RE: pro-drug addiction lobby’s deceptions.
Professor Leslie Iversen, a member of the Academy of Medical Sciences group considering drug policy, said the new system was a "landmark paper".
He said: "It is a real step towards evidence-based classification of drugs."
He highlighted the fact that one person a week in the UK dies from alcohol poisoning, while less than 10 deaths a year are linked to ecstasy use.
Iversen et al have a cheek accusing anti-drug folk of scare tactics.
Maybe Professor Iversen should have honestly compared ecstasy users’ (subset of wider-community of about 500,000 –small percentage of total population) with the many times larger group of alcohol drinkers that have a much larger percentage of people who don’t die every year compared to the percentage of illicit drug users who do die.
Like Daniel06’s other comparisons, such as comparing the risks and benefits of cycling to the established harmful effects and negatives of drug addiction, we get more misleading “evidence”.
The harmful effects of drug usage are established and with new brain scan technology more serious effects may be discovered. For instance: London’s Institute of Psychiatry showed that even small amounts of cannabis can trigger symptoms similar to schizophrenia, paranoia, hallucinations, delusions and other effects associated with mental illness.
It’s a misnomer to say that law enforcement hasn’t curtailed the harm of illicit drugs. In Britian the experts argue otherwise.
Home Office Minister Vernon Coaker said: "We have no intention of reviewing the drug classification system.
"Our priority is harm reduction and to achieve this we focus on enforcement, education and treatment."
He said there had been "unparalleled investment" of £7.5 billion since 1998, which had contributed to a 21% reduction in overall drug misuse in the last nine years and a fall of 20% in drug related crime since 2004.
But he added: "The government is not complacent and will continue to work with all of our partners to build on this progress."
We must “focus on enforcement, education and treatment”. Drug legalisation push is harming authorities’ efforts. Drug-use prohibition/reduction is true harm reduction.

Ronnie,

1 person a week dies in the UK from alcohol poisoning-yes. You forgot to mention that almost 162 more die each week as a direct result of other alcohol related problems (this is a substance you admit yourself to taking).

According to the above study the death rate is 1 in every 500,000 users per year for ecstacy (that makes it safer than sitting at home watching TV).

If your claim were true that alcohol is substantially safer than ecstacy and the death rate was say 1 for every million 1,000,000 (thats 50% safer than e) then the population of British drinkers would need to be 162,000,000. Even if alcohol was as safe as ecstacy the drinking population would have to be 81,000,000.

Somehow given that the population of the UK is only 60,000,000 I think your claim has been shattered Ronnie boy. Stop talking total and utter lies.

The stats below demonstrate that the harm ratio for alcohol is substantially higher than 1 in 500,000.

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=1091

Given that I have just totally proven that alcohol is more dangerous than ecstacy surely you have to admit that prohibiting ecstacy on the basis of "harm" is factually, morally and socially incorrect.

How do you live with yourself knowing that people like you are keeping young, heathly, people in jail for doing something far safer than what you do? Giving bright young university students criminal records, forcing young girls in their 20's to deal with criminals and gangsters to buy pills which are safer than beer (which you yourself drink)

Wake up Ronnie you and those who share your views will be remembered for promoting the most immoral, socially destructive policy in contemporary society. Stop being so ignorant - do you really support such a grossly unjust law?

Full points for effort daniel, but something tells me that ronnie's stubborn principals are inpenetrable. This is ok in itself, individuals can believe whatever crap they choose, but unfortunately his attitude is aligned with the majority of our society, who choose to put their trust in authority, as this gives people that sense of order that we all crave.

They assume these rules are universal, and of course this isn't the case. We only need to look beyond our own borders, to the Netherlands for example, where magic mushrooms are correctly identified as less toxic than paracetamol, and the populations percentage of pot smokers in considerably *less* than here. There are no significantly greater rates of death or health problems or crime problems than any other westernised country under their laws. And admittedly without bothering to research, one can assume their prisons are far less crowded with the unjustly convicted. So it is correct to state that our position regarding harm minimisation is not theoretical, rather it is in fact proven.

Harvested my plant last week. Only got about a quarter ounce out of it - still, nice to reap the benefits of your own garden..

i have read most of the articles with profound interest as i am a uni student currently undertaking alcohol & drugs as an elective.i have read some very interesting points of which i tend to agree on some and others disagree.having had some extensive experience with drugs on the outside looking in i am not sure if legalising marijuana is the answer.from a law perspective wld be less trouble on the justice system but who wants to sit with someone who is"stoned" & cant hold an intelligent conversation.alcohol does pretty much the same thing too.i dont think there is a right or wrong answer.to be able to treat a problem, first u need to know what the problem is and there a lot of addicts who dont appear to know the problem as to why they use in the first place.

Nellie,

I'd hardly judge the basis upon which a personal liberty should be prohibited on how intellectual the participants in "said" personal liberty are whilst participating in "said" activity.

I for one am hardly intellectual in the throws of sexual lust, yet I would dare say that prohibiting such an act would be considered rather rediculous.

You claim that that legalising MJ may not be the answer? The answer to what? And even if you knew what supposed issue legalising/prohibiting you are claiming to solve please answer this:-

How does prohibiting MJ (or any other drug) actually solve anything? I have never claimed that legalising drugs will eliminate all drug related harm - I simply claim that all evidence suggests that all we can hope for is a minimizing of drug related harm and that prohibition actually increases drug harm.

Even if drugs were legal (as they should be) we would still see a certain level of drug related harm, albeit based on the evidence from countless experts that so called harm would be massively reduced.

All thinking people have come to the conclusion that the “war on certain drugs” must now admit its failures so we may return to the drug and crime culture we had in the 50s and early 60s before prohibition.

I have been involved with the drug re-legalization lobby for a number of years and have spoken to numerous people on both sides of the fence from constituencies within NSW, Vic and WA, and un-surprisingly, there are more people who are pro re-legalization than I was initially led to believe.

The only noisy opposition we face is an army of sheltered politics academics and misinformed religious followers who base all their arguments on the secondhand information presented to them by uninformed teachers, urban legends and media. We remain confident as the majority of the medical and psychiatric professions have (and continue to) share our view since prohibition began in Australia in 1967, (http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/other/dfat/treaties/1967/31.html) along with the Art and Alternative Spiritual community.

The Movement does not need to continue this conversation with militant “hearsayists” as people will remain divided on the issue no matter how black and white it actually is to people like us who have lived and worked around the drug culture all our lives, and know all our facts first hand. (Psychiatric Nurses, Mental Hospital Councilors, and anyone else who has had their eyes open for the last 50 years)

As the argument against criminalization is beyond doubt for many people, I am not going to add any more facts into your conversation but my point is, do you want to DO anything about it?

It is political suicide for a political party with majority vote in The House Of Representatives to bring this to the table for solving as most ALP and Liberal Party constituencies contain a majority of voters who still believe the current regime of criminalization should continue, and convincing enough people otherwise will take A VERY LONG TIME.

Unfortunately direct action is the only option if we wish to stop this barbaric post cold war relic from thieving us of another 50 years of freedom.