is £100 per taxpayer per year. Or £50 per Uk resident (62million).
Now, this source says something along the lines of 48% of convicts are there because of the practically harmless plant, marijuana. So essentially taxpayers are paying £50 each a year, just to lock away people for having a smoke.

I'll also leave you with this:

Every illegal drug user (around one third of the adult population, or half of all young people) is considered a serious (imprisonable) criminal
Click to expand...

E: Sorry, misread it, 50% have consumed marijuana recently before being convicted - it doesn't give a figure for marijuana convictions, oopsy! But it's a nice source anyway
 
I'm currently cramming for an exam so don't have to link you the soucre, but in a nhs survey conducted in 2011 less than 6% of people said they had used illegal drugs within the last 3 months are you sure a third of the adult population uses drugs? I mean sure somedays I only interact with people that are high, but I'm not a typical person. If I had to guess I would say the actual number is probably in the sort of 10-15% range at the most.
 
I think it might be ever? or in prison, i don't know but that's what that cited report claims. (if prison, stats don't match up)
I too was surprised, but 30%... I mean most adults these days were teens between late 60s and late 80s. Prime times for LSD & MDMA use I do believe.
50% of young people? Maybe if alcohol before age of consent counted, would have thought it would be higher than that especially in uk, but without it a lot lower - maybe 3%.

Anyway, good luck in your exam. Hopefully a mod can replicate/move this thread to EADD where the UK people reside. My internets so poor, i've tried posting this like 15 times and still no result, I apologise in advance if i multi-post.
 
I don't know when people start smoking weed normally, but I started in year 12, which by my schools standards was a bit on the late side, no fucking clue what that's like for the country at large. It's hard to say how many people in my school smoke weed, a lot of people would cat tokes at a party, but does that really count? I would say people that would go out of their way to procure weed to smoke or get high outside of a party situation would have been like 40-60 out of a year of 250? If we're just saying anyone that smokes weed ever would have been about half I reckon.

Thank you, it's ma last one, going to picking up an O straight after and enjoying the coming summer weather :D
 
[QUOTE=Okami; nhs survey conducted in 2011 less than 6% of people said they had used illegal drugs within the last 3 months are you sure a third of the adult population uses drugs?

I just don't believe the 6% figure, I discussed it with my kids around the time it came out. Their view at the time was that among their peers around 50% smoked cannabis. Among my peers its much less, but probably around 10-20%. My kids said that their friends probably wouldn't say they used in a survey.
Generally I'd be sceptical of statistics that are released to the public, for instance inflation in the UK is reported at around 3% for the last couple of years, but it's nearer 10% in my experience on the goods and services that people spend most of their money on.
I also think the laws of supply and demand apply to drugs, and if demand had dropped why has the price of cannabis risen so much recently and other drug prices in my experience remained more or less stable, in spite of legal options also being available.
 
You do make a very good point about the price of cannabis rising dramatically compared to other drugs. I have a sibling who is as near as makes no difference a decade older than me and whilst I'm paying 33% more for MDMA than she was the price of weed has doubled. But that suggests that significantly more people are smoking it today than 10 years ago. I wonder what's caused the little weed smoking boom? I blame hippety hoppety music :D
 
I think the amount of people in x year first try weed is pretty exponential between year 11 (16yo) to year 13 (18yo), and then those that havent done it yet probably will at uni. Most people I know wouldn't touch the stuff at 16, but have now by 18.
Saying that, most of those most people I know wouldn't just make a day of getting high at random. It would be at a planned event like camping or a house party. Probably only 20% of the people I know would just be chilling one day, buy some & get high just because.

^ yeah I'd say hiphop helped, and the fact that there's less propaganda around & research is coming out suggesting it is actually helpful rather than the evil we had all been told. That would open more peoples mind to it. But are we really smoking more than older generations? I'd say not really, not in the past 30 years at least but I guess it's just not so hushhush, especially with celebrities basically advocating it.


Thank you, it's ma last one
Click to expand...
I envy you so much, I've done 4/9 A-level exams so far this summer, only 3 weeks of exams left until it's all over!
 
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