When recreational drugs are legal...

[zDom]

Perhaps we need to be clear..are we talking ONLY about marijuana legalization here or legalization of ALL drugs. Some of you are not very clear (while other have been).

I agree they are two different issues completely.


On one hand, I kind of feel that that personal freedom should include the right to hold and ingest any drug, food, drink or poison that an individual wants to ingest.

But being a realist, I don't think it is feasible. Nor do I think it is wise.


Legalization of marijuana is something that needs to happen. Continued prosecution is hypocritical, a misappropriation of resources best used elsewhere.

 

[ballen0351]

There's the rub, Trace.

What happens when you catch someone growing a plant in their backyard?

I rip it out and sometimes charge them and sometimes I don't it depends

 

[Tgace]

I agree they are two different issues completely.


On one hand, I kind of feel that that personal freedom should include the right to hold and ingest any drug, food, drink or poison that an individual wants to ingest.

But being a realist, I don't think it is feasible. Nor do I think it is wise.


Legalization of marijuana is something that needs to happen. Continued prosecution is hypocritical, a misappropriation of resources best used elsewhere.

The title of this thread makes this point un-clear....

 

[zDom]

Law enforcement does not tell you anything we do not make laws and we never outlawed anything.
We are only give a task from law makers and told to carry it out.

I stand corrected.

amend to lawmakers/society.

 

[Tgace]

I stand corrected.

amend to lawmakers/society.

You may think it pedantic...but it's a fact.

For example. When a child is killed because of texting and driving there is a HUGE public outcry for a new law (usually named after the decesaed). The politicians craft it and then WE (LEO's) are made to enforce it. Then we get to bear the "don't you have any real criminals to hasstle" crap while we enforce the law that YOU (the metaphorical "you") demanded in the first place.

Then 50-75 years down the road, the laws that were demanded by the population THEN then get twisted into some sort of LE/Gvt conspiracy to hold down the "little man" NOW.....

 

[ballen0351]

I stand corrected.

amend to lawmakers/society.

Are you not part of society? So your neighbors are telling you what you can and can't do. You don't like it get enough neighbors to side with you and guess what I'll no longer need to enforce that law

 

[Steve]

While this likely true in the bulk of situations, I have arrived numerous times at crimes in progress and caught the bad guys. And in other cases, while "after the fact", I have chased down, fought with, or apprehended the crook after fleeing the scene...that whole meme of "you are just report takers" smacks many of us LEO's as yet another attempt to belittle what we do. How long till the "fishermen have a more dangerous job than you" meme arrives? Sure, they are statistically more likely to die, but if we are comparing a fishermans death to the death of a person serving their community than I don't know how to even have a conversation on the subject.

I never said you were report takers. Apologies if I touched a nerve, but you agreed with my statement before you went off on a tangent. I have a lot of respect for what the police actually do.

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk 2

 

[Steve]

Perhaps we need to be clear..are we talking ONLY about marijuana legalization here or legalization of ALL drugs. Some of you are not very clear (while other have been).

I think we need to lift the prohibition on weed and consider carefully any other drug. Some need to remain legal, and others should remain illegal.

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk 2

 

[Tgace]

I never said you were report takers. Apologies if I touched a nerve, but you agreed with my statement before you went off on a tangent. I have a lot of respect for what the police actually do.

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk 2

Sorry Steve..no ill will to you in particular. Just getting my punch in before someone else eventually takes a swing with the classic memes.

 

[Tgace]

Some need to remain legal, and others should remain illegal.

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk 2

Good luck coming to a common standatd on THAT.

 

[ballen0351]

I think we need to lift the prohibition on weed and consider carefully any other drug. Some need to remain legal, and others should remain illegal.

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk 2

Who's standard do we use to decide on each drug?

 

[zDom]

Funny thing is the fla zombie case he only had marijuana in his system not meth or bath salts.

It was a synthetic chemical meant to mimic marijuana.

Plenty of criminal marijuana dealers sellers transporters user.

License distributors (like Cali); prosecute illegal dealers and transporters.

I just got back from California. I saw places willing to issue prescriptions everywhere. I never smelled it or saw anyone selling.

 

[Tez3]

At the moment I'd quite like to live in a country where marijuana can be grown outside in a garden! The only drugs you're going to grow here are from anything that lives in cold water.

There's a lot of debate going on here about whether to make khat illegal, I don't know if you have much use of that in the States? At the moment it's a legal 'recreational' drug here.

 

[zDom]

Who's standard do we use to decide on each drug?

By whose standard did we decide to make alcohol legal? To never prosecute caffeine or nicotine?


The line of what is accepted and what is not accepted has been redrawn before.

I think we are seeing more and more of a national consensus that it should be redrawn this time to put marijuana in with caffeine, alcohol and nicotine: ain't good for ya, but not worth tossing people in jail over.

I see no consensus on the horizon for any other illegal recreational drugs.

 

[zDom]

At the moment I'd quite like to live in a country where marijuana can be grown outside in a garden! The only drugs you're going to grow here are from anything that lives in cold water.

There's a lot of debate going on here about whether to make khat illegal, I don't know if you have much use of that in the States? At the moment it's a legal 'recreational' drug here.

Where do you grow your tomatoes? Do some people love tomatoes enough to buy little greenhouses or heat lamps for their basement?

I've always wondered why folk crowd up to live on such a dismal island

 

[ballen0351]

It was a synthetic chemical meant to mimic marijuana.

.

You might want to look again he had Zero synthetic substances in his system not even alcohol it was good old fashion" harmless" marijuana not a synthetic chemical.

 

[Steve]

Good luck coming to a common standatd on THAT.

I've already shared what I believe are some of the considerations, but everyone was swirling around at the time and I think the post was largely glossed over.

We have a couple of easy standards that "society" has agreed to in both tobacco and alcohol. We've seen the effects that prohibition had both when ratified and also when repealed. And we have a pretty good idea how addictive and destructive various drugs are. In my opinion, if we're speaking from a strictly practical position, it's easy to determine which recreational drugs are legitimately too dangerous and which aren't.

For what it's worth, I think weed is less harmful in every way than alcohol.

So, to be clear. That's the legalization discussion, and now I'd like to address the other discussion, which is the dangers to our society that illicit drug use represents. If we're talking about the "war on drugs" I personally believe that it's in our best interest to get the somewhat innocuous drugs, like weed, out of the picture. We've got a huge problem in the illicit use of prescription medications, which are legal but are abused at an alarming (to me, at least) rate. THAT is problem number one, in my book: legal drugs being abused.

I understand the dangers of meth, heroin, crack and whatever else. But, I mentioned the low hanging fruit. We have 4 times as many people abusing prescription meds than we have using all of the other illegal drugs combined.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[ballen0351]

So is there any notional polls on legalization of marijuana? If you go to pro marijuana sites they have polls with up to 52% in support of legal wees other polls I see show low 40s% for legal weed. So if we take an average more then half of society still thinks it should be illegal

 

[Steve]

So is there any notional polls on legalization of marijuana? If you go to pro marijuana sites they have polls with up to 52% in support of legal wees other polls I see show low 40s% for legal weed. So if we take an average more then half of society still thinks it should be illegal

Which is why we continue to have discussions. My hope is that those of you who don't agree that weed should be legal will see the light!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Tez3]

Where do you grow your tomatoes? Do some people love tomatoes enough to buy little greenhouses or heat lamps for their basement?

I've always wondered why folk crowd up to live on such a dismal island

Tomatoes will grow outside, but marijuana needs heat. We've only got bad weather at the moment because you lot have sent the jet stream off course, it's too far south for this time of year!

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/drugs/drug-law/

this is how our laws define dangerous drugs and the offences etc.


http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/alcohol-drugs/drugs/drug-strategy/ government strategy on drugs, I don't suggest you read the Welsh version though! It's title isn't as catchy as the 'war on drugs', they've called it ''Reducing demand, restricting supply, building recovery: supporting people to live a drug-free life'. It may be less catchy but perhaps a little more realistic and certainly less aggressive.