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Meanwhile the UK has got it's thumb up its ass and is happily maintaining a status quo of the worst of all worlds 1) The police are still supposed to arrest pe
by simonswords82 3y ago
Meanwhile the UK has got it's thumb up its ass and is happily maintaining a status quo of the worst of all worlds
1) The police are still supposed to arrest people who are caught with cannabis (It's a class B drug - in the same group as codeine, ketamine, and ‘spice’ - whatever the hell that is).
In reality they typically let people off with a warning but it's still a drain on our already hamstrung police force
2) Drug dealers who sell weed tend not to declare and pay tax on their earnings. Depriving UK Gov of some seriously needed income per this article's headline.
3) Drug dealers tend to sell other drugs, usually harder drugs. Thus exposing people who want to get stoned to a plethora of other drugs that they might otherwise not have come in to contact with.
4) Those people who are hooked on weed (or any other non-prescribed drug) are criminals...and cannot seek help from anybody including their doctor. This keeps them trapped, and over a long enough period of time will do mental and potentially physical damage to them that our NHS will incur costs to fix. And when I say NHS, I mean the tax payers, and when I say tax payers - I mean me.
All of that is to say - fuck UK drug policy. I remain hopeful that it will change though...
- eimrine 3y ago> fuck UK drug policy And UK policy on (potentially) crypted data.
- column 3y agoif you think that's the WORST of all worlds.. In Switzerland police might request a blood test to know if your weed is actually CBD (which is legal), and you have to cover the bill for the blood test REGARDLESS OF THE TEST RESULT.
- simonswords82 3y agoWow that's nuts - I did not know that.
- whimsicalism 3y agohow would a blood test possibly prove this? "oh - this is CBD weed, but I did just get back from America where I was smoking a ton"
- clbrmbr 3y agoWhy don’t the people just pass an initiative to legalize cannabis? Is there a lack of support in the more conservative cantons?
- saiya-jin 3y agoAs stupid as the law is, have you actually heard about a single case this was done? I mean 10% of the population here consumes it regularly, any park, concert, heck even bigger street will have typical smell more often than not. It was legal here 2 decades ago for brief period of time. Thats to say - police are generally fine with it. At least in big cities, expect some some random redneck chest thumping far out in the woods/alps. And if you cause problems, expect no end of stuff cops can pull out on ya, just like anywhere else.
- RHSeeger 3y ago> And if you cause problems, expect no end of stuff cops can pull out on ya, just like anywhere else. Laws that are overbroad and allow abuse any time the police are mad at you are bad anywhere.
- monksy 3y agoSouth Korea sometimes pulls this too. Also other parts of SE Asia will demand an on the spot piss test.
- kaon123 3y agoAnd the production of these drugs is still illegal, which has led to a big increase in (the wealth of) organised crime, similar to how the Maffia was spawned during the prohibition. I am not joking. In the Netherlands a druglord has ordered the assassination of one of its most famous journalists, and has blackmailed one of the most renowned lawyers to break the law. The netherlands exports $20bn (!!!) worth of MDMA and XTC per year. Where do you think these criminal instutions come from?
- sidewndr46 3y agoI'm familiar with the meaning of MDMA, but is XTC some new street name for "ecstasy"
- johnnyjeans 3y agonot new at all
- whimsicalism 3y agoMaybe not new, but not very common in the US. And further confusing given that MDMA & XTC are synonyms then.
- mason55 3y agoThe term "XTC" was a lot more common in the 90s rave scene. As far as being synonyms, people generally differentiate between "ecstasy"/"E" as MDMA in pill form and "molly" as MDMA in powder form.
- whimsicalism 3y agoFascinating, I just call it all molly. But maybe that's because I grew up in a time where you can send stuff to a lab to confirm what it is.
- 3y ago
- s_dev 3y agoProbably worth pointing out that the UK is a world leader in growing and exporting finished cannabis products like medicine as well. https://www.bbc.com/news/health-44197038 https://www.bbc.com/news/health-44197038
- simonswords82 3y agoI had heard that, I think some of our lovely politicians have got their fingers in these insanely profitable pies.
- Aromasin 3y agoA host of Tory friend/family/donor's own licenses to produce cannabis, and any legalization of the product would result in their licenses becoming much less valuable. Previous PM Theresa May’s husband Philip’s Capital Group is the largest investor in GW Pharmaceuticals, which mass produces it here for a foreign market. Previous GW chairman Geoffrey Guy is a major Tory donor. Our previous drug minister Victoria Atkins is married to Paul Kenward for fucks sake; boss of British Sugar, another medical cannabis supplier (now part of Associated British Foods). Funny enough, current CEO George Weston of ABF, member of one of Britain’s richest families, was found guilty of breaching charity law over donations of almost £1 million to the Conservative Party. I could keep going but it always makes me a little ill when I go too deep down these rabbit holes. A government of ministers who insist the drug has “no medical value”, but still allows their chums to produce it under a special license. Doesn't sound suspicious at all, right?
- anigbrowl 3y agoAnd why wouldn't they, it's not like there are any real consequences for political malfeasance in the UK.
- whimsicalism 3y ago> ‘spice’ - whatever the hell that is 'spice' is a synthesized drug meant to be an analogue for weed. i don't think it is though, a lot of people have had ODs or very erratic behavior on spice.
- saiya-jin 3y agoIts also much, much more addictive. As the set of banned substances grows, their analogues change and spice may be a different substance than it was 5 years ago. Drug policies are a perfect example of good intentions paving road to hell and then some more, if you look at ie Mexico. Not that Nixon had any good intentions there whatsoever, but he certainly sold it to the public as such.
- whimsicalism 3y agoSomeone I tutored in math in highschool went out and murdered someone on the subway while on spice. So yeah, bad drug (probably also bad person)
- droopyEyelids 3y agoPeople in this thread are missing the fact that “spice” isnt a single drug but the slang for anything sprayed on herbs and sold as a weed replacement.
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y agoSpice is slang for synthetic cannabinoids sprayed on some herb. The fact that it's classed in a group with codeine and cannabis is bizarre. These drugs are fucking dangerous. Possible effects include stroke, acute kidney failure, acute psychosis, psychological trauma. They gave me a transient ischaemic attack at the age of 21. Seriously. No permanent damage though, I was extremely lucky. My kidney function was in the gutter too but they bounced back. A friend of mine permanently lost his mind from it. Now he sits in his room all day muttering strange phrases and drooling from the clozapine they have him on. Why did I do this? I was forced to do drug tests for cannabis more or less against my will(under duress). And I was a stupid kid who wanted to get high, and these horrible drugs were easily available, advertised as not showing up on tests, etc. I have the chief responsibility for my own actions of course, but it's hard to ignore the fact that none of it would've happened if not for an extremely draconian and outmoded approach to drugs.
- simonswords82 3y agoGood job they stopped you from taking that pesky cannabis /s Seriously though that's awful, sorry to hear that and glad you came out the other side (relatively) unharmed.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- MagicMoonlight 3y agoSpice is incredibly harmful and it’s just a stronger version of cannabis. It’s therefore reasonable to consider that cannabis may be harmful in the same way, just less obviously so.
- bitcoin_anon 3y agoSpice contains novel cannabanoids (and probably residual chemicals) so it is a different beast altogether. Cannabis concentrates, e.g. dabs, rosin, BHO are stronger versions of cannabis.
- Apocryphon 3y ago