UK - Make legal highs available for sale, government urged

rickolasnice said:
Everything should be legal.

People who want to take drugs can, will and do.
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I agree completely, but, do you think if everything were legal in the way alcohol and tobacco are that more people would start using? One of the most demonized drugs I knew of in my younger years was.... Tobacco! Think about it, we get told everyday by teachers, family, legit studies and our TV that tobacco is fucking terrible for you for a number of reasons... I know for sure that more people smoke because of influence or pressure from being younger coupled with constant and easy access. Not to mention all the ads targeting young people to get people addicted young.

Heroin, Cocaine, Ketamine (of course), MDMA and methamphetamine (obviously) can hold patents. Patents means the tobacco, pharmaceutical and alcohol industries, who clearly don't give a fuck about anything but money, can get control of these drugs (and in most cases are already pretty much there without legal, open markets) so they can use them like they used tobacco, to target kids, create massive availability AND take away the social stigmas that tobacco and alcohol still don't have but all these illegal drugs do.

Could you imagine 13 year old kids having easy access to heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine in small farming communities available like these legal highs from the local truck stop?? It would be REALLY bad for quite a long time. Everyone knows that all the legal drug dealers (hell, even the illegal ones!) are good at marketing and getting their drugs into several (or in the legal case, all) communities.

I do think all drugs should be legal, but I think it should take a think tank of some of our nations greatest minds to try and map out how these drugs could be distributed in a legal manner... It really scares me that something I have been rallying for for YEARS could go through with the absolute wrong precautions and systems in place.
 
No, I don't think that drug usage would increase.. and if it did? So what? Addiction would be seen as a medical problem.. ala portugal.. where the amount of addicts have halved over the past 10 years.

Kids find it easier to get illegal drugs than they do alcohol, because of the regulation.

Drug education needs to be taught through-out school. Then, when you are of a right age, you should have to take a course in drugs, drug safety, minimizing harm, what to do if someone overdoses, etc, etc.. This would then give you a card which would enable you to get a set amount of drugs in a time period.

I see no other alternative. If people want to use, they do.
 
The Economist

Jan 19th 2013 |From the print edition

With reader comments

Psychoactivity
The persistence of “legal highs” is forcing a new debate about drugs policy.

ANYBODY walking into the Shiva Headshop, in the east London suburb of Greenwich, could be forgiven for thinking that drugs are legal in Britain. In the centre of the store, a glass case displays expensive stainless steel vaporisers. There is a vast array of cannabis-themed grinders, bongs, pipes and ashtrays. As your correspondent enters the store, some adolescents wander out, one clutching a discreetly wrapped foil packet. Hanging behind the counter, stacks of these are on offer, with names like “Blessed” and “Iced Diamonds”. On the shop’s website, they promise to “keep you humming all night”.

So-called “legal highs”—so novel and fast-evolving that they are not controlled under the Misuse of Drugs Act—are reopening the drugs debate. On January 14th the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Drug Policy Reform called for an overhaul of Britain’s relatively stringent drugs laws, proposing that “less harmful” new substances be regulated and sold in chemists. In December the Home Affairs Committee called on the government to set up a royal commission to consider decriminalising or even legalising certain drugs. Overwhelmed by the number of new substances and worried about their effects on users, some police chiefs and doctors have also recommended change.
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More...
http://www.economist.com/news/brita...-new-debate-about-drugs-policy-psychoactivity
 
Its use has become more damaging: mephedrone is now injected by some users as often as five or six times a day. Ketamine, a similar drug which was controlled in 2005, is now causing many users severe health problems
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Fail.
 
At least they only compared it to one other completely unrelated drug! Better than... "the effects of bathsalts are like cocaine/crack/LSD/amphetamines/marijuana/mom's-apple-pie all at the same time!!!"
 
dont want to be pedantic here but cocaine and heroin were legally prescribed to addicts in the 50/60 in the uk , after beig made illegal after the Harrison act thingy/ hague conventions that is

and both of these drugs are a lot safer than all the new designer crap coming out monthly it seems
 
edgarshade said:
At least they only compared it to one other completely unrelated drug! Better than... "the effects of bathsalts are like cocaine/crack/LSD/amphetamines/marijuana/mom's-apple-pie all at the same time!!!"
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you forgot the "addictive as heroin and made from petrol" :P
i wish i failed all my classes at school so i could become a journalist for the sun/daily mail
 
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