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  • EADD Moderators: Pissed_and_messed | Shinji Ikari

Prohibition - "The edifice is crumbling"

I

Ismene

Bluelighter
Joined
Jun 17, 2005
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13,158
Crumbling like Apple Crumble. Amen.

We are seeing a dramatic shift in favour of drug decriminalisation and unlocking the therapeutic potential of psychedelics.

The past two months have been an incredibly busy and productive time for global drug policy reform and scientific research into psychedelic drugs. Never in my 15 years as director of the Beckley Foundation have I seen such rapid progress in these complementary fields.

Earlier this week, Imperial College and the foundation hosted a forum on psychedelic drugs research, which discussed the breakthroughs that have been made by our organisations' research programme and heard presentations from scientists from around the world. And in April, the three-day Psychedelic Science Conference took place in San Francisco, also co-hosted by the Beckley Foundation.

At last the potential value of these compounds is beginning to be explored. Not only are they gateways to understanding consciousness itself, they also – alone or as aids to psychotherapy – open up valuable new avenues of treatment for many human ills, including depression, cluster headaches, anxiety, addiction and post-traumatic stress disorder. After many years in the darkness, we are finally starting to uncover the potential of these compounds, which inter-relate with human neurochemistry so intimately that they bring about radical changes in consciousness that – with careful handling – can be channelled into treating disease and transforming awareness.
....
We need to remember that, according to the UN's estimates, only 5% of the world's population use drugs and fewer than 12% of those become problem users. Drug misuse needs to be treated as a health problem. People who use drugs without causing harm to others should no more be criminalised than moderate users of alcohol.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2013/jun/14/edifice-drugs-prohibition-crumbling
 
itmust be a generational thing I think, finally some more enlightened people getting into position to alter things....maybe...
 
Dunno 'bout that, Ceres. We've had generational changes for decades but this really does feel different of late. You can just kinda sense it in the air. Things need to change sooner rather than later and essentially everybody can see that now. it's mostly just a case of making it seem like this was a part of the plan all along.
 
amanda put some shelves up;.


*fetches coat*


south america is going to lead the way maybe
 
You know why this is happening now, right? It's money isn't it? Times are lean averywhere, not least of all in developing countries. Even here in the West, people are beginning to see how a global, regulated & controlled susbtance economy could spin billions into the ailing global economy. This isn't some altruistic move by the powers that be, it's dollar signs they're seeing, I can assure you.

Still, catch while catch can! Hahahaha!
 
Agreed. The prospect of regulation will be appealing, but also the present costs associated with enforcement are huge.

The economic argument has been made for years, but I think more people are listening in times of financial hardship.
 
Lol ^

The snowball has been rolling for fucking decades, now it is seriously picking up momentum. I'm reading a book by BBC foreign correspondent John Simpson written before Sept 11th & he describes his experiences reporting from a Columbian cocaine market. I paraphrase...

"... it might seem like a half-hearted attempt by South American countries to shift the blame by accusing consumer countries of complicity in the drugs trade but after spending many, many years reporting from producer countries not just in South America, I have to agree."
 
South America helps supply the largest market in illegal drugs, the USA, & that makes them pretty influential.
 
^ And haven't a few SA countries started to decriminalise personal quantities of drugs? Definitely heard rumblings from that part of the world that they ain't happy to just play along with the US WoD policy. Especially as they bear the brunt of it :\

Ceres said:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23703-new-zealand-law-permits-low-risk-designer-drugs.html
Click to expand...

Very interesting. Probably also very good news but is gonna be hard to tell until we see how the manufacturers respond. I'd like to think that the more responsible ones will take the chance to go totally legit but have a strong suspicion that most will have no interest in spending a fortune on safety testing when they can still sell their products in NZ as they do at the moment :\

Maybe if several got together and shared the costs of investment... Will be interesting to see how that pans out though and good on NZ for having the balls to try something different :)
 
Maybe I'm just a cynical cunt, but I really can't see any full legalisation happening within my lifetime. Maybe cannabis might get decriminalised, but even then I doubt we'd see anything like the Dutch coffeeshops or the Spanish cannabis clubs. I'm pretty sure they don't have anything along those lines in the states were its legal in the USA (for recreational users, obviously there's the dispensarys)
 
What I've always wondered is, if drugs are legalised by a certain country, what happens to all those incarcerated for drug offences in that country? They'd have to all be released at once right?
 
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