I once had/came across a lot of money, all in reds. Anyway, I thought I'd help the homeless, at least you can see exactly where your money goes. After his disbelief - I watched the £50 enter the off liscence come out as a 4 pack of super stregth beer (I'd say there was still about £45 left). I then watched the guy go to the phonebox and make 2 phone calls. One car pulled up and £25 was passed through the window (probably got 3 £10 bags of H for £25). Then a 2nd car pulled up and the last of my £50 was passed over. I'm gussing he bought a £20 bit of crack. So rather than give it to the government - I watched first hand exactly where my money went Not advisable for obvious reasons, but there is a damn good chance his life has ended up like that due to our government.
He probably OD'd after taking that lot and so you might have killed him with kindness, you evil twat Govt's don't force people to become smack rats btw mate.
Of course they don't. But governments have a responsibility for everyone within their jurisdiction, not just the favoured ones. In the case of poverty, it's a responsibility they continually abrogate by allowing charities to attempt to solve a problem which shouldn't even exist in a wealthy country. Charities can only ever scratch the surface of these problems- they will continue until there is a change of heart and government makes a serious effort to tackle them. Of course, the only way to do this is with a fairer distribution of the nation's wealth, so don't expect any change there. The fact that there is so much poverty worldwide is shameful, the fact that there is so much economic inequality within the richest countries in the world is inexcusable.
Obviously not directly, but I think you'll find indirectly they contribute to the downfall of many peoples lives. Which sometimes leads to drug addiction, alcoholism, crime, poverty etc. etc.
Social experiments are all fine. Free and open choice at all times. And yes tobes government create conditions for things to happen positive and negative.
A Govt's policies can cause hardship and depravation, of course they can, but people who use that as an excuse for drug habits and alcohol abuse get on my tits personally. We've all got a story and most of us have had times in our lives when things have gone severely breasts skywards, but we fight back get our lives back on track and move on. People who take **** do so at the start due to their own free will. It's not as if anyone is ignorant to the fact that smack is highly addictive, they start taking it for the buzz and then are hooked, but at the outset they have a choice and no Govt there's ever been is directly responsible for that choice.
No but the state of the places some folks live hopelessness is a big factor And we allow pushers get them young rather than be a police state and push back I think if you wanted a proper police force it'd be 5 times bigger than today to put a copper on every corner and genuinely police Some if England's finest things are Victorian institutions such as library's etc.... Yet they had serious drugs problems then....
You could have a copper on every corner and people would still take smack. The argument that it's society's problem to sort, excuses them their personal responsibility and it's this entire mindset and the culture that it then creates, that's lead to so many people in our society failing to take responsibility for their own lives and actions and seek to blame whoever they can point a finger at, rather than looking in the mirror
Any money raised for charity in the current climate is vastly reduced when passed to the cause it was donated for because all charities are fighting to survive. There is very little funding available out there unless you are working towards the worklessness agenda. Basically, all the government is interested in at the moment is saving money. By offering funds towards worklessness (this could be getting people into work or assisting new businesses to start up) they are aiming to reduce the benefits bill AND raise the taxable income too. There is very little other funding available so the knock on effect is that all the charities out there are left to fight it out over what pittance there is left. It also means that whatever funding is available, applications are manipulated to get the best use out of them via recycling the funds (ie, covering a service they already offer so that the funds that usually cover that cost are available for running costs). The intention of the money is for one thing and monitoring records will show that the money as achieved that target without showing what would have been achieved had that money not been available. It as been like this for the last four or five years. A hell of a lot of the voluntary sector as fallen by the wayside too, some of them very large well known organisations. My work as limped along getting bits here and there but we are on our last legs. We have used up all the reserves we had built up and if we don't get money in before Christmas I'll be looking for a new job come the new year. The local councils are experiencing cuts in funding at government level too so they are no longer in a position to help. One of the local councils has had to reduce their outgoings (of around £500m) by £177m! Thats a 35% cut and I'm only talking about the first year. there are further cuts being implemented next year and if the current Government remain in place, the budget shows a third cut in a couple of years time. This is effecting things such as care homes, public transport and health! I know the financial position of this country is in a state but the sooner this government is ****ed off the better!
This is interesting reading re legalisation of drugs... http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/drug...rug-policy-david-nutt-522?utm_source=vicefbuk A Drug-by-Drug Guide to a Rational UK Drugs Policy November 12, 2014 by Ben Bryant Share Tweet ​ Last week, Home Office minister Norman Baker resigned from his role after arguing that the government should base its drug policy on evidence drawn from a government-commissioned report. You know, rather than on the whims and hunches of politicians. The study, written by civil servants in the Home Office, showed that criminalising drug possession had no impact on levels of drug use, but the Prime Minister's office said a policy of decriminalisation was "reckless", and Baker – sick of the lack of support for "rational, evidence-based" drug policy – made for the door. It was the same story that played out in 2009, when David Nutt – then-chief drug advisor to the UK government – was kicked out of his role as chair of the Advisory Council for Misuse of Drugs after saying that cannabis, LSD and ecstasy are less dangerous than alcohol or cigarettes, which they are. Reacting to Norman Baker's resignation, Nutt told me, "I kind of thought, 'If the minister himself cannot effect change, I was pissing in the wind, wasn't I?' It sums up the problem. Scientists can't make things change, politicians can't make things change. This is a monolith." It's easy to forget that a rational drug policy would be a holistic thing, but what would that policy actually look like? I asked Nutt – a leading neuroscientist and Imperial College professor who's just completed the first ever brain-imaging study of LSD – to recommend an evidence-based policy for every drug you're ever likely to take. But first, here are the basics: Decriminalise possession ​ David Nutt says, "Using drugs can be a rational choice, a bad choice, or in cases of addiction, a very constrained choice. It is never a crime. Therefore, no criminal sanctions for drug possession and use." But it can't just be a free-for-all ​ Just because you're not throwing drug users in prison doesn't mean they're totally uncontrolled. "Drug products, like other risky products, need to be manufactured and sold in ways that manage those risks. Therefore, drug-specific regulations are needed – from light-touch rules to strict pharmacy-only access." Keep unregulated dealing to a minimum ​ Nutt is not the dealer's friend: "Personal allowances and administrative penalties for exceeding these may be needed for some drugs, to limit the volumes of drugs in black markets." No cool packaging or adverts ​ It's difficult to be "rational" about drugs if you're being blasted with adverts implying that taking pills will definitely help you make friends. "Addiction is an enemy of health and freedom as much as prohibition is," says Nutt. "There must be no room for creating profit at the expense of health and choice. Therefore, prohibitive controls must be targeted at corporations, not consumers, with total bans on the marketing and advertising of products with more than a very low potential to be dependence-forming." And now that evidence-based drug-by-drug drug policy. ALCOHOL ​ Put down your can and get reacquainted with your local, assuming it hasn't already closed down. "The massive increase in alcohol harm has been driven by availability in supermarkets in the 1960s and 70s," says Nutt. So the best course of action here would be to reclassify alcohol as a licensed drug – i.e. only available to buy in pubs and other licensed premises, but not supermarkets. CANNABIS "Cannabis, frankly, I think you could just sell in cafes like in Amsterdam," says Nutt. So look forward to a proliferation of German teenagers on their first overseas voyage sloping around Edinburgh with barely-open eyes trying to avoid being run over by the tram. MDMA ​You would legally be allowed to get really ****ing blissed out and end up snuggling your friends in the bath, but not every single weekend – just most of them. It would be sold over-the-counter in pharmacies and maybe clubs, with regulated access, and a personal allowance of about 50 doses per year. KETAMINE For the sake of keeping the nation's collective bladder healthy and functional, K would be entirely unavailable, or possibly regulated as a pharmacy-only medicine in limited amounts, with a daily maximum of one gram. "Ketamine's a particular problem because when they moved it from [class] C to B they also brought in hundreds of ketamine analogues, many of which have never been made. It's possible there are many safer ketamine-like drugs, but we'll never be able to find them now because they've all been made massively illegal," says Nutt. COCAINE ​ Also wiped out entirely, because it's not as good as people tend to think. "If we had proper access to drugs like MDMA, mephedrone... stimulants of that class, people wouldn't need cocaine," says Nutt. "It's more toxic than newer stimulants by virtue of its complex pharmacology. I would find it difficult to have a regulated cocaine market." CRACK COCAINE ​ Ditto: "If people had a choice, I'd rather they snorted [cocaine] than smoked." HEROIN ​ Available on prescription only. "The idea that you can walk off the street and say, 'I'm going to try my first shot of heroin intravenously, even in a controlled environment' – that's too dangerous. Heroin kills people in hospitals when doctors give it [to them], so I don't think you can have heroin for personal use." AMPHETAMINES/METHAMPHETAMINE ​ These would be sold over-the-counter in pharmacies with regulated access and a personal allowance – but only as low-dose pills. So they wouldn't really be all that speedy, unless you took a handful of them, I guess. Crystal meth would be banned completely. "Smoked methamphetamine is like crack, and smoking stimulants makes you very addicted, very fast," says Nutt. "Methamphetamine is longer lasting than amphetamine, and certainly longer lasting than cocaine. Certainly injecting or smoking methamphetamine is a bad thing." BENZODIAZEPINES ​The sensible approach here would be to sell benzos over-the-counter in pharmacies, with regulated access and a personal allowance. So good news for those of you who enjoy a chemically-induced state of mild sleepiness: the hassle of trying to get hold of rare prescription drugs is nearly at an end (assuming Nutt's proposals are adopted, which isn't looking likely) MAGIC MUSHROOMS / LSD ​Most psychedelics should have pharmacy-only over-the-counter availability with regulated access and an annual limit. "They've never killed anyone, to my knowledge," says Nutt. NBOMe-CLASS PSYCHEDELICS ​These are currently sold in place of increasingly scarce acid, but they're stronger and therefore much more dangerous. In a rational world, they would likely be unavailable. "The NBOMes are tricky. I presume that the majority of people do it because they're legal," says Nutt. "They are, I think, to LSD like heroin is to codeine." Some guys in a Kenyan khat warehouse preparing the drug for transportation to the UK KHAT ​The Somali community can breathe easy. In a sane world, there would be unregulated access to khat. "Khat should never have been made illegal," says Nutt. "Khat was only made illegal because the Americans were banging on at us for 15 years to [make it illegal]." TOBACCO ​ This would be available over-the-counter in plain packaging from pharmacies, with no limit. In other words, it would be pretty much the same, but you might pick it up from a pharmacy rather than a corner shop and you couldn't base your decision on the pretty coloured cardboard. In essence, it would still be legal, but also much more like buying some high-strength painkillers, which kind of takes the fun out of it. ​@benbryant
1 People also have responsibilty for themselves and their actions. 2 If you collected every penny of UK currency into one account and then re-distributed it equally among all UK citizens i gaurantee within 2 years a proportion of them would be destituteand the numbers would continue to grow. Who would want to look after these people then, when everyone had had the same start?
So basically he is saying we need to find a safe/safer drug/drugs to numb the masses and stop people thinking for themselves. State sanctioned control?
I dunno, mostly he's saying currently illegal drugs should be over the counter and limited to a certain amount per year per individual. With notable exceptions which remain unlimited. I think it's the right line of thought. Are all drugs about numbing people? I'm not sure, I think some drugs can open up new ways of seeing and thinking. Although others are about pure sedation.
Great way to raise tax (see alcohol and tobacco) and keep the people dumbed down whilst doing it They certainly can
As you may or may not know I'm a substance abuse practioner. To be perfectly honest mate you have not got a scooby about addiction. When people are going through a tough time due to their partners (in this scenario you) don't understand, I often get them in for a 3-way to explain addiction and how/why it could have started and basically all the in's and out's in lay mans terms. Very rarely after speaking to peoples partners do they suffer the same tough time, as they have some kind of understanding. There are so many concepts/theories. I've studied all of them to quite an extreme level. The main 2 are: 1 - The disease concept 2 - Socialisation Personally I believe it to be a mixture of both as traits of both fit in nearly every client I see - I mainly run groups, and sometimes it's as clear as day someone is suffering with the disease concept and others may be a mixture of both. Just a note on the disease concept - More people in the world have found recovery by going through work that involves looking at the disease concept. Not just more, but 1000's more. Drug dependence is also in the DSM-IV (The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) - Psychologists and Psychiatrists use this manual for diagnosing people. Addiction is classified in this book as a Mental health disorder. Trust me tobes, addiction is a massive area of research. Joe public, doesn't understand - becuase in 90% of cases they have no need to.
I don't know if addiction is a mental health disorder or not. However, I do know that it is a powerful driver. I used to smoke (a lot). I understood that it would probably kill me but consoled myself that I had survived this far so why quit? Then I had a heart attack. Now I had a very good reason to quit. For the most part I have quit but that does not prevent me from falling off the wagon every now and again! After a week or so sanity kicks-in and I stop - until the next time. It's the only drug that I am fixated upon but it's hard to resist. I have a friend in Tobago who lives on the street and cleans cars for a living to feed his crack habit. I know that one day he'll not be there and he knows that too. However, he sees no way out - the main rehab centre in POS Trinidad has a crack house right next door I'm told! For him there probably is no way out.
Dave, i sympathise with you here. I have stopped smoking so many times i can`t count them, i always think that if i have a warning (like a heart attack) i will stop but know in reality it will not be this easy.
