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Drug use is a health issue not a criminal issue (Read 4847 times)
Inyss
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Drug use is a health issue not a criminal issue
Aug 12th, 2015 at 5:17pm
 
When drug use and addiction becomes a health issue and ceases to be seen as a criminal issue our kids and society will benefit.

[How Portugal Halved Drug Addiction Levels

There is an alternative. You can build a system that is designed to help drug addicts to reconnect with the world—and so leave behind their addictions.

This isn’t theoretical. It is happening. I have seen it. Nearly 15 years ago, Portugal had one of the worst drug problems in Europe, with one percent of the population addicted to heroin. They had tried a drug war, and the problem just kept getting worse.

So they decided to do something radically different. They resolved to decriminalize all drugs, and transfer all the money they used to spend on arresting and jailing drug addicts, and spend it instead on reconnecting them—to their own feelings, and to the wider society.

Decriminalization has been such a manifest success that very few people in Portugal want to go back to the old system.

The most crucial step is to get them secure housing, and subsidized jobs so they have a purpose in life, and something to get out of bed for. I watched as they are helped, in warm and welcoming clinics, to learn how to reconnect with their feelings, after years of trauma and stunning them into silence with drugs.

One group of addicts were given a loan to set up a removals firm. Suddenly, they were a group, all bonded to each other, and to the society, and responsible for each other’s care.

The results of all this are now in. An independent study by the British Journal of Criminology found that since total decriminalization, addiction has fallen, and injecting drug use is down by 50 percent. I’ll repeat that: injecting drug use is down by 50 percent.

Decriminalization has been such a manifest success that very few people in Portugal want to go back to the old system. The main campaigner against the decriminalization back in 2000 was Joao Figueira, the country’s top drug cop. He offered all the dire warnings that we would expect: more crime, more addicts. But when we sat together in Lisbon, he told me that everything he predicted had not come to pass—and he now hopes the whole world will follow Portugal’s example.
Johann Hari posted Feb 12, 2015]
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bogarde73
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Re: Drug use is a health issue not a criminal issue
Reply #1 - Aug 13th, 2015 at 4:00pm
 
WRONG, SO WRONG!

Drug use can, often does become a health issue, but it starts out as a crime.
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Know the enemies of a civil society by their public behaviour, by their fraudulent claim to be liberal-progressive, by their propensity to lie and, above all, by their attachment to authoritarianism.
 
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Pho Huc
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Re: Drug use is a health issue not a criminal issue
Reply #2 - Aug 13th, 2015 at 7:42pm
 
Thats true bogarde.

The reason its a crime is to act as a deterrent to people using drugs.

If other strategies result in a decrease in habitual drug use without increasing the number of people trying drugs then surely that is the better outcome.
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The law locks up the man who steals the goose from the common, but leaves the greater criminal loose who steals the common from the goose (convict saying)
 
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Sprintcyclist
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Re: Drug use is a health issue not a criminal issue
Reply #3 - Aug 13th, 2015 at 8:00pm
 
Pho Huc wrote on Aug 13th, 2015 at 7:42pm:
Thats true bogarde.

The reason its a crime is to act as a deterrent to people using drugs.

If other strategies result in a decrease in habitual drug use without increasing the number of people trying drugs then surely that is the better outcome.


I think that the deterrent is ineffective.
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Sprintcyclist
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Re: Drug use is a health issue not a criminal issue
Reply #4 - Aug 13th, 2015 at 8:03pm
 
inyss  - Quote:
........An independent study by the British Journal of Criminology found that since total decriminalization, addiction has fallen, and injecting drug use is down by 50 percent. I’ll repeat that: injecting drug use is down by 50 percent............



I read that in Holland after drugs were decriminilized many junkies got bored of heroin and left it to lead a a 'normal life.'
As there was no ....... battle to get smack, it had lost a lot of it's appeal.

much the same as your findings.
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Pho Huc
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Re: Drug use is a health issue not a criminal issue
Reply #5 - Aug 13th, 2015 at 8:14pm
 
Sprintcyclist wrote on Aug 13th, 2015 at 8:00pm:
Pho Huc wrote on Aug 13th, 2015 at 7:42pm:
Thats true bogarde.

The reason its a crime is to act as a deterrent to people using drugs.

If other strategies result in a decrease in habitual drug use without increasing the number of people trying drugs then surely that is the better outcome.


I think that the deterrent is ineffective.


If the deterrent was effective this debate would be nonexistent  Smiley
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The law locks up the man who steals the goose from the common, but leaves the greater criminal loose who steals the common from the goose (convict saying)
 
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Sprintcyclist
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Re: Drug use is a health issue not a criminal issue
Reply #6 - Aug 13th, 2015 at 8:18pm
 
yes, and drug seizures would get smaller and less often.

there would be no new designer drugs on the market ..........
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Pho Huc
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Re: Drug use is a health issue not a criminal issue
Reply #7 - Aug 13th, 2015 at 8:48pm
 
And you save most of the money that you spend on enforcement and jail.
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The law locks up the man who steals the goose from the common, but leaves the greater criminal loose who steals the common from the goose (convict saying)
 
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Re: Drug use is a health issue not a criminal issue
Reply #8 - Aug 22nd, 2015 at 5:27am
 
If you take away the end  user  how  will  the  drug  dealer  make  a living? What will drug  enforcement  do  without  anyone  to  catch? This could  cause  a  lot  of  unemployment, maybe  even  vacant  cells in  jails and prison.

Let's  try it  drug laws don't  work unless the goal is to have  more  crime!
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Re: Drug use is a health issue not a criminal issue
Reply #9 - Aug 22nd, 2015 at 11:46am
 
Cheers for that evidenceless statement mort
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In a time of universal deceit — telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

No evidence whatsoever it can be attributed to George Orwell or Eric Arthur Blair (in fact the same guy)
 
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Mortdooley
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Re: Drug use is a health issue not a criminal issue
Reply #10 - Aug 22nd, 2015 at 9:20pm
 
Prime Minister for Canyons wrote on Aug 22nd, 2015 at 11:46am:
Cheers for that evidenceless statement mort


It is always refreshing to share ideas with someone who has no grasp of economics.

The drug user finances the drug trade and all the misery that comes with it. They are not committing victimless crimes. Give them their drugs at a local clinic and if they get better that is great, if they don't at least the Cartels won't be chopping off heads to protect their territory. 
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« Last Edit: Aug 22nd, 2015 at 10:28pm by Mortdooley »  

The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left. ~Ecc. 10:2
 
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Emma
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Re: Drug use is a health issue not a criminal issue
Reply #11 - Sep 23rd, 2015 at 10:00pm
 
Mortdooley wrote on Aug 22nd, 2015 at 5:27am:
If you take away the end  user  how  will  the  drug  dealer  make  a living? What will drug  enforcement  do  without  anyone  to  catch? This could  cause  a  lot  of  unemployment, maybe  even  vacant  cells in  jails and prison.

Let's  try it  drug laws don't  work unless the goal is to have  more  crime!


Yeah u r right, and there'd be lot's of people missing out on their corrupt payments too.
Smiley

Seems so obvious doesn't it.?  The benefits of legalisation are undeniable, and yet there is so much opposition.! Angry 
The police could spend their time apprehending criminals, rather than enforcing Laws creating them.!!

I have always wondered why, superficially, but known in my heart, that there are people in power who don't want to lose this endless source of illegal profit.

And illegal drugs represent massive profit. To criminals and terrorists, and others.!  Have no doubt.
So why does our society ( Roll Eyes) continue down this path.?

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Emma
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Re: Drug use is a health issue not a criminal issue
Reply #12 - Sep 23rd, 2015 at 10:03pm
 
bogarde73 wrote on Aug 13th, 2015 at 4:00pm:
WRONG, SO WRONG!

Drug use can, often does become a health issue, but it starts out as a crime.



That is just semantics, bogarde73.  In reality, it is a crime because the Law says it is.

If there was no prohibitive Law, it wouldn't be a crime.

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Emma
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Re: Drug use is a health issue not a criminal issue
Reply #13 - Sep 23rd, 2015 at 10:17pm
 
The saddest thing about these anti -cannabis laws, apart from leaving a gap for Ice  Angry, is the fact that there are many medicinal benefits to be utilised from the synthesis of components within  this innocuous plant.
Sadly this is impossible because of these 'Laws'.

The current approach of authorities to it as a poisonous drug, when in fact it is nothing of the sort, causes untold and immeasureable harm to our society..  Sad
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Aussie2
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Re: Drug use is a health issue not a criminal issue
Reply #14 - Apr 24th, 2016 at 3:37pm
 
The Portugal outcomes are taught in post-grad public health courses everywhere.  It's also well documented that public health interventions eg injection clinics have significant effects on health outcomes (reduction in HIV incidence).

USA treats illicit drugs as a criminal issue and has seen no decrease in drug officences, incarcerations, or population drug use rates. 

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Re: Drug use is a health issue not a criminal issue
Reply #15 - Apr 24th, 2016 at 4:08pm
 
The main benefit is to get drug use out of the dark and into the public view.
If people are confronted with it then change will happen.

I don't know if decriminalization is the right way. The 'War on Drugs' approach
though is definitely not going to solve anything.

People get on this stuff because there is something missing in their lives.
It's definitely a more complex problem than some believe.

If as a society we are creating addicts, that is the bigger problem that needs to be addressed.
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juliar
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Re: Drug use is a health issue not a criminal issue
Reply #16 - Apr 26th, 2016 at 8:27am
 
When a zonked out Weedie gets behind the wheel of a car and kills someone while hallucinating on Nimbin's staple diet of marijuana, taken three times a day, then that is most definitely a criminal event.

When young people smoke cannabis it slows the development of their brain just like the lead in the petrol used to do and they end up with shrunken brains and generally become dumbed down Greenie supporting Socialist sheeple dependent on Welfare.

Of course the Greenies like this as it produces lots of cloned gullible sheeple that believe everything the Greenies tell them. Just look at the Greenie Rent A Crowds paid to protest over who knows what or even cares.

As just one cannabis smoke does as much cancer causing damage as five tobacco smokes it sort of follows that cannabis smokers are going to have a grisly death screaming in agony and begging to be put down as their cancer becomes terminal and eats away their organs.

In the old days the dying weedie could have claimed it all on Medicare but now...
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Re: Drug use is a health issue not a criminal issue
Reply #17 - May 2nd, 2018 at 10:25am
 
This Topic was moved here from Drug Policy by freediver.
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