Whilst there are some great points for both sides and we all come to this conversation from different walks of life I must say most opinions ive read on the previous 4 pages seem fairly disconnected from the reality of contemporary uk drug culture.
I whole heartedly agree that cannabis is a gateway drug, not because of anything to with the drug besides its dosile nature, relatively safe persona and cultural dominance for the last 50-60 years. because of this young open minded or easily led people are highly likely to try it, maybe they enjoy it maybe they dont, problem is its a really easy way to get confortable with aquiring illegal substances. take this away and you will find it less likely to start young people down a path of deception and fear not of criminals but of the sytsems supposed to be in place to safegaurd and support them.
There is not very much money in weed, an oz of very high grade is likely £200 these days, yes if you want to run around selling it at 10 a G to kids, weighing it at .9 you can maybe make a couple hundred on an ounce if you buying half a key but thats alot of legwork and you be selling the majority in halves and quarters at a significant discount. If we ignore the meager attempt at policing, this side of the industry its deemed by most to be high risk for a very little reward, after all, its bulky, cheap and bloody stinks.
mdma and cocaine are absolutely rife and if you answer your phone you can pretty easily bring in £1000 a week, a few days ago an 'associate' revealed his income to be circa £3000 a week, during the past month for obvious resaons this was significantly higher. bare in mind this is the bottom of the ladder in terms of distribution, in a small town.
dealers have menus and pricelists now, magic mushrooms come in appealing chocolate bar wrappers.
I have friends who I have seen decline and die through a whole spectrum of drugs, ironically given the nature of the conversation the most poignant of which died from legal highs. This particular friend had the begginings of a deviated septum at 16.
I have friends working with the police in the north who have shown me the aftermath of raids on small scale grow houses, these raids arent police raids and ill tell you how sobering it is to see images of arterial spray, and machettes and to notice childrens shoes in a shoe rack in the background.
Maybe legalisation wont help, none of us can actually say but I know for damn sure know that the current system just urinates money down a well. The police cant keep up, if they do nothing gets done further down the line. the real change needed is to bring people with genuine issues out of the shadows, and to help them deal with the problems that manifest themselves into the destructive behaviours. Addiction can obviously be chemical but more often it is due to past traumas from a cabbage up childhood. The way things are now the only people who realy bear the consequences are the victims, maybe im foolish but if you stopped spending money to fight a battle you cannot win but instead take some of the revenue stream and redirect it into some much needed public funding you may deal with some of the root causes and free up policing so that pledging to send an officer to every burglary isnt front page news.
Edit; i swore :s
I whole heartedly agree that cannabis is a gateway drug, not because of anything to with the drug besides its dosile nature, relatively safe persona and cultural dominance for the last 50-60 years. because of this young open minded or easily led people are highly likely to try it, maybe they enjoy it maybe they dont, problem is its a really easy way to get confortable with aquiring illegal substances. take this away and you will find it less likely to start young people down a path of deception and fear not of criminals but of the sytsems supposed to be in place to safegaurd and support them.
There is not very much money in weed, an oz of very high grade is likely £200 these days, yes if you want to run around selling it at 10 a G to kids, weighing it at .9 you can maybe make a couple hundred on an ounce if you buying half a key but thats alot of legwork and you be selling the majority in halves and quarters at a significant discount. If we ignore the meager attempt at policing, this side of the industry its deemed by most to be high risk for a very little reward, after all, its bulky, cheap and bloody stinks.
mdma and cocaine are absolutely rife and if you answer your phone you can pretty easily bring in £1000 a week, a few days ago an 'associate' revealed his income to be circa £3000 a week, during the past month for obvious resaons this was significantly higher. bare in mind this is the bottom of the ladder in terms of distribution, in a small town.
dealers have menus and pricelists now, magic mushrooms come in appealing chocolate bar wrappers.
I have friends who I have seen decline and die through a whole spectrum of drugs, ironically given the nature of the conversation the most poignant of which died from legal highs. This particular friend had the begginings of a deviated septum at 16.
I have friends working with the police in the north who have shown me the aftermath of raids on small scale grow houses, these raids arent police raids and ill tell you how sobering it is to see images of arterial spray, and machettes and to notice childrens shoes in a shoe rack in the background.
Maybe legalisation wont help, none of us can actually say but I know for damn sure know that the current system just urinates money down a well. The police cant keep up, if they do nothing gets done further down the line. the real change needed is to bring people with genuine issues out of the shadows, and to help them deal with the problems that manifest themselves into the destructive behaviours. Addiction can obviously be chemical but more often it is due to past traumas from a cabbage up childhood. The way things are now the only people who realy bear the consequences are the victims, maybe im foolish but if you stopped spending money to fight a battle you cannot win but instead take some of the revenue stream and redirect it into some much needed public funding you may deal with some of the root causes and free up policing so that pledging to send an officer to every burglary isnt front page news.
Edit; i swore :s
