UK - Kathy Gyngell: Why illegal drugs shouldn’t be made legal

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edgarshade

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February 19, 2014 at 5:05 pm

From the relentless pro-drugs legalisation media blitz of the last few weeks, you’d think this was the most pressing item on the government’s agenda after the floods crisis. It is not. Who is behind this campaign with a Gantt chart on their wall logging the daily media hits is a question for another day.

My worry is why responsible people are lending their names to this “cause” when they are so obviously ignorant of the facts and the implications. I am not bothered about Russell Brand. His petition demanding a parliamentary debate has become the stuff of comedy given his earlier public strictures on ignoring democracy. Beyond celebrity groupies and metropolitan admirers, his erratic and self-serving ramblings won’t persuade.
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Since full legalisation the school situation in Colorado has got worse. “Kids are smoking before school and during lunch breaks. They come into school reeking of pot,” school resource officers say. “Students don’t seem to realize that there is anything wrong with having the pot … they act like having marijuana was an ordinary thing and no big deal”.

Mr Hannan might not mind exposing his children to this experiment. I think most parents would.
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More...
http://www.conservativehome.com/pla...ent-foist-on-them-by-ageing-libertarians.html


Reader comment:
JohnJCMoss
Watching one person descend in to the hell that is caused by drug addiction is enough.

We have never waged a "war on drugs". If we did, we would demand much tougher sentences on dealers - a minimum ten years inside before parole for anybody selling any quantity of drugs would be a good start - and compulsory, institution-based rehabilitation for all addicts.

It would cost, but it would reduce addiction and the crime supported by it to a fraction of what it is today, allowing those who are in its grip to return to a normal life and preventing thousands of young people from falling in to a lifestyle which ruins their education and leaves them potentially unemployable because of the irreparable physiological damage done to their brains.
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i liked this reader comment

RegisteredHere
Why do we get articles from the Centre for Policy Studies entitled Kathy Gyngell: Why illegal drugs shouldn’t be made legal, but never Kathy Gyngell: Why government should really look at evidence before making policy, or Kathy Gyngell: Why do we have so many illegal things in a country constituted mainly of adults and parents, or better still Kathy Gyngell: If government are so keen on looking after our children, could they pop round for a couple of hours on Friday night so I can pop out for a pint?
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Who is behind this campaign? The majority of the people in the world who can use their brains.

Ignorant of the facts? Yes. Not those speaking out, however. I won't even bother continuing.
 
I can only assume that he is unaware of the consequences of Brixton’s cannabis decriminalisation experiment and of the later temporary nationwide declassification of cannabis. I guess he does not know that immediate rises in consumption of 25 per cent and 30 per cent took place; nor how long it took for analysis of this to reach the public domain.
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I never trust statements like this about the increase of drug use. I think they're asking the wrong questions.

Rather than asking people before and after decriminalisation if they have taken any drugs, they should ask people after decriminalisation if they began taking drugs after the law change.

People could obviously still lie about it, but a lower amount of people would be lying undoubtedly. If some journalist asked me a couple years ago if I took drugs during an era of prohibition I would probably say no as it isn't a thing everyone likes to admit to - understandably so with all the closed minded and judgemental people floating about society.

EDIT:

Oh and this:

I doubt he knows of Kelly and Rasul’s [2013] testing of the wider impact of the Brixton experiment. Their key finding was a dramatic rise in hospital admissions of 15-34 year old Class A drug users. They were 40-100 per cent more likely to be admitted during the policy trial – a period in which police were sanctioned to ignore street level cannabis offences.
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So, class A hospital admissions went up. I wouldn't necessarily relate this to cannabis. This could just be more people willing to go to hospital over drug use in the hope they would be stigmatised less. Many people have medical problems related to unsafe drug use practice and they're too worried about getting help because they either:

a) Get into legal bother
b) Get branded a junky
 
The Centre for Policy Studies believes in freedom and responsibility. One of Britain’s best known and most respected think tanks, the Centre develops and promotes policies to limit the role of the state...
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Whoops, looks like they let the wrong person write an article for them... how ironic!
 
With the exception of a rare case every so often, I've spent ample time among ample Conservatards to resign myself to the belief that I'm more likely to run into Bigfoot than change their narrow-minded views on pretty much anything.

Note to self: If you can't get them to believe the earth isn't flat (as was the case with one of my older relatives - may he RIP), don't bother investing energy in trying to explain that such a complex issue - drug addiction & the war on drugs - cannot be solved by a simple solution (e.g. banning and trying to control the flow of almost every recreational drug - many times without studying the long term effects - and locking users and dealers up in hopes that they'll learn their lesson).
 
Watching one person descend in to the hell that is caused by drug addiction is enough.

We have never waged a "war on drugs". If we did, we would demand much tougher sentences on dealers - a minimum ten years inside before parole for anybody selling any quantity of drugs would be a good start - and compulsory, institution-based rehabilitation for all addicts.

It would cost, but it would reduce addiction and the crime supported by it to a fraction of what it is today, allowing those who are in its grip to return to a normal life and preventing thousands of young people from falling in to a lifestyle which ruins their education and leaves them potentially unemployable because of the irreparable physiological damage done to their brains.
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* sigh * Johny Boy.. the dealers who get caught are addicts so much of the time.. Your right crazy insane sentencing has done so much good in the past we should go even farther.. WE WILL WIN THIS WAR OR LOCK EVERYONE UP FOREVER TRYING!! If you think this " irreparable physiological damage done to their brains." is such a barrier to employment you should try getting a job with a record from your utterly failed drug war. sure dealers learn their lesson they learn that only the soldiers and addicts get caught with any regularity.. often they come out of jail a changed man or woman.. ready to take on the world.. then they realize that they were never treated for their addictions and realize that they are now permanently branded as criminals for life and the vast majority of jobs available to them are only called jobs because its illegal to call them slaves. Read a report the other day BY A GOVERNMENT CORRECTIONAL body in the US that stated that the number one determining factor on whether a offender reoffends is weather they can find employment.. it also said that in their county over 50% percent of the inmates released in the last three years were unemployed and that for the ones working the average salary was below 10000 per year, which in my book is slave labor where the slave is responsible for their own housing and food. Kinda funny they "wonder" why criminals dont learn their lesson.. its because by the time they do its way to late and they are already part of the feed its self for eternity justice and prison system. If you leave people who have served their time options like these and a the return to a lifestyle like this.. WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK IS GOING TO HAPPEN? Your right exactly what they want... once in the system always in the system.


Also I wonder why I seem so much more educated than you johnny.. the ignorance is strong with this one.

Oh and johnny how are you going to catch all the drug dealers if you dont convince all the snitches to do all the work needed by letting them off light.. hell the cops gave this fight up a long time ago.. they just keep flipping addicts with the promise of more active use if they go find enough people for them to bust to ask for continued funding of their jobs.

I love how we see these investigations that have been going on for two years with such clever names... operation frost bite, well I can tell you no cop got frost bite if it took them two years to take down sixty petty drug dealers in a metropolitan area..they probably spent more time on developing the colorful language and wording of the report so it can fool the absolutely gullible politicians that they are "taking a bite outta crime" so they they can justify the absurd amount of cash they waste making no difference at all except in their pocket books and pensions.. its all an act and they know it. They are there to round up enough drug dealers to fill the prisons and put fancy names on it to fool the politicians who aren't crooked. Mean while all the drugs are still there and nothing changes unless it get worse.

Sorry my rant was about the damn drug war in the states... do you guys have permanent criminal records for drugs as well?
 
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S.J.B. said:
The Centre for Policy Studies believes in freedom and responsibility. One of Britain’s best known and most respected think tanks, the Centre develops and promotes policies to limit the role of the state...

Whoops, looks like they let the wrong person write an article for them... how ironic!
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That is so many shades of awesome it's not funny :D
 
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