not if you supervised the consumption. they have tried this n some european countries and found illict use can be stopped altogether as long as there is good access to clean prescribed d rugs
please name me 2 of these countries.
There is a case to be made for the legalisation for drugs but it sure as hell doesn't go for all drugs. Legalise soft drugs and the step to hard drugs becomes much bigger..legalising hard drugs is madness and not even advocated in liberal countries (like Holland) unless it is in a distribution program.
Yes I'm talking about distribution programmes and your own country is researching this along with Denmark, Germany, Switzerland and many more after recognising that methadone is not doing a good enough job. How can you jump straight to legalisation without proving heroin prescribing actually works? You can't because most people don't know a lot about these things and just see drugs as bad. Heroin prescribing also is researched in England I'm sure. If you want details I'm sure I can get some papers on it for you. I didn't say these countries had legalised heroin but are prescribing it to good effect
this link tells you the effect in Switzerland
http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/ontv/theinsider/heroin+on+the+nhs/649957bummer I need to go out now - have a good debate all.
There is a massive difference between prescribing heroine and legalising drugs..It is not even being discussed in Holland (or any other country in the world) as a serious option.
Giving clean heroin to someone on prescription makes it legal. Nations may not even be thinking about legalising it on mass but there are pockets of legalisation as you describe yourself.
We won't ever see a radical policy shift around legalising drugs without evidence to say it works in some way. Prescribing drugs that are illegal is a start. We do have a long way to go though.
You come from Holland. Do you think decriminalising ganja has had any detrimental effect in or around Amserdam? I'd say it brings a fortune into the city and many people go there to experience a variety of different types without worrying about it being illegal. I can't see anything wrong with it or any harm it causing?
Decriminalising weed has been very good for Holland, not because it brings in tonnes of money (which it does) but because it stops people from etting involved in the criminal underworld that is associated with using weed here. In Holland we don't have a hard drugs problem on the scale that you have in Scotland. But giving heroine on a prescription to a junkie is NOT legalising it. There really is a massive difference. Legalising heroine is not being discussed in Holland as a viable option as the drug is much to destructive to be considered for that. Heroine will never be legalised in Holland, really honestly..it won't.
The only reason prescribing heroine is considered is because a heroine junkie will steal,prostitute themselves and essentially kill for their fix. Prescribing heroine, rather than methadone which simply does not work as people take it in addition to Heroine, stops this to some extent. That does not mean anyone is even stupid enough to contemplate legalising the stuff.
Does anyone really believe that in a world where drinking and smoking becomes more unacceptable by the day and governments do everything short of making it illegal that the same governments will legalise hard drugs? You have to be off your head to honesty believe that.
You aso have to remember that taking heroine and such drugs was at one stage (1800's to early 1900s...hell even during WW1) acceptable..until people saw what it did to those that used it. Anyone advocating the total legalisation of heroine and crack does not understand what the drug does to those that use it.
I understand where Bolt is coming from when he says that Coke and weed should be made legal...after all as a recreational drug they are not too bad..but legalising heroine surely can't be suggested as a good idea.
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If giving heroin to addicts is not legal access (to what would be an illict drug otherwise) then I don't know what it would take for it to be true legalisation? Open access instead of a few treatment programmes? Do you want open access or restriction to those who have problems with it? There is no way you could have open access to such a dangerous drug so you legalise it by putting in a process (prescribing) from which to access it, no? Holland has been involved in legalising heroin for years - by prescription.
Maybe you dont think Holland has the same scale of 'hard drugs' problem as Scotland? It still has a massive problem. One thing though, decriminalising dope in Amsterdam apparently reduced the numbers of young people experimenting with it in years to come.
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I understand what you are saying but for Dutch people there is a massive difference between the legalisation of a drug and helping someone who is already addicted to a drug cope with his/her addiction. We don't consider the two to be the same at all..I think that's where we get our wires crossed.
We have a drugs problem, of course we do. There isn't a country in the world that doesn't, but ours is not even close to being on the same scale as Scotland's is, this (in my humble opinion) is because we haven't criminalised people who take, and sell, soft drugs. Therefore the jump between soft and hard drugs is much bigger than it is over here...we are, generally speaking, simply better educated on the difference between hard and soft drugs and culturally we find that taking of hard-drugs is more unacceptable than it is over here but we don't demonise those that do and quite clearly need help to cope with their addiction.
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