no ones arguing that alcohol is not dangerous or addictive just that it can't be considered more dangerous than heroin till the same amount are taking it and that making it legal is not the answer, see how much heroin costs the NHS if made legal. Also i would put money on alcohol making sightly more money for the goverment than £2.7billion.

I'll drink £10 worth of alcohol and you take £10 of heroin, as statistics say i'm a lot more at risk i'll take one for the purpose of this debate if you will. And after we both do our £10 worth we'll stop if we don't like it

Once again people getting paid silly money to tell us something we already know.

 

Well put.

Les

 

I think you might find there were a number arguing that alcohol was not addictive, more of a social 'drug'.

When you say 'see how much heroin costs the NHS' - what do you mean by that? I think the tone implies the costs would be high - what do you think the drivers of those costs would be?

 

Its really hard to speculate what they would be, would you be in agreement that every alcohol related incident ie someone falling over and breaking their arm gets classed as alcohol related because they had to tell the doctor they had a few glasses of wine? I'd like to see the cost of all heroin related accidents as it stands per user.

Apparently it costs the NHS £15k a year to give a user heroin on the NHS, now say it was legal and 10million people used heroin and we go back to your figure of 270,000 users (around 3%) that say don't work so they have to have it on the NHS after all its not their faut their addicted the goverment made it legal! These figures are very generous and obviously purely guess work but i would say it would be closer to the 10million than just 270,000.

Anyway for the 270k at £15k per year thats £4billion, and that only accounts for giving heroin to the user not all other related costs.

I could make it sound better, i could make it sound worse but once its made legal i don't see how we could go back after addiction rises?

Aaron

 

Maybe we need a programme of education at schools which tells in an honest manner the effects of drugs of all kinds and the way they can ruin a person's life.

Les

 

Exactly, there will always be addicts and dealers the only way is to reduce this as much as possible is starting with trying to stop people taking the drugs in the first place.

Aaron

 

Given the number of school age nicotine addicts, education is the least of their problems.... they all ( rightly ?) see the medical consequences as an "old age" problem.
Having seen dealing in cigs, booze, and acid tabs at work I have little faith in society's ability to halt a drugs epidemic.

Sorry for the New Year tone.

dunx

 

Azz,

I agree that intoxication incidents may have some crossover. However you go to A&E on a Friday or a Saturday night in any major city and a very high proportion of the 'clientele' haven't 'fallen over' they have been lashing seven bells out of each other because they are pissed.

Most opiate users are reknowned for getting high and not doing much other than lying around listening to Tangerine Dream and writing 'poetry'.

The real cost to the NHS is the treatment of alcohol related diseases such as liver, kidney and heart disease.

As for the cost of heroin - if it was legal then why would the NHS have to prescribe it? It would cost them nothing in same way that alcohol and nicotine costs them nothing to supply.

I go back to my core point which at least some would agree to - the proscription of drugs is primarily an arbitrary process. Alcohol and nicotine may not be as additive as heroin but they are HUGELY damaging and costly in terms of social welfare.

Alcohol in particular is a drug that creates increasing levels of violence and as reported above a SHOCKING 25% of the population drinks alcohol at dangerous levels.

If it was any other illegal drug the reactionary Snetters would be falling over themselves to condemn - but no - it is legal and socially acceptable so that is OK!

My real view would be to be legally control all psychoactive substances for the very reason Dunx states.

Addictive people will always seek out something - heaving drinkers are usually heavy smokers, same with drug users.

 

Trout,

Do you have a bit of a history regarding drugs or alcohol??


Chip

 

Most heroin addicts would be unable to work, how will they pay for an addiction that can cost £60+ a day wether legal or not? Once addicted and not able to work and pay for heroin back to crime and dealers who would still be able to make money by importing themselves still and cutting it. There are huge illegal tobacco and alcohol gangs around, i could go out now and buy even 200 fake L&B's and cheap vodka.

I agree completely about your alcohol issue and A&E, but have you ever seen a heroin addict desperate for smack? they would kill their own mother for it. My argument about the NHS paying for heroin is what will they do when addicts can't afford something that their own goverment let them get addicted to in the first place? More people on benefits, homeless where woud it end? They can't just say 'sorry its not our problem' because they'd turn back to crime again would you not agree?

As for the price of heroin the goverment would supply, how would they negotiate with drug barrons? when not every country would make it legal so they would have to pay much the same price as traffickers do, wouldn't they?(i have no idea how they would get a price BTW). They couldn't grow it because they couldn't produce it as cheap surely? (again i'm assuming this to be the case.

Trout i agree with pretty much most of your points regarding alcohol, just not about comparing it to heroin.

Aaron

 

You may well be right. All I can remember was that when I was at school, no one knew that tobacco was particularly dangerous although it was known to reduce sports fitness. So we all had a go at that for curiosity and to feel more grown up of course.

When it came to drugs, we were told about the bad effects etc. so no one tried them out.

These days I imagine that children are made to feel left out if they don't follow the example of their peers. Maybe if a concerted effort was made to change those ideas with honest and significant logical reasons it might do some good.

Les

 

Well ??

 

I remember in the late 70's that tobacco was BAD ,(I had to paint by numbers an image of Superman).Dint stop me smokin or drinkin though, HA, HA.

 

We would need a government which was responsible and altruistic enough to care about the people of this country Dave!

Les

 

Altruism from politicians is an oxymoron.

 

I don't drink alcohol and never have really as my body does not produce ethanol dehydrogenase and so I cannot metabolise it. I have smoked Marijuana a little as a student. Took a few magic mushrooms - now they were psycoactive !!!

I have smoked cigarettes on an off over my life and gave up in a day, six years ago.

My comments on this thread are primarily to challenge two things. The highly subjective media driven misinformation about drugs in general AND the arbitary nature of drug classification (e.g. nicotine is as addictive as Coke and costs the country billions in healthcare and yet the safer drug is seriously illegal!).

Another comment made by Aaron above is that heroin users/addicts would be unable to work. This is a good example of misinformation that is widely held and perpetrated by the illegality of the drugs and reinforced by the media presentation of the same.

Where there are programs of controlled heroin usage the 'clients' were able to lead full and active lives and it would not be known that they were heroin users. There is plenty of research to back this up.

My other interest is helping/working with people with addictions no matter what it is - food, cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, depression. I do this for around six weeks a year in the US and Australia, not so much in Europe.

 

Chip

 

 

That's great Trout...... and hopefully with the capture/execution of this heroin mule there'll be a few less 'addicted' people in the world needing your help

 

I've said it before and I'll say it again. I have nil, nada, zilch, no, non, zero sympathy for the "mule".

Having said that, The fact is that China chose to ignore pleas from the highest eschelons of the UK establishment and that is something that can't go unpunished IMHO.

1. Trade Embargo
2. Expulsion of Diplomats
3. CO2 Fines by way of Taxation of imports

Any other ideas?

 

Not misinformation but personal experience of every heroin addict i know and have come across, because things by 'experts' in my eyes is just as much misinformation. After seeing familys destroyed by heroin addicts i can assure you they didn't go to work all day come home and do a little smack then go to bed ready for the next days work, regardless if some can. I would like to know how many of current addicts are in full time employent?

 

I wonder what percentage of their exports get here ?

 

Any ideas? Expect come backs if you do. People who play with fire tend to get burnt.