🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <MPG.10d3f680c...@news.demon.co.uk>,
  ma...@mhetherington.demon.co.uk (Mark) wrote:

> Both the PM and the Queen are backed by an array of advisors. Advisors
> are the behind the scenes people which often do not change when
> Government does and are the ones who make the decision regardless of the
> Queen or PM appearing to do so.

Naturally.  I watch Yes, Minister ;)  The point is not whether or not they
will do it, but simply the fact that they COULD do it.	One day,
hypothetically, maybe, remotely, whatever.  It is possible.  And that in and
of itself is a deterrent to overly radical bills.

The difference between the Q and the P is that because the P is publicly
elcted his "remotely possibly hypothetical" veto carries more weight.  Again,
even if it is never enforced, it exists, and that is a deterrent.  It just
means politicians will think twice about everything they do.  Or their
advisors will, if you like.  Just having the president publicly oppose or
publicly back a bill carries alot of weight - it is a safety measure.

> > Well not necessarily.  There are people out there who can take heroin
> > responsibly.  It's less addictive than nicotine.
> But there are far many that cannot.

No.  It's just that the ones you hear about that don't.  Do you ever see
something on the news about the hundreds of millions of SAFE drivers in the
world?	Of course not.	You only hear about all the crashes.  Good news
doesn't sell.  It's the same thing with drugs.	There are alot of heroin
users who are quite capable of holding down a 9 to 5 job and who are
completely responsible citizens in every (other) way, but you don't hear
about it.  Partly because most of them are closet users, and partly because
the media want scandal, not lovey dovey happy stories.

> Plus there are a number of situations
> where a first time user could die from side effects which could be
> foreseen and treated when prescribed for a medical condition, but I
> cannot see Sainsbury's and Safeway being so careful in who they "sell" it
> to in an open market. ;)

Oh really; you wouldn't sell that sort of thing at Sainsbury's.  I'd be
thinking more of a side branch of a pharmacist.  Look at how long it's taken
to get alocohol in the supermarket in Australia.  Actually, you still can't
buy it in the supermarket here - you need to go to special alcohol stores. 
There are laws in every country not to sell alcohol to people who look
intoxicated - that would be just the same if other drugs were legalized.

> I doubt that. There are many crimes associated with alcoholism and other
> legal drug abuse so why would legalising such a drug cut the crime rate?

Because alcohol induces violence.  Most other drugs do not.  Do people beat
their wives after a drag on a cigarette?

With marijuana, the user is far too lazy to do anything violent - and
certainly too slow to do anything else illegal.

With LSD and other hallucinogens, the user is too involved in the trip to do
anything violent - they make the user more passive.  Even if the user did do
something like steal a li'l ol' lady's bag (which is highly unlikely) they
would be no difficulty to capture because, as i said, they are too involved
in the trip.

Ecstasy causes the user to experience happiness and a feeling of being at
peace with the world.  The last thing a user of ecstasy would want to do is
anything harmful toward someone else.

Heroine and other drugs from the same family give the user far too intense an
experience for them to do anything at all, legal or otherwise.

The only real potential problem would be with amphetamines - cocaine and speed
being the main culprits.  But i have seen many people use these drugs
responsibly, and i would say that the crimes caused by them would not be
extensive, and certainly wouldn't exceed the crimes committed by the illegal
trafficking of drugs from South America and Asia.  They wouldn't even come
close.

The real problem is people, not drugs.	Sure, some drunks do some stupid
thinks, but there are millions and millions more who drink responsibly.  It's
a matter of self-respect and self-control.  If someone acts violently on
drugs, they are already predisposed to act that way when they're sober, the
drugs just make it easier for them.  We should not be trying to get rid of
drugs, but trying to get rid of people's pent-up anger and frustration. 
*That* is the cause of crime, not drugs, or guns, or whatever.

> So you have not seen watered down beer. A legal "drug" tampered with by
> unscrupulous retailers!

There is a difference between weak drugs, and drugs which aren't at all what
you're expecting and instead *kill* you.  You buy a bottle of beer and it's
laced with cyanide.  That's not just "tampering" with it.

> Alcohol percentage labelling is a very new concept. Given how long
> alcohol has been available over the counter, do you think all your
> wonderful suggestions will be even considered by the first "legal" drug
> lords?

Imho, the first "legal" drug lords should be the government.  That way they
could make back the ridiculous amounts of money they've thrown away on the
"drug war".  The government has a duty to the public to be Good, or at least
give the appearance thereof, and i don't think they'd give that appearance if
suddenly all their customers started dropping down dead.

> The only real argument I have ever heard for legalisation are to enable
> accessible medical treatment for junkies. Surely prevention is better
> than cure and legalisation would provide a much wider problem so I do not
> consider this argument even vaguely valid.

Why would it provide a wider problem?  If tomorrow you could freely buy heroin
from the pharmacist, hell, if someone came round to your place and gave you a
hit for FREE which you would guaranteed not get put in jail for, would you do
it?  I don't think so.  Would you Justin?  Anyone else reading this thread?

Most of the people who want to do drugs already do them.  It's not as hard to
find drugs as the government wants you to believe.  If someone wants a drug,
you can be sure they'll get it.  But if someone's not interested, why would
making it legal interest them?	If gay marriage becomes legal does every man
in the country get married to another man?  Of course not - because they're
not interested.  Even many gay men aren't interested.  If heroin was
legalized, there's no way i'd use it, despite me using other illicit drugs.

Legalization doesn't mean big public advertising campaigns "come get your hit
from me, only $5 - the best feeling you'll ever have in your life!!!", it just
means "look, everyone who used to be hanging out with dealers and constantly
being worried about the cops can just relax and come to us and get safe and
clean stuff".

> Surely we would be far better showing people how to enjoy and enhance
> life without drugs including alcohol and cigarettes that to encourage
> escapism and degradationn into drug addiction.

Escapism and addiction...  Sheesh!  You can talk - you program computer games!
  What makes spending a night on drugs any worse than spending a night playing
Command & Conquer?

> I have never met anyone who is better off after taking heroin or other
> Class A drugs regardless of the price or quality of product.

Well now you've met one person ;)  Drugs can do alot positive for a person,
believe me.  It does however have ALOT to do with your reasons for doing it.
Alot of people don't have very good reasons, but that's their own fault, not
the fault of the drug.

> Very few people choose not to drink.

Interestingly enough, most of the people who i know who take illicit drugs
regularly won't touch alcohol with a 20 foot pole.  It depends alot on the
kind of social group you find yourself in.

Having said that, i do get your point.	But the thing is, drinking has been
considered a part of life for hundreds of years.  In the Western world, many
of these other drugs haven't - and i don't think that's about to change. 
There are tribal people around the world who have used coca or peyote
(similar to LSD) and other drugs which we consider to be "hard drugs" the
same way that Christians eat bread and drink wine in church - again, it's a
cultural/social thing, not something biological.

I don't think use of these drugs would increase dramatically with
legalization.  It might seem that way because alot of people would come out
of the closet, but i do believe most of the people who want to do it already
are.

> You prefer we elect one person to have this right. One guy has a bad day,
> get's up late or has a fight with his wife and happens to veto something
> that the rest of the world know should not be vetoed, but who cares that
> is what we want him to do! We want to give *one* person this power. Hmm.
> Don't think so...
>
You said yourself they have advisors to tell them what to do, so nyeh :P

> Are there not international laws providing basic human rights?

Yes and no.  They protect your rights as in "the police force of your country
isn't allowed to beat you to a bloody pulp" but that didn't help Rodney King.
The international laws were made by the West, and they are broken by the West.
It's more an exercise in anti-communism pro-democracy PR for the Third World
than anything else.

> Finally who picks what goes in? Not you and me!

No, but rights are rights, and people building a constitution will have a
fair idea what constitutes a right right.  Yeah, try make sense of that crap
sentence :)

> > Oh i was comparing the Czech Rep. and the Slovak Rep. from Czechoslovakia to
> > Germany/England/France etc from the EU.  They're not making the effort to
> > unite - they seem too busy accentuating their differences.
> Huh? Europe is one *big* place. Many Eastern European countries are not
> members of the EC and I do not see how their internal squabbles over
> territory relate to the EC's attempt at harmonisation.

Okay forget the Europe thing.  Look at Israel.	They're squabbling over
whether the Israelis or the Palestinians should get the country.  In Taiwan
they're already worried about being taken back under China's wing.  In East
Timor they want their stupid little line on the ground saying "Indonesia is
THERE, we are HERE".  All these cultures are dead set on having their own
little country, and on splitting the world up into even smaller little bits. 
That Pisses Me Off. The EU is one way in which people are (theoretically)
countering that.  However in practice it's proving that even Western rich
countries are as petty as the Third World and "Second World" (ie East Europe)
countries...

> 1) Alien invasion ... mass destruction, loss of life
>
> 2) Asteroids ... mass destruction, loss of life
>
> 3) Disease ... mass destruction, loss of life
>
> 4) Third world war ... mass destruction, loss of life

Interestingly, this is literally *exactly* the same list i emailed to
somebody a few years ago of "ways we can get humankind to unite".  However,
i'm not so sure about much of it.  If the only way to stop the asteroid
hitting the West would be to redirect it into Africa, do you think they would
think twice about it?  I don't.  Ditto with disease.  AIDS is already rampant
in the Third World and there's not much being done about it.  A Third World
War could unite the rest of the world, assuming ONE side won, but that's
unlikely unless it was the US, which is VERY unlikely because they're a
member of the UN.  Hence alien invasion being #1 on my list (and yours too -
was that by accident?)

The aliens wouldn't necessarily have to be hostile.  Just the fact that
humankind would see that they're different to these weird creatures from
space would be enough to unite them.  I'm sure the sailors on the first ships
out to America and Asia forgot all their differences when they started
getting attacked by little yellow and red men with sharp spears - they
certainly did even when they were confronted with the peaceful Aboriginals of
Australia!

I just wish contact with an alien race wasn't such a far-fetched idea...

> 5) We keep going as we are until the planet is so f****d up, we cannot
> survive ... mass destruction, loss of life.

If we won't survive, we won't survive, which would defeat the point :)

> Whether this new love of fellow man could survive a solution to the
> problem would be another matter but we will assume it does.

Well that is the question.  I'm sure inter-personal conflict would remain to
a large extent.  "Dat hoe sleep wid yo' brudda, man!"  And that's not
importnat - that's for individuals to deal with themselves.  But humankind as
a whole...  It should be united, really.

Alex

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