RE: Prostitute Murders
Crystaltherapy,
I doappreciate that your support for decriminalisation is based on your experience as a care worker and your commendable desire to improve the lot of the people you work with.
May I assure you that I am not someone who looks down on the needy from some lofty place at the top of the social ladder. When I was a young Trade Unionist and a member of the Labour Party 25 years ago it was to fight for the interests of the working people that I sought to represent.
I speak now as someone who is no longer politically active but as a parent and as someone who still passionately believes in the advancement of working people and their families.
One lesson that I did learn from that period is that the working class was often poorly lead and misinformed by people active in the Labour Movementwho were pursuing theirown agendas. Much of this mis-leadership was evident in the form of ideology.
For the Left, the Police are agents of the ruling class, not to be trusted and never viewed as a force that could maintain law and order on behalf of the working class. Crime was seen as the consequence of an unequal society.
The leftists that propagated these ideas now have power in all sorts of areas of society; academia, education, the legal professions, civil service, quangos,local andcentral government and politics. Their ideologies have been refined and in their refined form have been adopted by the liberal elite.
The fact that decriminalisation and legalisation of drugs forms a legitimate part of an academic study on addiction is not surprising given the above. Hostility to the legal enforcement of prohibition is also understandable in the above context. An aversionto anything American and the view that we have nothing to learn from America is also a product of the Left's influence.
Cannabis is often described as a soft drug. Used recreationally it is claimed that it causes no harmful effects. However, many people are beginning to realise that cannabis is not as harmless as once thought. Cannabis is far more powerful than it used to be and has been found to be the cause of psychosis in many vulnerable users.
[link= http://www.priory.com/psych/cannabis.htm ] http://www.priory.com/psych/cannabis.htm [/link]
[link= http://www.youngminds.org.uk/press/06_01_19.php ] http://www.youngminds.org.uk/press/06_01_19.php [/link]
[link= http://observer.guardian.co.uk/drugs/story/0,,776610,00.html ] http://observer.guardian.co.uk/drugs/story/0,,776610,00.html [/link]
Those that advocate decriminalisation claim that legalising cannabis would free up the police to pursue those who are pedaling harder drugs. During 2001- 2002 many senior police officers, supported by the government announced a policy of soft pedaling on cannabis. This was centered initially in Brixton. The experiment was classified a 'success' and was extended to other parts of the country.
The freed up Police officers were somehow unable to cope with the 56% increase in street crime in the London Borough of Lambeth that occurred in the aftermath of this liberalisation. The next yearLambeth did experience a reduction in crimethat most people attributed to the Police specifically targeting street crime. This didn't stop drugs campaigners claiming that the reduction in street crime was as a result of the liberalisation policy.
In America, in
RE: Prostitute Murders
I just looked through Dunkirk's links, expecting not to find a summary of research I've also known about since 1980, since the research was 'in' by then. But Dunkirk's third link does include the point I had in mind also to make:
it is now thought that three to four cannabis cigarettes a day are equivalent to 20 or more tobacco cigarettes, regarding damage to the lining of the bronchus, while the concentration of carcinogens in cannabis smoke is actually higher than in cigarettes.
That last bit may be old research or too-softly worded. Becausedepending upon precisely the kind smoked, cannabis by whichever name is several times more carcinogenic than tobacco. Boy, don't enough people already die of lung cancer as it is? Why give the green light to young people, pretending that cannabis is pretty safe and OK? Way back in 1979 I had two books full of research on all kinds of harmful effects stemming from this drug.
I won't spend the time of readers on anecdotes, but just to say that in various ways I've seen the mental health problems it causes. If you're looking in the right way, many of us have.
V
RE: Prostitute Murders
I am not particularly talking about giving the green light to teenagers. What I am saying is, if that decriminalisation of cannabis which is consumed in a controlled environment and has age restrictions was brought in and it had the resulting effect of resources of being targeted to dealers who peddle harder substances then I for one wouldnt be opposed to it.
Believe me, I have been working in the homeless field for over 10 years and I remember another working saying to me, if we had had to evict every young person who smoked cannabis, the hostels would be empty. Cannabis is already freely available to young people and older people.
I get the bus to work in the morning and I am talking about 6am and I see people smoking it on their way to work, you also see people walking down the streets smoking it.
That is not the reason that I would advocate that we go down the route of decriminalisation, what I am saying is as a drug worker, there is NOTHING shocking to many young people about using drugs, in particular cannabis.
Not just young people and believe me, its not just young working class people who smoked it. Several people on my degree course were very open about the fact that they used cannabis daily, some people were already working in the field, some were training to be counsellors. If people wanted to find someone who deals cannabis, they would find it easy.
Just say no isnt working, shock tactics dont work and also if I was going down the route of cannabis causes mental health problems, many people would say SO WHAT??????? They would deal with it when it came to that point and not before.
Its when the line gets blurred between recreational use and dependency, thats when someone might be in trouble.
Look at the smoking ban in Scotland, we cant smoke in a pub now, does it stop people smoking, no it doesnt, you just get long queues of people standing outside smoking their fags.
The large supermarket chains now plug alcohol as a loss leader, used to be bread and milk but now its alcohol, they make a loss on the sale of it to get people in the doors and spend more, a can of something like Stella on the Christmas promotions now can cost anything from 11p onwards.
Drink and drugs can ruin peoples lives if consumed to excess but no one deserves to die a death like those women did and the fact remains that they were hooked on heroin and needed to sell sex to get money for a fix.
So, to the powers that be, what are they going to do to get Britain rid of hard drugs and to make sure nothing like this ever happens again because I am afraid, if it were Tony Blairs daughter (I know that he doesnt have one), we might be hearing a different story.
The point that I am making is that these women werent selling sex to buya cannabis joint, they were selling sex to pay for their next heroin fix. So what is the UK going to do about heroin, users, dealers, small and big time and criminal activity and businesses thriving off the back of people's habits?
RE: Prostitute Murders
Cannabis is a bit of a way from prostitutes murdered, but on the subject as we appear to be -
I'm not naive about the subject, BTW. :eek:Had to make my decision somewhere along the way ...
ORIGINAL: crystaltherapy
if that decriminalisation of cannabis which is consumed in a controlled environment and has age restrictions
?? Controlled environment and age restrictions? In the real world that would mean like the 12-year-olds who smoke ciggies on street corners, right?
Several people on my degree course were very open about the fact that they used cannabis daily, some people were already working in the field
A somewhat unfortunate choice of words. Dunkirk is right about the liberal Left, if they were taking thedegree while growing it!
RE: Prostitute Murders
We all have our reasons for saying what we are. I have worked in the drug and alcohol field as an addiction worker for 2 years before that as a generic worker for 8 where people as I said above, their lives were being made a misery by drug use and I as that generic worker could do nothing to assist them specifically in their relation to their drug issue.
That motivated me to do my degree, which I am still paying for. I am no expert but when you open a page of a paper and see that someone you have tried to assist died of a heroin overdose, let me assure you, that is one hell of a wake up call.
What I was trying to say above is that in my experience, cannabis is not shocking to young people any more. 12 year olds are possibly smoking it at the moment anyway, whether we have a nation that supposedly states that this drug is illegal, people are still smoking it. If you go to Amsterdam or indeed read up on the way that the drug issue is tackled there and I wont presume that you havent, you will read that the amount that people are allowed to possess is very small and that it is controlled by the police. People are not walking around the city stoned out of their brains, unlike many places I have been in the UK. People who are trying to come off of a hard drug are treated as people, there are services that go out to them, methadone buses for example, people dont have to suffer the way that they are treated sometimes over here when queuing for their meth in a chemist and having to drink it in front of the full shop. They are in touch with over 95 per cent of their addict population, can we say the same here? No we cant.
Again I will say that I dont use drugs, but I know people who do and yes when I did my degree there were people, in some cases managers of addiction units who openly said that they used cannabis recreationally. That is their choice again. And I will bear in mind to put the word addiction if I ever use the word field again.
What peoples politics are, is irrelevant to me. I come from a working class background, from a single parent family, I also live in a rough estate, if you were to look at someone statistically who stereotypically might not have gone to university, I might be that person. However, I had a family who encouraged me to go to university, the fact that I dont do drugs has been my life choice, it may not be the choice of people who live around me for a number of factors.
Poverty is the root cause of a lot of societies ills, you dont need to be a rocket scientist to know that.
My politics dont make me the person that I am and I wouldnt presume that the people who were on my degree course and used drugs were all socialists either. They were simply making the choice that all of us have to use or not use drugs illegally at the moment which I think underlines the point that I am making is that drugs are readily available, if we want to seek them out they could.
It wasnt cannabis that saw those prostitues murdered, it was heroin, again readily available if anyone wants to go and get it. We are not winning the war on drugs, neither is America. I am not naive about the subject either, when do you see people dying of a cannabis overdose?
The point is, we could have a million coffee shops over here, its your choice whether you want to use them or not. It also suits many businesses to have people methadone dependent, its a big money spinner, I have known people who have been allowed to stay on methadone for years when they could come off it in 2 weeks.
The fact is that there are also underlying reasons why people use substances in the first place. Lets not forget the costs of drug related crime.
In a study done in 1996 it was estimated that 70000 separate crimes were estimated to have been committed by 60 per cent of one cohort of 1100 people in one 12 week period. Users of crack cocaine and heroin were estimated to have a weekly spend on the drug of £308 per week. And thats just one study.
Again, we are looking at quick fixes to get cash to fund a habit such as prostitution.
Britain is
RE: Prostitute Murders
I don't quite get if you understood I was being light-hearted about the use of "field"? Just my play on words. 😉
RE: Prostitute Murders
Original : Crystaltherapy
The point that I am making is that these women werent selling sex to buya cannabis joint, they were selling sex to pay for their next heroin fix. So what is the UK going to do about heroin, users, dealers, small and big time and criminal activity and businesses thriving off the back of people's habits?
As a society wecampaigned against drink driving, criminalised it and empowered the Police to pursue motorists that were suspected ofdriving under the influence of alcohol.There was a time when everyone used to do it. The joke was that if someone had a crash people would say it was a good job that person was drunk because no one would want to have a crash when sober.
We brought about a cultural shift with regard to drink driving. Although it still goes on it is minimal and the risks of doing so are too great. We have the means to do the same with drugs and prostitution. What we lack is the political will to enforce prohibition.
Dunkirk
RE: Prostitute Murders
We lack a lot of things. Prohibition doesnt work in my experience, look at America in the 20s, it was just driven underground. What I think we need is a hefty dose of realism including looking at the root causes of drug and alcohol use, which in my opinion is poverty. We need to fund more residential rehabilitation units and these should be funded by Government not charities who seem to be picking up the slack where the Government wont. I also think that the process of helping should be UK wide, not depend on where you live the service you get. Lets look at prevention strategies that combat social exlusion, address the complex needs of the vulnerable, support family management skills and maintain peoples involvement in education and training.
Lets look at the reasons why people need to go on the game. People are people, even those who fall by the wayside.
RE: Prostitute Murders
Hi Crystaltherapy,
No one is saying that the 'war on drugs' will culminate insome sort of final victory. The Americans are realistic enough to realise that they can only hope to minimise it as much as possible. In Britain the 'war on drugs' is just words and very little action.
With respect, to say that in your experience prohibition doesn't work somewhat contradicts the anecdotes of the Police turning a blind eye to pushers and their disinterest in cannabis users.
Prohibition in 1920's America was against alcohol. By that time alcohol use was legal and had been embedded in American culture as it was in the culture of Irish, Italian and German immigrants so alcohol prohibition failed to gainsupport froma wide section of society.
As yet drugs are not embedded inour culture in the way that alcohol is. Drugs are illegal so prohibition would mean enforcementagainst something that is already illegal.
With regard to poverty, there are plenty of people who have to deal with poverty who don't resort to taking drugs or to prostitution. We are one of the highest taxed countries in the world. The government doesn't get its tax revenues from the rich it gets it from ordinary working people. People who are often made poorer because of the taxes levied by the government.
Dunkirk.
RE: Prostitute Murders
Yes indeed people in other poverty stricken countries might not resort to drugs and prostitution but I'm not dealing with them in my job, I'm dealing with people who are often on the breadline and for whatever reason have got themselves into a situation with drugs and indeed alcohol more often that is impacting on their lives.
The comments about the way that police deal with cannabis wasnt meant to be anecdotal, it was something that I have experienced as a worker, the point that I was trying to make is that the police service might say one thing in relation to hash but in real terms police dont want to be called out to a homeless unit at 11pm on a Friday night to confiscate an amount of cannabis that might make 5-10 joints. They were simply quite happy that we recorded it and flushed it down the toilet. And that didnt make me feel particularly safe as a worker given the potential consequences that there could be, for instance if I was accused of taking that substance rather than disposing of it.
Cannabis is an illegal drug at the moment, so is the taking and supplying of all the substances that I mentioned in the above post, yet these are widely available and used in the UK.
So if the policy that we have at the moment is that certain controlled drugs are illegal, it isnt making a blind bit of diference to the people who are taking them, they are risking a jail sentence as they are aware that the odds on them being caught are low.
We all have our opinions and there are no easy answers, Im sorry to say that 10 years ago, cannabis was the drug of choice with young people I worked with at that time, it now seems to be heroin, the fact is that many people start using for recreation, need more and more of a substance not just to get a hit but to feel normal, I would be quite happy to be able to change career and not have to work with people's misery but I dont think thats ever going to happen.
RE: Prostitute Murders
Hi crystaltherapy,
I can certainly understand that working with a group of people, getting to know them and then reading about their drug induced deaths in a national newspaper would certainly be a life changing experience.
I know that it would make me want to do something to make a difference to the lives of the vulnerable people who resort to taking drugs. What you do is commendable and I am sure that you do make a difference to the people you work with.
I just wonder if the Police had been aggressively pursuing dealers, traffickers and those on possession of drugs whether the people you speak of would be alive today.
One of the problems of poverty is that resources get withdrawn from areas that are identified as poor. One of those resources is the Police. Often the only reason that the Police go onto a council estate is to pursue and arrest a known criminal. Low level crime, the sort of crime that makes peoples lives a misery is often ignored.
Law and order is everyone's right. TheLaw should not be viewed as the agent of the ruling class but independent of government and any section of society. The American DEA pamphlet makes it clear that they pursue a 'balanced approach of prevention, enforcement and treatment' in the way that they tackle drugs. Why can't we do that in the UK?