California to legalize and tax marijuana

[JCSkinner]

I have been to Amsterdam, and I know a fair few Dutch that live there too, so its not like I'm coming at it from a weekend bender tourist in the 'Dam perspective, unlike some here. Most would be much happier if the unsavoury element was removed. The Dutch actually hate drugs, but they also treat addiction as a reality of modern life, one that can be somewhat contained if treated primarily as a health matter.

The Portuguese take that perspective much more than the Dutch do. They have decriminalised the use of all drugs, in order to better implement harm reduction programmes, which they have done so very successfully.
Again, it is important to note that cannabis is NOT ADDICTIVE, and hence I see no point in your raising the aspect of addiction in the context of cannabis.
The Dutch I know see it much more as a civil liberties issue. Despite free availability of cannabis, they smoke LESS than other comparable countries. They also rightly recognise that the criminalisation of cannabis leads directly to the funding of dangerous crime gangs.
As for removing the 'unsavoury' element, the Dutch previously operated on a policy of ghettoising cannabis tourism by focusing retail in the central Amsterdam area.
The only unsavoury result that I can see is that that also focuses excessive usage by idiot Anglophones in the same area - which can result in vomiting, shouting late at night and so on - but not in the violence we see so often following alcohol use.
I think it's also relevant to point out that your description of one of the most beautiful and successful European capitals as a 'ghetto' undermines any point you are trying to make.

As for use of our coastline, does the title "The Afghanistan of Europe" appeal to you?

1. Opium production in Afghanistan was never lower than when under Taliban control. When the occupying forces invaded, production shot up many times in a single year and is still at record highs, eclipsing production in the golden triangle of Laos, Burma and Thailand.
2. Our coastline is already used significantly by major importers of cocaine, primarily, and cannabis much less so. Legalising the latter indigenously would instantly eradicate the illegal import market and would free up resources to be targetted at the former.

That just underlines your lack of understanding of the situation to be honest. The Dutch despise the wandering junkies on their streets, and the crimes they bring, but it serves as a good example to their young people about the idiocy of habitual drug use.

All relevant to a discussion about heroin. But feck all relevance in this context.

Habitual drug use is less widespread than you might think.

It's likely much more widespread than I'm aware of. People in my acquaintance are not daily users of alcohol, yet clearly alcoholism is rife in this country. People in my acquaintance are not dependent on prescription medications that are addictive, yet hundreds of thousands of people in Ireland are. Most people I know do not smoke tobacco, yet around 30% of the population do.

[Abacus]

Approx one month ago an excellent thread entitled 'Time for a Sensible Drug Policy' continued for a week or more here on P.ie and contained a great array of the issues involved. (And that wasn't a first either ! )

Now here we are again, rewriting, explaining, distorting, stretching, concealing, revealing, taunting, abusing, insulting, deriding, etc etc., as best serves our viewpoint and as if there was something new to take on board on the news front in the matter of drugs legalisation.
There isn't . However the drug problem (see last week's Prime Time prog - 12/3/09) is spiralling farther and farther out of control with no reassurances coming from those in authority to allay our fears. But first, we need to take stock of where we are and what we want.

IMO, the question now is this: 'are we inching at glacial speed toward legalisation of soft drugs or are we becoming ever more entrenched in the opposing view' ?

By the way, the Dutch are just about the most laid back people in Europe and not easily annoyed about anything. Take a peek at their history and it will be found that they have been maligned, taken over, invaded and especially invasion of the 'immigrant' kind more than anyone else and as a consequence have learned to live with the 'attitudes' of others.

Historically, the city of Amsterdam has probably been the greatest melting pot for humanity and a city where the immigrant population formed the majority population for centuries. Just think about passing laws to serve the interests of that lot and you begin to glimpse (nothing more) the problems of governmental control in such a diverse population. That in turn begins to explain how the Dutch have such a flakey legislative situation in regard to personal freedoms and goes a very long way to explain why Dutch thinking can be so out of kilter with that of it's neighbors in regard to drug control.

But there is great resilience and very tough pragmatism at the heart of the Dutch nation. They have thought the drugs issue through to an acceptance of the realisation that the problem needs to be managed with a view to controlling it and have a wonderful tolerance for those who have not yet progressed as far as they have themselves in that understanding. The Dutch are different and well worth talking to on every aspect of the drug problem.

Come to think of it, many would say we have quite a few kinks here in Gaeldom and which no doubt can be explained by reference to our relative isolation - (island people etc), tradition, history, and religion. And don't forget that there was damn little adulteration of our gene pool on the national territory prior to the last decade or so yet we quite regularly had convulsions over legal initiatives in our recent history.

[sarahj]

Overwhelming ? links?There only one person overwhelmed by mental illness here mate . Youre a classic delusional sociopath.

Haha. Ditto.

[BrianH]

I hope California and Massachusetts which is also looking to bring in something similar get what they want.

Prohibition of cannabis causes more problems than it solves.

Ending prohibition in Ireland would cause loss of income for gangs involved with cannabis, while in turn provide income for the government should they regulate it and the cannabis industry (Recreational/Medicinal and Hemp related) would offer some jobs. It would stop youngsters from getting their hands on it as easily as they do now. It would also stop the poor quality cannabis here in Ireland (gritweed and soapbar hash) which are problems in themselves and is another issue altogether.

Some try to say cannabis is the gateway drug, that's crap. The gateway is prohibition, if someone wants to get a bit of weed they have to do so through an illegal trade and these dealers maybe offering more than just weed and it opens you up to a world of harder drugs and other illegal activities.

We could also finally allow patients to obtain medical cannabis here which you can in 9 other EU countries and others around the world and also in 1/4th (13 of 52 states) of the USA.

Cannabis is schedule 1 here in Ireland and is deemed to have no medicinal value, hell cocaine and opiates are considered to have more medicinal value.

The problem is this goes against thousands of years of it's safe use without one death and lots of research on the subject.

[Oblivion]

I believe that cannabis f*cks up alot of people. This isn't a view based on studies, but what I've seen with my own eyes i.e two people, both healthy, socially active, one at university, then using cannabis and gradually becoming more detached, incoherent and ultimately languishing in manic depression.

Messing with cannabis is like gambling; it's a mug's game.

However, when you look at the EPIC levels of Mexican crime spilling over into California - largely funded by the drugs trade and administered by ruthless gangs - it's obvious that extreme measures are now required to combat the unfolding disaster.

Anything that takes money out of the pockets of drug dealers, gets a big thumbs up in my book. Things have now arrived at a stage at the Mexican border where sacrifices must be made, and risks taken. Legalising cannabis is a huge risk, but they're running out of options. It's worth paying close attention to Mexico because that country is rapidly turning into a failed state - the drugs problems are about to get worse.

[sarahj]

All research can be refuted ad nauseum, even the most unlikely eg...
The world is flat
9/11 was a CIA conspiracy or never happened
The moon landings were faked
Princess Di was killed by MI5
There is no link between HIV and AIDS
etc
but the accepted conclusions of most research on this subject is that there is a link

A link? Fine! There's a link between being in hospital and dying, but that doesn't mean that hospitals cause people to die. Prove causation and then we can talk.

The link (if it exists) could be because those predisposed to mental illness are drawn to drugs. Or that those who are mentally unwell take more drugs or are more likely to take them in the first place.

A link proves nothing!