Sign my petition, make a difference

[Detector]

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/4472

can you take the time and have a read of my petition please and if you agree can you sign it and try to make it happen, pass the url to friends and family and lets see if we can rid our country, towns, villages and cities of this type of crime once and for all.

my petition is simple:

ANYONE found to be distributing or selling heroin to face a mandatory 5 year jail term without the chance of time off or parole. 5 years will mean 5 years. i come from an area that was rife with heroin use, i saw kids that used to be good kids turn into the classic smackheads simply because some of the local "hardmen" decided they would sell heroin to make money.

it is time we stood up to this and tried to get this discussed in parliament. unlike other e-petitions that are calling for a death penalty i think this is more realistic and manageable. it would cut the heroin sales by 3/4 practically overnight because many would be dealers will not want to chance 5 years in jail for selling a £10 bag of smack.

I never ask for much on df but i ask this of you all if you can, please sign my petition, please pass it to everyone you know and lets take a stand.

[evilsatan]

Signed mate. Noticed a spelling mistake, should read practical, just letting you know

[Detector]

cheers dude, english was never my strong point.

[blaggard]

I can't help you with this one mate, prohibition does not work. ALL drugs should be legalised thereby cutting out the criminals and making it possible to control it. The cost of supplying clinically pure Heroin, Morphine et al is a tiny fraction of street prices and addicts will therefore buy from/have a scrip for their habit and will be controlled and helped. The saving in Policing, putting people through the Court system and imprisonment alone will pay for this many, many times over. We are fighting a war we cannot win.

[Detector]

once we get rid of the scum dealers selling heroin cut with shit, we could legalise the sale for private use and to get people off then eventually through their doctors.

if we dont do something to make a significant detterant to the scum who deal to kids then it would not matter what we do.

[blaggard]

Has to be the other way around I'm afraid.

[super mike]

Agree with Blaggard mate, shan't be putting my name to this.

Look at the stats for Portugal. Drugs need to be subjected to proper, well thought out legislation as opposed to this ill thought blunder of laws that we are currently subjected too. This would mean that they can be regulated properly, not cut to shit with crappy ingredients and no more dealing with sleazebags.

Prohibition has never worked and never will.

[braymond]

Prohibition is a disaster . Even senior police and politicians agree the "war on drugs" is lost.
It just creates crime . With blaggard all the way.
Lock up as many dealers as you want it will make no difference.

[Bald Bouncer]

I also agree with blaggard on this one, years ago my father tried to convince me all drugs should be legalised and I totally disagreed but now I have come round to his way of thinking and the logic behind it makes sense, the only real reservation I have is that legalisation could create acceptability in the use but as already stated the war on drugs is lost they have to try something else although this will never happen as too many people rely on drugs being illegal to earn a living and they aren't the criminals (in the eyes of the law).

[super mike]

the only real reservation I have is that legalisation could create acceptability in the use

Not wanting to create an argument, however what is unacceptible about a consulting adult partaking in a joint/line/whatever if they don't bother others around them? Would the same be true of a couple pints of an evening or a cigar?

[Detector]

theres a differnece in coke that is laced with heroin (seen it myself) or speed/phet that is laced with heroin and a few pints of john smiths.

[super mike]

My point was against BB seemingly moral (?) objection to drug use being seen as acceptable. Please note use and not abuse.

My reasons against your petition are stated above.

[blaggard]

It would be extremely hard to make it work but compared to the effort taken now well worth it. Different people will have different views and we need to accommodate them where possible. I have always been uncomfortable about the distinction made between currently legal drugs like alcohol which is a scourge on society and illegal drugs, it's often just a matter of our mores changing, not long ago coca1ne was in use in polite society and even included in Coca Cola.
BB is right, no Political will for this and way too many vested interests.

[super mike]

BB is right, no Political will for this and way too many vested interests.

Big time. Look at the profit margins on Sativex (IIRC I'll try and remember to look tomorrow) for a major reason (to go beside the Daily Wail lot) as to why green is still illegal.

[Mule]

How dangerous is withdrawal?

[super mike]

Not the nicest of things: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opiate_..._of_withdrawal

But this is an interesting (and proably much more accurate than Wiki) read, link taken from Erowid: http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/heroin/herowith.htm

[Mario87]

I remember watching some documentary where they stated that in the last 5-6 years, each year they only seize approximately 1% (yes ONE percent) of ALL the heroin coming into the UK, on a good year they get 2%!! These are guys bringing in tonnes of the stuff who face life in prisson for it if cought, but they don't think of the concequences, they just see dollar signs.

Harsher laws will not make it any better. Just like when you tell someone they can't have something it makes them want it even more. There was also a program on a couple of years ago called "Britains 20 most commonly used drugs" or something like that on BBC. They showed you the drugs in terms of how harmful they are for you.

Extasy was number 19, Cannabis was number 11, tobacco was number 9, alcohol was number 5 (they even stated it would be a Class-A drug if discovered today) and coke/crack/heroin were top of the list for being most dangerous.

So if you want to ban something because it's "bad for you" then ban alcohol & tobacco & legalise cannabis & extasy! However they even had that neurologist who was sacked by the goverment who has done years of research in cannabis. He said the ONLY reason they won't do it is not because it's bad for you (as above, it's safer than the 2 most common legal drugs), it's because back when it was banned it was more of a "we don't like you smoking this stuff, so we are going to ban it" approach rather than because it's bad for you. Due to this, it has followed on for generations and people now think because a drug is illegal it HAS to be bad, and because it's legal it must be safe. Anyone remember MKAT?! It was only 1 or 2 molecules away from meth! However because it was legal for a short period of time load of people though "it must be safe, otherwise it would be illegal" and took it, not knowing WTF was in it.

Brings me to another point, there is nothing stopping some clever chemists from ever so slightly changing the chemical composition then releasing it as a legal high, but in reality it's 99.9% the same as heroin or coke, however because the chemical composition is slightly changed (add or remove an O2 molecule for example) it makes it technically legal for a while until the laws catch up, that's more or less what happened with MKAT IIRC.

If you were to change the laws to work PURELY on what is safer for you and what is bad for you our entire drug classification system would be chucked out the window and the likes of alcohol would be illegal, but then there would be uproar and it would end up being sold on the black market (just like current illegal drugs).

Look at Amsterdam, they don't mind people doing soft drugs, and yet they have very low crime rates because it's all controlled and you don't get have to deal with dodgy characters. Personally I agree with the above to legalise ALL drugs, but have them fully controlled.

However, even then, there will still be ways to get it on the black market. Just like you can get legal prescription drugs on the black market, stolen phones, clothes, etc, etc. The black market will ALWAYS be around, but if we can control the majority of it then that's a win.

However with current laws the black market control the whole drug trade, not the goverments, and as such the "war on drugs" is a lost cause these days.

Just my 2p worth.

[Undertaker]

Does Prohibition work?

yes if you live in Saudi

chop their hands off for dealing, won't be doing it again