Cannabis haul! This is a Joke, Wake Up Smell the Beans

[femmefatale]

In response to a few of your posts, the issue of the legal position in Ireland vis à vis the legal position in other European countries is a real one. We live in an integrated Europe of porous borders. If one country decides to unilaterally adopt very relaxed drug laws, that country will attract users from other countries. Presumably that country will also become a place through which drug smugglers transport drugs from their point of origin to other destination countries. Ireland can't make desisions like this without considering how they will affect our European neighbours and how legal inconsistency across Europe will be exploited by users and smugglers alike.

[truthisfree]

Many nightmares just waiting to happen, I have known teenage boys (quiet types) to have transformed into kidnappers, torturers and murderers when meth base and crack were around.

There will be robbery, there will be beatings, there will be murder, there will be two fingers severed because of the National Drugs Strategy.

I know very little about Crack and Meth, Zebedee, but what I do know is very bad. These drugs do seem to drive people crazy. I have asked friends of mine from NY what people who are addicted to these drugs are like and they say "you don't want to know" I have looked it up though and am reading that use of Crack can result in a full-blown paranoid psychosis. There is also a psychosis that results from the use of meth as well.

The crazy thing is the "Nanny" state that incorrectly lumps cannabis with drugs like these. There is no point instructing young people that all drugs are bad, and then with a little research finding out that cannabis is not bad, this can easily frustrate a young person to assume that the regulations and warnings as regards all drugs are incorrect.

In the present climate of suspicion of corrupt government and politicans only interested in themselves, it is quite easy to see how anything the Government departments say can be dismissed as nonsense.

Baby out with the bathwater, so to speak!

[femmefatale]

I know very little about Crack and Meth, Zebedee, but what I do know is very bad. These drugs do seem to drive people crazy. I have asked friends of mine from NY what people who are addicted to these drugs are like and they say "you don't want to know" I have looked it up though and am reading that use of Crack can result in a full-blown paranoid psychosis. There is also a psychosis that results from the use of meth as well.

The crazy thing is the "Nanny" state that incorrectly lumps cannabis with drugs like these. There is no point instructing young people that all drugs are bad, and then with a little research finding out that cannabis is not bad, this can easily frustrate a young person to assume that the regulations and warnings as regards all drugs are incorrect.

In the present climate of suspicion of corrupt government and politicans only interested in themselves, it is quite easy to see how anything the Government departments say can be dismissed as nonsense.

Baby out with the bathwater, so to speak!

Isn't cannabis bad for young people? Can't it adversely affect the still-developing brain?

[truthisfree]

In response to a few of your posts, the issue of the legal position in Ireland vis à vis the legal position in other European countries is a real one. We live in an integrated Europe of porous borders. If one country decides to unilaterally adopt very relaxed drug laws, that country will attract users from other countries. Presumably that country will also become a place through which drug smugglers transport drugs from their point of origin to other destination countries. Ireland can't make desisions like this without considering how they will affect our European neighbours and how legal inconsistency across Europe will be exploited by users and smugglers alike.

I am glad you brought up this point, In case you have not been outside Ireland recently, but the borders here are far from porous.

One advantage we do have compared to Amsterdam is the distance involved to travel here, we are only accessible by air or water, unlike the Netherlands which neighbouring countries can drive down the road to. This was one of the main objections that the Netherlands had to legalisation. They were very happy with the tourists that went there as tourists to smoke cannabis. It is just not possible to drop into Ireland on an afternoon off!

[Cato]

Sarah, I don't mean to cast aspersions on you. You did say though that it was 'Shroom Season' and you asked for suggestions as to where good mushrooms could be found. I wondered if the same arguments in favour of cannabis use could be made in favour of ingesting magic mushrooms.

Femme, as we agreed earlier in the thread, the burden of proof falls on the side of the prohibitionists. It is not up to Sarah or anyone else to make an argument in favour any particular drug to be decriminalized, but rather it is up to you and the other prohibitionists to make the case for it to be criminalized.

We cleared this up earlier in the thread.

Adults should be free to make decisions about what drugs they take or don't take, as long as it causes no harm to another. If one does not want to use cannabis or mushrooms then don't use them. The need that some people have to regulate the lives of others never fails to amaze me.

[reknaw]

In an ideal world, there would be no illness, no ingestion of any substances other than those necessary to sustain life and ensure the effective functioning of our bodies, no greed, no crime, no abortions, none of the things that either cause problems for our society or are perceived as doing that. In an ideal world, that is, the one the sky fairy would have invented if he/she/it existed.

However, the sky fairy does not exist and this world is not perfect, assuming that there is such a thing as perfect.

Thus all we can do is strive to reduce the incidence of manifestations of imperfection to a minimum: good sex education, free availability of contraception, inculcation of a sense of responsibility - these are things that will reduce the number of abortions to a minimum. Getting rid of the silly and irrational ideas that the various religions of the world so harmfully promote would be a help as well.

The same goes for crime: concentrate on reducing the factors that cause it.

And so on and so on. rather than sitting in an ivory tower or nunnery or some such place isolated from the real world, ask not whether cannabis promotes good behaviour in teenagers. Ask whether it causes less bad behaviour than the much more harmful drugs that they are much more likely to use if they are forced to seek their supplies from criminals, who by definition operate without any supervision or control and will naturally seek to promote use of the many higher-value drugs that cause irrational and dangerous behaviour. In other words: our goal in an imperfect world can only be damage limitation, never perfection, even if we could agree on what perfection is.

Either than or step up your praying and let's see if your sky fairy, the supposedly omnipotent one, just changes this real world into the one that you entertain in your weird fantasies.

[truthisfree]

Isn't cannabis bad for young people? Can't it adversely affect the still-developing brain?

I am staying with the original proposition that a person should be at least 21 before being allowed to smoke cannabis. I have looked into it since and it seems that a lot of people are keen to drop this to 18.

I honestly do not know as yet if it is safe for someone under 21 to smoke it or not but will in time find research to prove or disprove this idea.

If you have some research to back up your claim, by all means please provide it. I am not interested in sides here, just in facts and truths.

[femmefatale]

I am glad you brought up this point, In case you have not been outside Ireland recently, but the borders here are far from porous.

One advantage we do have compared to Amsterdam is the distance involved to travel here, we are only accessible by air or water, unlike the Netherlands which neighbouring countries can drive down the road to. This was one of the main objections that the Netherlands had to legalisation. They were very happy with the tourists that went there as tourists to smoke cannabis. It is just not possible to drop into Ireland on an afternoon off!

TIF, it is extremely easy to travel between European countries now. It is probably no more expensive or burdensome to travel from Belgium to the Netherlands than it is to travel from the Netherlands to Ireland.

My Dutch friends and acquaintances (from all over the country) approve of their country's permissive approach. They are, however, very unhappy about the fact that the Netherlands attracts hoards of visitors looking for easy drugs (among other things). They see this as an unfortunate and unpleasant by-product of the permissive approach. Surprisingly enough, they actually don't have a very high opinion of drug users.

[truthisfree]

TIF, it is extremely easy to travel between European countries now. It is probably no more expensive or burdensome to travel from Belgium to the Netherlands than it is to travel from the Netherlands to Ireland.

My Dutch friends and acquaintances (from all over the country) approve of their country's permissive approach. They are, however, very unhappy about the fact that the Netherlands attracts hoards of visitors looking for easy drugs (among other things). They see this as an unfortunate and unpleasant by-product of the permissive approach. Surprisingly enough, they actually don't have a very high opinion of drug users.

I have been reading quite a lot about this recently, and the people in the Netherlands seem to object to the day-trippers that arrive for a few hours and are very welcoming and happy for the "Cannabis" tourist that goes for a few days or weeks.

I have seen exactly the same attitude in Copenhagen where the Swedes take a quick trip from Malmo to get drunk and then leave again. I think this negative attitude is way more to do with the neighbouring animosities and the type of people who just go to a country for a few hours to avail of cannabis or alcohol.

[femmefatale]

Femme, as we agreed earlier in the thread, the burden of proof falls on the side of the prohibitionists. It is not up to Sarah or anyone else to make an argument in favour any particular drug to be decriminalized, but rather it is up to you and the other prohibitionists to make the case for it to be criminalized.

We cleared this up earlier in the thread.

Adults should be free to make decisions about what drugs they take or don't take, as long as it causes no harm to another. If one does not want to use cannabis or mushrooms then don't use them. The need that some people have to regulate the lives of others never fails to amaze me.

Cato, the fact is that cannabis sale/purchase is currently criminalized. That being the case, those who want to see that legal position changed are the ones that need to make the case in favour of such a step. I am not arguing for legal reform. Those in favour of reform need to put forward a solid case in defense of it.

I personally have no desire to regulate the lives of others. We don't live in an anarchic society though and, whether we like it or not, ours is a law-bound country. The current law reflects a particular attitude to the desirability or otherwise of drugs. If people don't like it, they are the ones who need to challenge the assumptions and perceptions underpinning the law.

In making the case for cannabis, I do think it is insincere to deliberately confuse the therapeutic and non-therapeutic uses of the drug. I also think it is insincere and misleading to try and pretend that cannabis represents some sort of healthy lifestyle option. From what I can tell, it doesn't.