UK: Ken Livingstone 'legalise ecstasy'

[referring to chart by kenzboard]
^I am a fan so this might be a bias but I think LSD should not be more physically harmful or dependence-causing than GHB. I have heard of fatal GHB overdoses but not really for acid..
 
Brian Paddick an outspoken former police chief

Apr 8, 2008

LONDON (AFP) — Liberal Democrat mayoral candidate Brian Paddick is an outspoken former police chief, popular with many on the London streets he once policed, and admired as the one-time most high-ranking openly gay police officer.

The former deputy assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, vying for the job of London mayor on May 1, has made much in the campaign of his practical experience of policing in London.

Starting out his career on street patrols, he rose to become commander for the borough of Lambeth in 2000.

There, he courted controversy by taking a soft line on cannabis offences and focussing instead on harder drugs and street crime. The initiative proved a success and earned Paddick the nickname "cannabis cop".

But his career suffered when a former lover accused Paddick of using cannabis himself, an accusation he strongly denied.

No charges were ever brought but, despite support from local people and even current Labour Mayor Ken Livingstone, Paddick was moved to a desk job.

In 2005, he became acting assistant commissioner for territorial policing, acting as the police spokesman during the July 7, 2005 London bombings.

In the aftermath of the attacks, Paddick made the headlines when he criticised the Metropolitan Police chief Ian Blair's handling of the shooting of Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes, who was mistaken for a terrorist.

While Blair always maintained he did not know about the shooting for 24 hours, Paddick argued Blair did in fact know within hours of the event.

Despite this public clash, Paddick has said he could work with Blair again should he become London mayor.

Paddick retired from the police force in May last year.

Openly gay, Paddick, 49, lives in Vauxhall with his long-term partner.
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This man gets my vote ahead of the other blusterers.
 
brentxzi said:
People dieing from e is a hoax. Ive only done e once and it was one of my best trips ever. It was so good I only did it once
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I can only assume this is some kind of sarcasm? The people who have died after taking "e" may tend to disagree with you on that one :\ See below...

Carsick said:
Don't be stupid, guys. MDMA is not a perfectly safe drug.
Occasionally people will still die. Mostly they'll die because they're too stupid to follow good practice and drink too much water, or take too much, or take it with too much alcohol or whatever, but occasionally people will still die.

No drug is 100% safe. I just happen to believe that prohibition is more dangerous than education and completely banning a substance because a minority are too stupid to use it responsibly is absurd...

Most recreational drugs are safe enough taken responsibly, but whether they are or not, is not the point. Prohibition does not save lives. On average, prohbition seems to do more harm than good.
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You've pretty much covered it all there :D.

Carsick said:
You just made me think of a quote. It's from a recent Discworld novel, but similar things come up a lot, especially in Libertarian type things.

"the system was supposed to take criminals and, in some rough-and-ready fashion, force them into becoming honest men. Instead, he'd taken honest men and turned them into criminals." - Sam Vimes - Night Watch
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If you're qoing to quote, take it from the best =D.
 
lets face reality here , of course legalising ecstasy would be fantastic but in all honesty if it magically became legal and easy to aquire how many people would be burning themselves out every night and abusing it to no end. It would be great if it was legal for some users but the majority would abuse it , it just wont happen
 
Al_S_Dee said:
[referring to chart by kenzboard]
^I am a fan so this might be a bias but I think LSD should not be more physically harmful or dependence-causing than GHB. I have heard of fatal GHB overdoses but not really for acid..
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I believe that the relatively (and quite surprisingly) high placing of LSD in the graph represents the possibility of mental harm that it may cause. Much though most of us adore the divine diethyl, I don't think any of us would be blind enough to think that it is a truly and completely harmless substance. How many burnt-out ol' hippies do you know? I know quite a few. A minority, to be sure, but acid casualties are certainly out there. On my harm-scale it would come much lower, but sadly you have to take the fuck-ups into account for the sake of fairness :\.

As a sidenote, one of my uncles died on acid - way back in the 60s and well before my time, so I never knew him. He could be the poster boy for antacid campaigning: He really did jump out of a window and die whilst tripping. Whether or not he actually believed he could fly at the time is something that only he could answer...

All those urban myths? His fault entirely. They also found acid crystals in his spine at the autopsy...

(I made that last bit up, but he really did go for a Benson on cid. Silly boy. I'm sure it seemed like a great idea at the time :|)
 
[referring to chart by kenzboard]
obviousy heroin should b high on the dependence scale, however i wasn't aware it was that physically harming... can somebody explain??

[referring to the subject of the post]
now im not hating on mdma here, i take it myself, however:
obviosuly, we'de all like mdma legal for quality and safety purposes, however i personally believe that it will never ever happen-ectasy has quite severe side effects if over-used (depression, memory etc.), and when taking into account the fact that use can catch up to u even if only taken once a month, legality would influence more people to take this as their party drug of choice (in preference to say, alcohol) and yeah u can see where im going with this lol, im tired sorry.
 
dynamo said:
lets face reality here , of course legalising ecstasy would be fantastic but in all honesty if it magically became legal and easy to aquire how many people would be burning themselves out every night and abusing it to no end. It would be great if it was legal for some users but the majority would abuse it , it just wont happen
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^^ unfortunately, true :(

u know how ecstasy use can catch up 2 u even if only taking it once a month or so?? is ther any other drug that NEEDS that kind of spacing to avoid side effects??
 
dynamo said:
lets face reality here , of course legalising ecstasy would be fantastic but in all honesty if it magically became legal and easy to aquire how many people would be burning themselves out every night and abusing it to no end. It would be great if it was legal for some users but the majority would abuse it , it just wont happen
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People do that anyway. There will always be morons in this world. Think of it as a humane cull... :)

Would you suddenly start munching an 1/8 of MD crystal every night just because it was legal? Do you have nothing better to do with your days? Wouldn't you get bored? I imagine most people would answer "no", "mostly" and "yes", respectively, and the world would keep on a-turning. It would just become an alternative way of relaxation and pleasure for a minority. Exactly the same as it is now.

I agree that complete legalisation is so far off as to be barely visible to even the most optimistic of lobbyists, but it would solve so many more problems than it would cause that common sense must prevail eventually.

acidicweed_69 said:
[referring to chart by kenzboard]
obviousy heroin should b high on the dependence scale, however i wasn't aware it was that physically harming... can somebody explain??
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Although relatively benign, in a physical sense, heroin (as with all opiates) takes its toll on mental and emotional health - especially in the long term. It is far from harmless, but certainly doesn't deserve it Devil Drug status. Some of the most stable periods of my life were whilst heavily addicted to heroin. Some of the least stable periods were too. As with all drugs, the primary factor for causing harm is its legal status...
 
^ Yep! That's about the truth of it. Physically - not so bad. Socially, mentally, emotionally - a bit of a bugger sometimes :).

spun420833 said:
This is a bit off topic, but I heard it at a party this weekend and just wanted to check. Are the little gangsta kids in london called "chavs"?
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Ha! They'd love to hear you say that! :D

Chavs... KappaSlappas... perhaps the closest US comparison would be small-town rednecks... but with fewer mullets and shotguns. Although that second one is debatable in some areas...

A uniquely - and embarassingly - British phenomenon. Workshy, imbecilic, small-minded, shell-suit and (fake) Burberry-clad mongs. The type of parents who beat their kids if they're not a pregnant crackwhore on Jeremy Kyle for a DNA test by the age of twelve... You get the idea.

I'm sure some of us other Brits could expand further upon this description if necessary... =D
 
^ Well, of course I do - it's one of life's few truly guilty pleasures ;).

Well, up to a point - there's only so many times you can really laugh at the afflicted. You've got to admit that it gets a little repetetive after a while. I think they must have a pen somewhere where they keep all these people and just herd them from one talk show to the next. Keeps 'em off the streets and away from me for a while though, I suppose :).
 
kenzboard said:
Legalisation would be great! It would give other countries more confidence in changine their own (think U.S.) ridiculous schedule 1 drugs that do LESS harm than legal drugs (think cigs and alcohol)!!!

I mean look at this bloody graph!

564px-20drugs.gif
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Where the hell did this chart come from? It looks like it was directly pulled out of someone's ass.
 
I think that graph would also take into account whether or not someone actually sticks around using the drug long enough to cause physical harm, and whether or not the drug is even widespread enough to cause injury or death to enough people. That might explain why drugs like solvents rank low (not very many people actually abuse these things relative to everything else, and most people only try them once or twice, if that) even though they are clearly more harmful in terms of direct, acute damage than drugs ranked higher. GHB overdosing seems to be fairly common, but not everyone has access to GHB -- it seems to be way more prevalent in specific circles, rather than being widespread everywhere. Heroin use is widespread, and while chronic damage from heroin is fairly nonexistent save for secondary side effects like malnutrition, vein damage, et cetera (which of course is also factored in), overdosing seems to be pretty common, not to mention, of course, the aforementioned secondary effects of heroin abuse.

At first glance, the chart seems ridiculous, but when you think it through a bit further, it makes a bit more sense.
 
dynamo said:
lets face reality here , of course legalising ecstasy would be fantastic but in all honesty if it magically became legal and easy to aquire how many people would be burning themselves out every night and abusing it to no end. It would be great if it was legal for some users but the majority would abuse it , it just wont happen
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No more or well not many more people would take it to often it then there are now if it was made legal. Just because you legalize something doesent mean people are going to automatically go out and take it or take more of it. Ecstasy is very easy to get in many areas already. The people that want to get burnt out on it will and the people that want to use it occasionally will as well.

The if you make drugs legal people will automatically abuse the shit out of them argument is ridiculous.

Chavs... KappaSlappas... perhaps the closest US comparison would be small-town rednecks... but with fewer mullets and shotguns. Although that second one is debatable in some areas...
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Chav is the british name for wigger isint it? Im pretty sure chav=wigger.
 
On the side of chav, the word traditionally came from Romani's who would call their children that . I live right next to a town called Chatham in Medway England where there word first came into use as a label for people who wear certain clothes, it's all pretty petty in my eyes labeling people for their image anyway, but read here for more http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chav

Peace to all.
 
You know! I can't wait to get out of here, you from Medway? I'm hoping to get on a volunteer placement to Mexico in September, I really hope it works out so I can move on somewhere after, I really just want to travel around for a while and see the beautiful world not get stuck in one place.
 
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