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The price of going soft on cannabis: Labour's experiment 'pushed up hard drug use and crime'
dailymail.co.uk ^ | April 5, 2013 | Steve Doughty

Posted on 04/07/2013 12:11:59 AM PDT by Berlin_Freeper

[UK] Labour's liberalisation of the cannabis laws was a disaster that pushed up drug use and crime and doubled the number of drug victims in hospital beds, two major research studies said yesterday.

They found that after police were told to go easy on cannabis smokers, there were increases in assaults, theft and car theft, burglaries, vandalism and anti-social behaviour.

The chance that a young person who had never smoked cannabis would try the drug went up by a quarter after it became unlikely they would get more than a warning if caught by police, one project found.

The likelihood that they would smoke it on a regular basis went up by 8 per cent.

According to a second study, an experiment in relaxing cannabis laws on the streets of South London led to a rise of 40 to 100 per cent in the numbers of men admitted to hospital due to their use of harder drugs.

That report, by researchers from the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said: ‘We find the depenalisation of cannabis had significant longer-term impacts on hospital admissions related to the use of hard drugs.’

(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; United Kingdom
KEYWORDS: legaldrugs; libertarian
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15 Shocking images show the cost of drug addiction
1 posted on 04/07/2013 12:11:59 AM PDT by Berlin_Freeper
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To: Berlin_Freeper

Impossible.. The liberals on here keep saying that the only thing that can save us is legalizing.


2 posted on 04/07/2013 12:17:58 AM PDT by Monty22002
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To: Monty22002

People are going to take drugs anyway. Let them.

Just don’t cut them any slack if they commit any crimes while high.


3 posted on 04/07/2013 12:24:05 AM PDT by Jonty30 (What Islam and secularism have in common is that they are both death cults)
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To: Monty22002; All

As a counselor I have spoken with crack addicts who said they wished the MJ was as easy to get as crack, because they would prefer. Since dates are not given there is no way to evaluate whether the increase in robbery and other crimes not to mention the desire to get blotto is due to the world economy going to heck in 2008. When Point Barrow in Alaska prohibited alcohol, the crime rate dropped 70%. People on pot tend to be mellow, not violent unless it is laced with PCP or similar.
Remember correlation is not causation. I am told that in Portugal and Switzerland the results have been quite different when drug laws were lightened.


4 posted on 04/07/2013 12:29:13 AM PDT by gleeaikin
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To: Jonty30
Just don’t cut them any slack if they commit any crimes while high.

Not a problem with most pot users! Their crime is "getting caught".


5 posted on 04/07/2013 12:30:45 AM PDT by WVKayaker ("...once a bell is rung by a biased media, itÂ’s impossible to un-ring it."-Sarah Palin 11/7/12)
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To: Jonty30

That’s a bit like saying “teens are going to have sex anyway”, right . . . ?


6 posted on 04/07/2013 12:37:14 AM PDT by Olog-hai
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To: Berlin_Freeper

7 posted on 04/07/2013 12:38:06 AM PDT by Jyotishi (Seeking the truth, a fact at a time.)
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To: Monty22002

Yup. One big happy Choom Gang. What foreign power would ever want to bother with peaceful lil’ us?


8 posted on 04/07/2013 12:43:01 AM PDT by Olog-hai
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To: gleeaikin

Also, by keeping it illegal, we cannot regulate it. This gives the cartels the incentive to create drugs that are so addictive that a user is compelled to do literally anything to achieve that high, no matter the price. With legalization, drugs can be regulated to ensure a limit on the high and we can control the high the user gets.

I understand that it was no different with Prohibition. Prior to Prohibition, upwards of a third of adults were in a continual stupor, which was the reason to bring it on. During Prohibition, moonshine was often 190 to 200 proof. It was legalization and regulation of alcohol that eliminated most of the problems.


9 posted on 04/07/2013 12:43:46 AM PDT by Jonty30 (What Islam and secularism have in common is that they are both death cults)
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To: Olog-hai

No. The main problem of teen sexuality is not that teens are having sex, because our ancestors usually got married in their teens. The problem here is that we’ve pushed when it is permissible for people to become sexual well into their twenties, after they’ve completed post-secondary schooling and created an independent life.


10 posted on 04/07/2013 12:50:16 AM PDT by Jonty30 (What Islam and secularism have in common is that they are both death cults)
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To: Jonty30
I think its a lot more complicated than that. Cultural attitudes to what is socially acceptable for sex and marriage varies an awful lot. Sure in 19th century America a woman unmarried by 20 was regarded as an "old maid". But there was much less pressure in the eighteenth century and in the seventeenth it was unusual for people to marry before 30 - and pre-marital sex was extremely uncommon.

Bottom line is there are a lot of reasons for the current problems we have with sexuality.

11 posted on 04/07/2013 1:09:05 AM PDT by Vanders9
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To: Monty22002

Something in these studies doesn’t add up. Decriminalizing it and legal, regulated sale are not the same. So the study looks at the same distribution method as when illegal. Pot is a stepping stone drug because the pot dealer sells more than pot. If pot came from a liquor store (UK lets minors drink I think?) its use among kids would be no worse than booze. The pot man wouldn’t turn buyers onto harder drugs. The pot wouldn’t be laced with pcp or worse.


12 posted on 04/07/2013 1:11:30 AM PDT by enduserindy (Conservative Dead Head)
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To: Berlin_Freeper

A carload of paranoid pot-smokers tried to run me over; going so far as to pursue me down the road.

Cannabis is way more dangerous than people make out.


13 posted on 04/07/2013 1:25:43 AM PDT by agere_contra (I once saw a movie where only the police and military had guns. It was called 'Schindler's List'.)
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To: Vanders9

People have been having sex for forever throughout history married or not.

It’s just the in your face sexuality is more prevalent today.


14 posted on 04/07/2013 1:28:33 AM PDT by FreedomStar3028
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To: Jonty30
by keeping it illegal, we cannot regulate it

There's the usual progressive screed dressed up in a pretty libertarian dress. The sunshine & rainbows theory that legalization=regulation=perfect resolution. Colorado and Oregon have both legalized pot and both have admitted that they have no idea how to regulate or control it. Then on top of that the Drug Cartels aren't mysteriously nor magically dissolving. Marijuana isn't a 32oz soda in NYC, it isn't a harmless rainbow drug.....and the gov't making it illegal is no different than the gov't saying incest is illegal. But then again it's hard to ague with so-called conservatives who have allowed creeping progressivism to influence their beliefs.
15 posted on 04/07/2013 1:32:28 AM PDT by brent13a
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To: Berlin_Freeper

these are sickening.


16 posted on 04/07/2013 1:33:08 AM PDT by freekitty (Give me back my conservative vote; then find me a real conservative to vote for)
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To: FreedomStar3028; dixiechick2000; Black Agnes; twin; onyx; mrsmel; petitfour

Sorry partner

You must be young

Prior to the say late 70s most women required serious commitment for sex

Prior to mid 60s most sexually desirable gals married as virgins

Sorry but amongst respectable folk in Christian nation ....like we were till recently

It has never been like this

Young women are as promiscuous as lads now...and given how low testosterone most young white boys look today versus how bloomy young women look I’d wager young gals are left ...rather undone

We have entered a realm just shy of Caligula’s barge

It has never been like this relatively speaking

And boy does it ever spell disaster....legal pot is nothing compared to ever increasing illegitimacy and the destruction of the man/wife family

I love women and precisely why God made them....they are worth all the ribs I have for sure...and I had two spare cervical..lol

I’m pinging some gals spanning X to boomer...ask them you don’t believe me

The train is off the track sexually speaking in our culture

I am no prude but why take the word of some old hardleg


17 posted on 04/07/2013 1:45:48 AM PDT by wardaddy (wanna know how my kin felt during Reconstruction in Mississippi, you fixin to find out firsthand)
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To: FreedomStar3028

Agreed - what I am saying is you just can’t say all the problems in society today are just down to most people making serious commitments later in life. There’s a whole raft of other issues - feminisation of society, more technology, higher standards of living, economic conditions and so on. It all adds up to trouble though, whatever the reasons.


18 posted on 04/07/2013 1:55:13 AM PDT by Vanders9
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To: agere_contra

Well it removes (or at least suppresses) many of our inhibitions, which isnt as good as most liberals seem to think it is. In the first place, its not good to liberate some inhibitions (like running people down in the street for example). Besides, although it may be mellowing and freeing for the smoker, I personally don’t WANT to be exposed to other people’s deep seated desires, thanks very much.


19 posted on 04/07/2013 1:59:20 AM PDT by Vanders9
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To: WVKayaker

Yeah, and unfortunately the statistics say otherwise.


20 posted on 04/07/2013 2:29:08 AM PDT by JCBreckenridge (Texas is a state of mind - Steinbeck)
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