Please read the discussion before posting. Your points have been covered in detail already.

As for hemp, it is not a drug, so while your argument is correct, it isn’t really relevant to this discussion.

Peace everyone

PS. Seriously do some digging!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/apr/07/drugs-policy-legalisation-report

JohnMorton

Starting with our own attitudes, we cannot make progress and WIN THIS DAMNED WAR!

Quote over

So best not to marginalise a whole section of society that are more aware than most of what has been going on and have been screaming about it for a long time ?

John

Give it a rest People,This site is concernd with bigger problems than ,if Drugs should be Legal or Not,that is why i am here.

This is an issue as we have a man writing for a paper about our freedom and rights yet does not understand that to change ones conciousness, that of cognitive liberty is one of out most fundamental freedoms.

Yes, there is a great deal of harm caused by certain types of drug use, alchohol and tobacco of the most concern,

The author in his ignorance fails to elucidate or at least show he is aware that there are many different ‘drugs’ be it synthetic or plant based with a wide variety of action. He has also not aware that for many decades the government and various bodies have been giving out false information on ‘drugs’.

Glenn makes a worthy observation that drug harm s mainly caused by its illegal nature and the false information generally available. Let it be known there are smart and stupid ways to consume a variety of substances, and it is up to those knowledgable in this area to pass on the correct knowledge and encourange responible use.

Going back to my comment regarding differing drugs, it seems to be that certain drugs such as heroin, cocaine are used to disrupt society by the goivernment (opium production has increased since the invasion of afghan) whereas other illegal drugs, such as the psychedelics are outlawed because those in charge would not want a population that spends alot of time carefully considering its world view and our place in it.

If we want to be specific regarding drug laws we can talk about the missapplication by the government of the Misuse of drugs act (1971). The act set up to protect individuals and society form the harms of ‘drugs’. The advisory council on the miuse of drugs is setup to advise government on this subject. The advisory council are being consistently ignored and have recently made a new league table of harm with out legal drugs of alchohol and tobacco being far higher up the list than many so called class A psychedelics. What the government are doing is breaking a central tenet of law, that of applying laws neutrally. They side with the dangerous legal drugs that the of the voting majority and victimise the minority that use less harmful illegal drugs. They consistantly ignore the ACMD. This is illegal and I direct you all to http://www.drugequality.org

I must also emphasis another point Glenn made, it is our undeniable right to alter our own conciousness and practice our own religion. The shamanic use of plant teachers existed through all peopls and places in times going by and still exist in many tribal societies to this day. The religious powers of catholicism destroyed indian spirituality in central america by forbidding their use of plant teachers such as peyote, thisi s the work of the inquisition. Europe was stripped of such connections (burning of the witches) and at the moment we have a society with a growing number of people aware of this, there is a re shamanising of the west.

As I said there is intelligent and stupid drug use, and an awful lot of information. I urge the author john to do some more research on this subject and if you are eager John I will point you to a variety of resources of illumination,

“the legalization i want is probably better described as freedomisation, where all men are free to do what they want on condition they cause no harm/ breach of peace and all that !”

What you are describing is, in fact, ‘the law’ – the entirety of which can be boiled down to:

1: do no harm to others
2: deprive no one of their rightful property
3: Use no mischief in your contracts

The above is the universal social contract, applying to all people at all times in all places. Everything else (a.k.a. legislation) is simply crap people make up to accrue more power to themselves.

Peter Tosh needn’t have said ‘legalize it’. Statutes are entirely powerless without the consent of the governed. “I don’t consent” would have been a more powerful statement.

I just want to win this DAMNED WAR as you say.

As I’ve said before, deal with the “side” issues later. Just let’s get this scum out of our government and politics. I’m not saying 100% of them are scum but its a pretty big number. Then you have those who just don’t have a clue and there are quite a few of them. So our country is run by scum and incompetents.
There are a handful who I’m sure are there for the right reasons BUT it seems even they don’t wish to stick their necks above the parapet.

Trust me. I am no stranger to drugs.

The fact of this case is that this man BECAME a schizophrenic after taking high quantities of cannabis. Alchohol does not have this effect.

The point is that some people react one way to psychotropic drugs and other people react other ways.

Just because when you get high you might want to make love to a mushroom and spend your nights in a poetic reverie that would rival William Blake or Lord Byron, this does not mean that other people will have the same reaction.

For example, I am a happy drunk. I like people more when I have had a drink and I am not going to sit here and say I have never dabbled with illegal substances out of some form of “moral high ground”, because I have.

BUT, since I have now become fully conscious of what the real nature of the drug economy is, the damage that such illegal drugs are doing, both to myself, wider society, and to the poor people involved in their production and distribution – I have been forced to re-evaluate my formerly, shall we say, laissez-faire attitudes on the subject, and come into the light.

It is not simply a matter of the criminal law. There is much more on a social and political level that needs to be done to take away the reasons that people are turning to drugs in such great numbers, both for spiritual, aswell as economic and social reasons, but my point remains, until we confront these issues head on, starting with our own attitudes, we cannot make progress and WIN THIS DAMNED WAR!

This man in the article had consumed seemingly immense quantities of alcohol WHILE being a schizophrenic and having other issues. This man seems to have simply lost ALL control and to focus in on his use of cannabis would be wrong.

Meanwhile, Glenn I believe was specifically speaking of the effects of Cannabis not killing those who take it.

Today, I’d never touch the stuff but neither do i touch alcohol at all much either. I just don’t need it.

But I will restate my experience with the stuff then has me fully aware cannabis does NOT make one aggressive in any way. Mixing it with other issues and particularly alcohol then possibly. But I would bet all I have that there are a fraction of aggressive attacks related to purely cannabis use than those attributed to alcohol. That is without a shadow of a doubt (and not simply due to there being far more consumption of alcohol than cannabis).

Again, I don’t condone the use of cannabis because I know the effects it CAN have on people. It simply takes them out of their “reality” (and I might add can be very creative) BUT alcohol does exactly the same without the “creativity”.

Also, re the computer games: We have a problem in society John. It is the lack of hope or fairness or equality etc that is destroying our society and creates dysfunction in so many ways. In Glasgow decades ago, we had gang violence and more stabbings and murders than you could count. There was no computer games but there was always alcohol (comparatively, very little drug abuse at that time also).

It is society built upon inequality and lack of opportunity and hope that is the problem. All these other elements are “symptoms” of this fundamental flaw.

The Government could so easily change all of this. We could have such a positive and capable society but that is simply not the government’s agenda.

Best.

Another one of those non-existent cannabis death statistics.