The Irish War on Drugs

[JCSkinner]

I know but you cant legalize something that may be addictive and cancer causing. That is just asking for trouble, look at the difficulty there is getting society to go easy on tobacco and alcohol. Is there some marijuana industry lobby pushing these ideas on legalizing it?

What you're encountering is threefold:

1. The prohibitionists have run out of arguments that can't be easily refuted by reference to factual evidence.
2. Users of certain substances, in particular cannabis, are fed up of being criminalised for their choice of intoxicant while the vested interests ensure that a much more dangerous substance remains legal, cheap and filling up 28% of our A+E beds nightly.
3. The money for a long-lost war on drugs is running out. Prohibition of alcohol ended when the US government realised it needed the revenue and desired to curb the power of the bootlegging gangs. We're in very similar circumstances now.

As was pointed out, there is little profit in cannabis. In places like Spain where it is tolerated to cultivate plants for personal use, that's what people do. Hence no market.

[justcallmetex]

I know but you cant legalize something that may be addictive and cancer causing. That is just asking for trouble, look at the difficulty there is getting society to go easy on tobacco and alcohol. Is there some marijuana industry lobby pushing these ideas on legalizing it?

Yeah there is, those who are ciminalized by socity for enjoying a little of what they like.

[justcallmetex]

No , you see if prohibition was lifted ,people would 'grow their own ' so there is no money to be made .Thats why more dangerous(profitable) things are legal while cannabis , is not. Insane 'system' if you ask me .

I don't know if thats true I mean I dont "brew my own Stout"

[evercloserunion]

I don't know if thats true I mean I dont "brew my own Stout"

Well there's nothing stopping you but it would be expensive, time-consuming and probably pretty rotten. Weed however is inexpensive, requires a minimal amount of effort and care and with the right conditions one can produce a nice enough batch.

Though I do plan on brewing my own beer when I get time so I'll let you know how I get on.

[JCSkinner]

I don't know if thats true I mean I dont "brew my own Stout"

Home brews, if you don't have a fairly serious investment in equipment, tend to be pretty nasty in comparison to decent commercial brews. Hence its lack in popularity.
However, home distillations can be comparable with legal distillations, and it comes as no surprise therefore to find that home distilling is illegal everywhere except New Zealand.
Similarly, home grown cannabis can be as good or better than commercially available (in Holland) products.
Home grown cannabis tends to be organic, small batch, each plant carefully tended, etc - all the things commercial Dutch cannabis isn't, basically.

[ankeaglemor]

I just bought a book by a guy called Paul O' Mahony in Easons, called the "Irish War on Drugs" - The Seductive Folly of Prohibition".

Just wondering if anyone has read it, and what they thought of it.

Calling for the complete removal of prohibition in this society seems abit mad to me.

Here it is Amazon.com: The Irish War on Drugs: The Seductive Folly of Prohibition: Paul O'Mahony: Books

Yeah I did an essay for my criminal law essay on the possible legalisation of soft drugs and this was the main piece..My main criticisim of the book is that its too radical it dosen't take into account culture, set or setting which norman Zeinburg bases his thesis...He's not very concrete in regards to how it would work or be controlled.what it does show however is the current system is crazy.....If you want to read more Tim murphy's Article called "The War on Drugs" is very good.

[BrianH]

With regards to harder drugs like cocaine and heroin I don't think ending prohibition would work but offer schemes like needle exchanges, places to ingest the drugs safely like other countries might certainly help.

But cannabis well...

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.