General Chat

The drug situation is all over the Country I read the papers & see reports in Scotland poverty unemployment.but Where does the money come from to feed their habit is that the saying .drink doesn't help either people can get cheap drink from outlets take it home sit on the streets were there's a will there's a way of obtaining drugs & drink it's not a new thing .i just get upset to hear about the murders & thuggery to obtain money for their own ends we never had this in my youth I wouldn't walk the streets now or walk home alone after a night out to frightening Barbara

The Guardian article was written in 2014. Change is likely to have happened in either direction.
The Volte face article was probably written in 2017

I agree, the ONC isn't a good place for statistics, that's why I looked at the ONS.

So, RTR, rather than use the ONS who - as I said - take their data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales, we should believe your 'rough estimate' - based on what? Oh! I see your 'personal experience' of somewhere you don't actually live.

Well, can I make a guesstimate that an awful lot of people in Eastbourne, Bournemouth, Christchurch etc are drug takers, because they're 'of an age', and it's fairly near to where I live - or would you 'poo-poo' that idea, just because I said it was from 'personal experience'?
Your 'personal experience' obviously being much better than mine!

Interesting old Guardian article, but it doesn't confirm your 'statement'
"More than 15 million Britons, nearly one in three of the adult population, HAVE taken illegal drugs"

See that word HAVE - they have in the past. The % CURRENTLY taking drugs is 21%.
So you're wrong again!

This little gem you slipped in: " the working demands made of people in the City are impossible to meet without speed. "
I'm intrigued - are these office workers, cleaners or construction workers.
If you're implying office workers, you're very wrong.
Have you ever taken speed? If so, describe what happened.

Barbra asked a very pertinent question. Scotland has the worst drug record in the whole of Europe, so it quite possible that Scottish stabbings are more likely to be drug related than drinks related. But we cannot ignore drinks fuelled fights and deaths.

The rise of knife crime in the larger cities of the UK is closely related to control of territory in connexion with the supply and use of illegal drugs. Older people when victims tend to be collateral damage rather than participants.

The ONC is not an especially reliable source of stats as the govt can and does bend them - eg current post brexit trade figures.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/oct/05/-sp-drug-use-is-rising-in-the-uk-but-were-not-addicted

My wild guess of 50% based on personal experience of north London, Barkingside, Greenwich and Dulwich should be reduced to 30%. In particular the working demands made of people in the City are impossible to meet without speed. The County Lines are not tourists!

This thread was about the number of stabbings, and Barbara questioned whether they were drug related.

The ONS reckons, in their overview of the extent and trends of illicit drug use for the year ending March 2020. with numbers taken from the Crime Survey for England and Wales!

"An estimated 1 in 11 adults aged 16 to 59 years had taken a drug in the last year (9.4%; approximately 3.2 million people); this is the same as the year ending March 2019 but an increase from 8.6% in the year ending March 2010."

So, nowhere near your very rough estimate.

And you knew 2 drug users, neither of whom died directly through drug use - obviously makes you an expert!

I've been in contact with quite a few drug users in my life, but I'll not go into that here, suffice to say, the inhabitants of Papa Stour dried magic mushrooms for use in the winter!
I also know a few homeless people. Alcohol and drugs help them forget.

The problem with drugs, is not so much them being taken - more people die of drink-related problems than drug-related ones, it's the dealers, and the number of disaffected youths, many from broken homes, or care, who are vulnerable, left to fend for themselves and are 'recruited' by drug dealers - the 'county lines'.
This is a stark reminder of how the lives of children have been sidelined in the past 10 years.

https://www.nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk/what-we-do/crime-threats/drug-trafficking/county-lines

Well Cressida Dick, chief of the London Met, sees the drug problem as a health as well as a crime problem.

https://volteface.me/dont-decriminalise-drugs-treat-public-health-not-criminal-justice-issue-says-met-commissioner/

The Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police has said that drugs should not be decriminalised but that the issue should be looked at through a public health, not criminal justice, lens.

Cressida Dick was asked whether it was time for her police force, the largest in the country, and the Government to take a more liberal view of drugs and decriminalise their use while speaking at an event hosted by the Howard League for Penal Reform.

In an answer demonstrating her mixed message on drugs policy, the Commissioner refused to endorse the decriminalisation of drugs and also did not discuss the implications of a legally regulated market.

But, she emphasised that the long-term approach to drugs should be one of public health – which she linked to a drop in drug use among young people in the UK.

“I do genuinely think it’s a very, very complex question,” she said.

“I think we should see drugs as primarily a health issue and I think it is the public health approaches that are likely to succeed in the longest run. We have seen that largely in this country already in many respects. I know drug deaths have gone back up recently, but when you look at the proportion of the young population that take drugs compared to my generation, I think really encouraging things have happened through the public health agenda.

Understanding that morality and law are not one and the same thing is always covered as part of LAW 101 in any law school. That is why for a very long time the relationship between Tory governments, backbenchers and the Attorney General tended to be difficult.

The current BJ policy of giving the job to the likes of Braverman and Ellis has removed this difficulty. Ellis pothole fund has been lifted to pay for the new ship of state. Johnson is likely to find the Supreme Court to be made of sterner stuff.

"Ma spesso ci si deve accontentare se i corpi possono riacquistare vigore e salute con un dolore non eccessivo.” Plato, the Republic

But often we have to be satisfied if the bodies are able to regain vigor and health without excessive pain.

RTR, how can it be a public health problem, do you mean they are like vermin?

I’m sure that many relatives of the half of the population taking drugs would be envious that your drug taking family & business partner
did not have a noticeable effect on family life and that they had enough money to buy their supplies.

What is swere intake water?

The well off can obviously afford it RTR but what about the non workers and unemployed.

Dangerous drug taking ia essentially a public health problem not a law enforcement problem. Nicola Sturgeon has it right - treat the users as a health problem whilecomming down hard on major suppliers.

Yet another example where a democratically eleected government is stymied by its big abd nrutish next door neighbor.

https://www.gov.scot/publications/update-drugs-policy/

Without researching the whole sad history my points stand - more restriction , more crime. Sure heroin was a controlled drug in the 1960s but it was easy enough for a reg user to get a scrip from their GP.

Both by brother in law and business partner were heroin users for many years.
One died from the blood scandal in France, the other from smoking related illness. Their use did not have any noticable bad effect on everyday family life. Neither had to steal or beg to get a "fix".

At a rough guess about half of the UK population take amphetamines, speed, hash , coke. That is the conclusion from analysis of swere intake water in any case. The BOfE says that 100% of the old paper notes bore traces of cocaine.
Then there is the growing problem of synthetic drugs such as mamba, crocodile and crack.

The trouble with the current unworkable policy is that it is turning the whole police and justice system inside out without getting anywhere near a result, far from it. As fast as the police and customs bust a county line or serious importer another one pops up. A large police raid in Poole recently discovered hundreds of electronic miners using stolen power to generate funds for organised crime drug dealing. Where there is one there iwill be another.

The makers of GPUs ( graphical processing units aka video cards ) have have had to revise the design of their product so that it performs badly when used for mining. That has of course driven up the cost to customers of the current production to the point that it has almost disappeared. Car lines ( which use GPUs ) have stalled ...

Stay with the current strategy and trouble will multiply in all directions. The "War on Terror" has failed. The "War on Drugs" is going the same way.

https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/the-rolling-stones-you-cant-always-get-what-you-want-live-first-time/

Sorry but -
1868 – Pharmacy Act. First regulation of poisons and dangerous substances. Limited sales to chemists.
1908 – Poisons and Pharmacy Act. Regulations on sale and labelling, including coca.
1916 – Defence of the Realm Act 1914 (Regulation 40B). Sale and possession of cocaine restricted to "authorised persons".
1920 – Dangerous Drugs Act. Limited production, import, export, possession, sale and distribution of opium, cocaine, morphine or heroin to licensed persons.
1925 – Dangerous Drugs Act. Controlled importation of coca leaf and cannabis.
1928 – Amendment to Dangerous Drugs Act criminalising possession of cannabis. Doctors continued to be able to prescribe any drugs as treatments, including for addiction.
1964 – Dangerous Drugs Act, following UN 1961 Single Convention. Criminalised cultivation of cannabis.
1964 - Drugs (Prevention of Misuse Act) criminalised possession of amphetamines.
1967 – Dangerous Drugs Act. Doctors required to notify Home Office of addicted patients. Restriction on prescription of heroin and cocaine for treatment of addiction.


The act you're probably referencing is this one:
1971 – Misuse of Drugs Act. Introduced classes A, B, and C of drugs. Created offence of "intent to supply". Increased penalties for trafficking and supply (14 years imprisonment for trafficking Class A drugs). Established the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD).
Edward Heath was PM in 1971.

Also, until you mixed them up, no-one had mentioned law and morals! :-D

RTR has obviously never been close to users and suppliers to see what damage they do. This is not just to the user but their friends and family who suffer their behaviour, their deceit and their thieving. Drugs should never be made legal

Are you advocating Nicola's apparent wish to decriminalise ALL drug taking?

It is universally a bad idea to mix up law and morals.

Well within living memory in all or parts of the UK there have been draconian laws designed to punish those whose lifestyle did not fit with what those in power thought proper. So we had censorship, laws about who a person could have relationships with, laws about marriage partners, laws about abortion and laws about mind bending substances of one sort and another.

These laws were and are often disobeyed even by those ( in all parties ) who see themselves as part of the ruling class. Moreover these morality laws have a strong tendency to promote rooted crime and corruption .

For instance the censorship laws banning saucy books and magazines (quite mild by comparison with today's internet) resulted in wild corruption in the London Met. A recent BBC TV series covered it.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000v4h4
The real Line of Duty.

Up until Margaret Thatcher drugs in the UK were controlled but not illegal. Thus an addict could get a prescription from his G.P. and pick it up at the pharmacist. That did not leave much of an opening for organised crime.

However the system did offend Margaret Thatcher, Mary Whitehouse and the D.M., D.X et al who criminalised drugs with the results we have become all too familiar with.

Jurisdictions which have begun reversing these morality laws are seeing a sharp drop in criminality though of course many people's morals are gravely offended.

Currently police are not allowed pursuit of shop lifting for grabs of less than £ 200. As a result neighbourhood shops have become a prime source of income which feeds into organised drug crime. Control of the areas in which these shops are located is fought over intensively often leading to knife crime.

Not only has the govt reduced the UK police force by 20 000 men , losing a vast amount of expertise in the process, it has sharply cut the pay which is making recrruitment difficult and retention even worse.

The Home Office has chosen to exit from a big chunk of European Security co-operation which does not halp at all.

'Murder most foul'. :-0

Well, the Tory Government is attempting to replace the 23,500 experienced police officers the Tory Government cut between 2010 and 2019 - of course, these new recruits will need training.
Not sure where they'd work from, either, as the Tory Government has got rid of over 650 police stations since 2010

Over the Bank holiday it's reported five people stabbed to death what an awful.cruel vicious world we live in is it drug related?? Very sad all those lives lost how many more. Do we need more police .would that help makes me wonder were is there a solution Barbara