No Smoke Without Fine?

Right, it's 1:30am, I'm wide awake and have just been having a cracking little debate with my flatmates about the pros and cons of legalising Cannabis. I realise this is entirely off topic but we've discussed pretty much everything else...So...

What do you think?

 

I'm in the 'All Drugs Should be Legalised, But Regulated Properly And Thoroughly By The Authorities' camp.

 

I personally am for the legalisation of cannabis. Government funded (and subsequently discarded research) shows that it, along with LSD and Ecstasy are less harmful than alcohol and smoking.

I believe that removing the criminal element (the dealers) would save the police millions each year, which could be ploughed into the health service or use to create jobs.

Money can be made from the taxation and regulation of the product, again, this can be used to improve the country else where.

One of the grey areas surrounding cannabis is that there are newer, stronger strains of cannabis being produced and circulated all the time. This is why there is an unfounded belief that cannabis WILL cause mental health problems. The fact is, a statement saying "we do not know how harmful this cannabis could be to your health" does not directly say it will be, it simply means they do not know. HOWEVER, again government funded research suggested that in order to prevent ONE canabis-induced schizophrenic patient, 5000 men aged 20-25 would have to be preventing from trying cannabis EVER (that's how minor the link between cannabis and serious mental health issues is).

Therefore by legalising and then regulating it, the government could decide what level THC (the chemical compound found in cannabis and the element of it which gets you stoned) is contained in each serving. Reducing the fears of mental health issues!

In the words of the honourable profit Michael Geoffrey Skinner:
"How can something with no recorded fatalities be illegal?"

 

In other words you're a Pothead.

 

They should legalise all drugs, tax them heavily, and reduce petrol prices. Everybody wins.

The only problem I have with drugs is getting hold of them. It would be so much easier if you could buy them from the chemist or whatever.

 

The issue with that is: even legalised drugs (methadone for example) are still massively damaging/addictive. Also, how do you regulate an ever expanding market? Look at the way mephedrone swept the nation, new forms of drugs are being imported everyday, how can you regulate them?

 

Genuinely, my mate who is against the legalisation of cannabis said: "smoking weed is an immature, rebellious thing" to an extent he is true, the majority of cannabis smokers are aged between 14 and 22. But I personally think it's because of availability and the element of criminality attached. If I'm faced with the choice of going to my local offy for a bottle of vodka, or ringing up then meeting up with a dealer, the offy wins every time!

 

A fair point well made Jebus, but I stand by what I say.

 

Fair enough! I also believe mushrooms should be made legal and I'd consider a highly regulated form of MDMA. But I'd draw the line after that I think...Marks and Spencer's hand dried Chrystal Meth just doesn't roll of the tongue as well as the others!

 

Since the first time that ape (called Norman) decided one day that he'd had a titfull of scaping his knuckles and decided to walk upright, all his decendants throughout recorded human history have found ways to get wasted. The constant war on drugs by sucessive governments has probably cost the country billlions upon billions over the decades both in constantly changing and most ineffective policing and courts, and the lost revenue stream by not leagalising and taxing it. Readers of the Daily Mail and Express, Mr & Mrs 'outraged from Tunbridge Wells', go on about the virtues of upper-middle class 'Victorian Values' - that'd be having a daily opium habit then would it? People have ALWAYS taken drugs, and no matter what the powers that be try to do, people always will.
I've tried most drugs in my time (in the words of Bill Hicks* - 'never hurt nobody, never killed nobody, never raped nobody, never mugged nobody, went about my day, never lost one job, - had a ****in' real good time..')
That's the one thing thats never brought up by 'the establishment' when they're always on about drugs - it's always destorying the youth, wrecking lives, causing crime blah blah blah (and it does, let's not deny it). But it's never conceded that there are hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people (millions?) who get up each day, go to work, pay their taxes, clean their cars, cut their grass, bring up kids, have succesful careers, go on nice family holidays, live in 'nice' streets, do charity work, go to to church - and do all this while occasionally really enjoying getting completely twatted.
* If you've never heard the great man, go on You Tube and listen to the late great Bill Hicks. He's up there with Lenny Bruce.

 

Look at places like Netherlands where it's legal, the fact it's legal and you can just go out and get some takes some of the edge off having it which means people smoke it less, same with alcohol over there. The fact it's legal makes it seem boring to the younger generations and puts them off smoking, drinking and cannabis a lot easier. Something along the lines of how they let the public have it could surely work over here and save millions at the same time.

 

I'd rather not have cannabis around at all but as it is around and as about 50% of the youth of today have tried it; I think it should be legalized and regulated so the cannabis that is sold isn't filled with loads of rubbish which might be worse for you than the real thing. I also think then age limit should be higher than the alcohol limit in the UK because smoking the stiff early in life does do you damage and there is proof.

 

Eh?

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they should create the drug from the film limitless and legalise that!

 

If they legalise it then I'm out of a job

I'll have to upgrade to crack.

 

Naeomi Campbell got stopped coming through customs once and they found several inches of crack in her nickers!!!

 

Schmoke and a pancake?

Legalise it, would make it cheaper then tax it to high (no pun intended) heaven. Invest that money into medical research. As someone else said beer and ***s cause at least as many problems as weed and they're legal.

Bill Hicks drug sketches were hilarious, also liked some of Alan Davies's on the subject and pub fights.

 

Far more! And i'm a big smoker and drinker, so, yeah.

The only problem is that if it is legalized, more people would do it, and so the problems would incerase, more people would get addicted, and it's not like you can nip out of work for a couple of minutes for a splif, you'd get a little more than a baccy buzz!!

Bill Hicks is funny!

 

Cannabis is not addictive, the tobacco you put with it is. Which is already legal. I used to schmoke in my younger days and the only real problem was getting motivated when karked. I could play Footie manager for literally days straight. Oh yeah and I had a hob nob addiction.