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Why The War On Drugs Could About To Reach A Turning Point But Britain Lags Behind
by Guest Mon Apr 18, 2016 7:10 am
First topic message reminder :
We’ve barely had time for introductions, but already Johann Hari is reeling off tips about Britain’s war on drugs for me to investigate. Do I want to speak to a new group of ex-policemen and enforcement officials who want reform drug laws? Did I know Britain’s criminal justice system has a worse racial disparity problem than America? “The only country that gathers statistics that has a worse racial disparity than the US in the developed world is Britain, which is extraordinary,” he says. Vice News recently reported that black people, 3% of Britain’s population, accounted for 20% of all Class A drug supply convictions. Hari cites a 1993 study in the US that suggested 19% of drug dealers in there were African American, but accounted for 64% of arrests for it. Research from 2010 found there was a greater racial disparity in enforcement and imprisonment of drug offences in England and Wales than the US. The 2014 Young Review, which looked into improving how our criminal justice system treats young black and Muslim men, noted that Britain imprisons black people more disproportionately than America.
Meeting me in the lobby of the British Library, Hari, 37, is so energised about discussing the topic, he keeps talking at the same pace when we interrupt the interview to re-locate indoors when it begins raining. He distils the racial disparity into one comparison: “Zac Goldsmith was expelled from Eton for having cannabis. If he was a kid at a comp in Brixton, he would’ve got a criminal record, he would’ve been denied access to loads of employment opportunities. His life would’ve been really seriously marred. He didn’t because he’s white and he’s from a rich family,” he says. “If Sadiq Khan, son of a bus driver on a council estate, had been caught with the same cannabis, he would’ve got a criminal record. The figures on that are really clear.” Hari has spent more time thinking about the drug war than most Britons. After a fallfrom grace as one of Britain’s star columnists over plagiarism and using different guises to defame other journalists online, he left the Independent and spent three years researching and writing ‘Chasing The Scream’, the story of how the war on drugs began and why it must end. The work has drawn praise from experts and campaigners. Hari published the audio of interviews he conducted online and promoted a way for readers to submit corrections to the book. In the words of one critic’s glowing review of the book: “This is a man with something to prove.”
The book argues that drug prohibition has given a huge market to armed criminal gangs, and that nearly all violence defined as “drug related” is warring over turf. In other words, drugs are not as deadly as the industry created by banning them. Using personal stories, the book illuminates the human origins and cost of a war the world is increasingly reluctant to fight. Portugal decriminalised the use of all drugs in 2001. Switzerland has set up legal heroin clinics for addicts. Uruguay legalised marijuana. On Monday, the UN General Assembly Special Advisory Session On Drugs (UNGASS) begins in New York. Hari wryly notes that the slogan for the last special session in 1998 was “a drug free world, we can do it!” That pledged to end drugs, all of them, by 2008. “People looking around will notice whether drugs have in fact vanished from the face of the earth,” he laughs. The UNGASS is convening two years earlier than planned after the governments of Mexico, Guatemala and Colombia have called for it, because, in Hari’s words, they have been “fucking destroyed” by the violence of the drug war.
“By some estimates, more people have died in the drug war violence in Mexico and Colombia than died in Syria,” he says. Countries keen on prohibition, like Russia and China, are bound to oppose any change. “This is the first time we’re going to have countries standing up saying ‘we are not doing this shit any more’,” Hari says. “The failure of the drug war has become more obvious, the alternatives have been tried.” Hari doubts those clamouring for change will get what they want: change to UN treaties permitting countries to experiment with policies of treatment rather than enforcement, and a panel of experts to spend two years looking at what policies work best. If prohibitionist countries resist the second one, they will be “exposed naked in front of the world for having to admit they do not want the look at evidence,” Hari says. He does not know which way Britain will go during the session. What he saw in 2012 does not inspire confidence. At the World Federation Against Drugs conference in Stockholm, draconian Russian drugs tsar Viktor Ivanov, whom Hari calls “one of the most evil people I’ve ever met”, made a statement condemning those who would relax drug prohibition. “Britain’s representative stood right there next to him, with this declaration saying the war on drugs has been a great thing and we need to intensify it. That was shocking to me, that they could stand next to a man who is causing enormous amounts of deaths in his own country.”
The fact David Cameron’s government has been “all over the place” on drug reform makes him suspect the UK will “keep its head down” at the summit. He calls the prime minister a “particularly grotesque example” of British politicians’ inaction on the issue. The prime minister spoke in favour of “radical options” of reform as a backbencher, shortly after his election to parliament, noting the surge in heroin addiction prohibition had created. In 2012, he rejected the idea of a Royal Commission on drugs, saying his government’s policies were working. For Hari, the evidence is so conclusive he struggles to think Cameron genuinely believes that. “I don’t think anyone could say I’m someone who has positive illusions about Cameron and Osborne but I can’t believe they don’t know, or if you sat with them privately, they couldn’t intellectually make the case for ending the prohibition. There’s no political capital in it and they don’t give a shit basically,” he says.
“Politicians are always calculating: ‘If I do this, how much shit will I get and how much praise will I get’. At the moment, on this issue, you’ll get some praise and a lot of shit. It’s our job to change that ratio.” This could be harder in Britain than in America. Here there is not an activist grass roots movement for change like the one that has fought for US states like Colorado and Oregon to relax drug laws. In America, the Right has a strong libertarian streak. After years of advocating left-wing causes, Hari did not expect to hear Rand Paul, Republican presidential candidate, praise his book. Here, the Right has “more of a Culture War distaste for drug use,” Hari says.
“Alan Duncan used to say fairly good things, Nigel Farage used to say fairly good things,” he notes, trying to remember the few who have spoken about it. “It’s the one thing I’d praise Nigel Farage for. He used to be really good. He doesn’t talk about it anymore ... There must be British right-wingers who are good on this issue and I’d urge them to speak out. If you’re against failed government policy, and a waste of tax payer money, well it’s hard to think of more blatant item on the menu than the British drug war.”
Discussing the race disparity in its enforcement, he says: “That should be a national scandal, I’m curious why more isn’t said about it?” Hari, who used to conduct sit-down interviews with world-famous authors and public figures, suddenly asks me: “Why do you think it isn’t?” Well, I begin, having not written a book on the issue, maybe we feel race issues are more of an American thing. Maybe racism is something we’re quicker to dismiss because we think ourselves better than other countries at overcoming it. “I think there’s something in that,” he says. “This could be wrong and I say this very tentatively. It’s certainly not the main reason.” He pauses with the most trepidation of any point in the interview and then begins his point. “The people who speak out rightly and bravely on behalf of black British people being abused, some of them worry that it reinforces a negative stereotype about young black men being arrested for drug offences. They’re worried it triggers a debate where people will say, ‘well, they are dealers’. What we know from the American debate, what gets classed as a drug dealer is heavily radicalised.” Two of Hari’s nephews attend a Jewish School in London where those selling drugs are “Nice North London Jewish boys”. If they are caught, the school will ring the parents, not the police, he says, so they stay out of police statistics.
“You end up with this distorted picture that drug dealers are black which is false ... The kid who offers my nephew weed or some pills, he doesn’t appear in the picture ... You can’t punish everyone so the law is enforced people the police already harass, already stigmatise, already fear, the low-hanging fruit.” He cites the story of American cop Matthew Fogg, who asked his superiors why they always mounted drug raids in black neighbourhoods and was told it was easier to target people “who can’t afford attorneys”.
Hari says the three changes he wants Britain to implement have already been tried elsewhere and worked:
“Legal heroin clinics in Geneva look like a branch of Toni & Guy. No one ever dies there. Everyone leaves and gets a job,” he says. He adds what he calls his “Jerry Springer moment”. “Policies based on shaming stigmatisation have been tried and failed. Policies based on love and compassion and reconnection have also been tried. Everywhere that’s tried them has a drug problem that’s diminishing all the time. That has to tell us something.” Some change has come. Hari concedes more change will take “political capital” to overcome failed orthodoxies about what works, adding: “Who wants to spend it on this?” The world’s most populous country still enthusiastically puts people to death for drugs offences. Whether reformists get what they want at this week’s UN session, it will mark a point beyond which “no one can ever say ‘the world is united behind this goal of a drug-free world’.” he says. In words that suggest there’s optimism for the cause of drug reform in Britain, he says: “It becomes part of a much deeper momentum, with the rebellions happening all over the world... Knowing you are part of global movement really empowers you.”
Chasing The Scream, published by Bloomsbury, is out now in paperback.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/drugs-uk-johann-hari-interview_uk_5710a266e4b0636a3f6c75ab?utm_hp_ref=uk
We’ve barely had time for introductions, but already Johann Hari is reeling off tips about Britain’s war on drugs for me to investigate. Do I want to speak to a new group of ex-policemen and enforcement officials who want reform drug laws? Did I know Britain’s criminal justice system has a worse racial disparity problem than America? “The only country that gathers statistics that has a worse racial disparity than the US in the developed world is Britain, which is extraordinary,” he says. Vice News recently reported that black people, 3% of Britain’s population, accounted for 20% of all Class A drug supply convictions. Hari cites a 1993 study in the US that suggested 19% of drug dealers in there were African American, but accounted for 64% of arrests for it. Research from 2010 found there was a greater racial disparity in enforcement and imprisonment of drug offences in England and Wales than the US. The 2014 Young Review, which looked into improving how our criminal justice system treats young black and Muslim men, noted that Britain imprisons black people more disproportionately than America.
Meeting me in the lobby of the British Library, Hari, 37, is so energised about discussing the topic, he keeps talking at the same pace when we interrupt the interview to re-locate indoors when it begins raining. He distils the racial disparity into one comparison: “Zac Goldsmith was expelled from Eton for having cannabis. If he was a kid at a comp in Brixton, he would’ve got a criminal record, he would’ve been denied access to loads of employment opportunities. His life would’ve been really seriously marred. He didn’t because he’s white and he’s from a rich family,” he says. “If Sadiq Khan, son of a bus driver on a council estate, had been caught with the same cannabis, he would’ve got a criminal record. The figures on that are really clear.” Hari has spent more time thinking about the drug war than most Britons. After a fallfrom grace as one of Britain’s star columnists over plagiarism and using different guises to defame other journalists online, he left the Independent and spent three years researching and writing ‘Chasing The Scream’, the story of how the war on drugs began and why it must end. The work has drawn praise from experts and campaigners. Hari published the audio of interviews he conducted online and promoted a way for readers to submit corrections to the book. In the words of one critic’s glowing review of the book: “This is a man with something to prove.”
The book argues that drug prohibition has given a huge market to armed criminal gangs, and that nearly all violence defined as “drug related” is warring over turf. In other words, drugs are not as deadly as the industry created by banning them. Using personal stories, the book illuminates the human origins and cost of a war the world is increasingly reluctant to fight. Portugal decriminalised the use of all drugs in 2001. Switzerland has set up legal heroin clinics for addicts. Uruguay legalised marijuana. On Monday, the UN General Assembly Special Advisory Session On Drugs (UNGASS) begins in New York. Hari wryly notes that the slogan for the last special session in 1998 was “a drug free world, we can do it!” That pledged to end drugs, all of them, by 2008. “People looking around will notice whether drugs have in fact vanished from the face of the earth,” he laughs. The UNGASS is convening two years earlier than planned after the governments of Mexico, Guatemala and Colombia have called for it, because, in Hari’s words, they have been “fucking destroyed” by the violence of the drug war.
“By some estimates, more people have died in the drug war violence in Mexico and Colombia than died in Syria,” he says. Countries keen on prohibition, like Russia and China, are bound to oppose any change. “This is the first time we’re going to have countries standing up saying ‘we are not doing this shit any more’,” Hari says. “The failure of the drug war has become more obvious, the alternatives have been tried.” Hari doubts those clamouring for change will get what they want: change to UN treaties permitting countries to experiment with policies of treatment rather than enforcement, and a panel of experts to spend two years looking at what policies work best. If prohibitionist countries resist the second one, they will be “exposed naked in front of the world for having to admit they do not want the look at evidence,” Hari says. He does not know which way Britain will go during the session. What he saw in 2012 does not inspire confidence. At the World Federation Against Drugs conference in Stockholm, draconian Russian drugs tsar Viktor Ivanov, whom Hari calls “one of the most evil people I’ve ever met”, made a statement condemning those who would relax drug prohibition. “Britain’s representative stood right there next to him, with this declaration saying the war on drugs has been a great thing and we need to intensify it. That was shocking to me, that they could stand next to a man who is causing enormous amounts of deaths in his own country.”
The fact David Cameron’s government has been “all over the place” on drug reform makes him suspect the UK will “keep its head down” at the summit. He calls the prime minister a “particularly grotesque example” of British politicians’ inaction on the issue. The prime minister spoke in favour of “radical options” of reform as a backbencher, shortly after his election to parliament, noting the surge in heroin addiction prohibition had created. In 2012, he rejected the idea of a Royal Commission on drugs, saying his government’s policies were working. For Hari, the evidence is so conclusive he struggles to think Cameron genuinely believes that. “I don’t think anyone could say I’m someone who has positive illusions about Cameron and Osborne but I can’t believe they don’t know, or if you sat with them privately, they couldn’t intellectually make the case for ending the prohibition. There’s no political capital in it and they don’t give a shit basically,” he says.
“Politicians are always calculating: ‘If I do this, how much shit will I get and how much praise will I get’. At the moment, on this issue, you’ll get some praise and a lot of shit. It’s our job to change that ratio.” This could be harder in Britain than in America. Here there is not an activist grass roots movement for change like the one that has fought for US states like Colorado and Oregon to relax drug laws. In America, the Right has a strong libertarian streak. After years of advocating left-wing causes, Hari did not expect to hear Rand Paul, Republican presidential candidate, praise his book. Here, the Right has “more of a Culture War distaste for drug use,” Hari says.
“Alan Duncan used to say fairly good things, Nigel Farage used to say fairly good things,” he notes, trying to remember the few who have spoken about it. “It’s the one thing I’d praise Nigel Farage for. He used to be really good. He doesn’t talk about it anymore ... There must be British right-wingers who are good on this issue and I’d urge them to speak out. If you’re against failed government policy, and a waste of tax payer money, well it’s hard to think of more blatant item on the menu than the British drug war.”
Discussing the race disparity in its enforcement, he says: “That should be a national scandal, I’m curious why more isn’t said about it?” Hari, who used to conduct sit-down interviews with world-famous authors and public figures, suddenly asks me: “Why do you think it isn’t?” Well, I begin, having not written a book on the issue, maybe we feel race issues are more of an American thing. Maybe racism is something we’re quicker to dismiss because we think ourselves better than other countries at overcoming it. “I think there’s something in that,” he says. “This could be wrong and I say this very tentatively. It’s certainly not the main reason.” He pauses with the most trepidation of any point in the interview and then begins his point. “The people who speak out rightly and bravely on behalf of black British people being abused, some of them worry that it reinforces a negative stereotype about young black men being arrested for drug offences. They’re worried it triggers a debate where people will say, ‘well, they are dealers’. What we know from the American debate, what gets classed as a drug dealer is heavily radicalised.” Two of Hari’s nephews attend a Jewish School in London where those selling drugs are “Nice North London Jewish boys”. If they are caught, the school will ring the parents, not the police, he says, so they stay out of police statistics.
“You end up with this distorted picture that drug dealers are black which is false ... The kid who offers my nephew weed or some pills, he doesn’t appear in the picture ... You can’t punish everyone so the law is enforced people the police already harass, already stigmatise, already fear, the low-hanging fruit.” He cites the story of American cop Matthew Fogg, who asked his superiors why they always mounted drug raids in black neighbourhoods and was told it was easier to target people “who can’t afford attorneys”.
Hari says the three changes he wants Britain to implement have already been tried elsewhere and worked:
-Decriminalise all use of drugs, following Portugal’s example
-Legalise heroin for those addicted to it, following Switzerland’s example
-Allow legal cannabis-selling co-operatives, following Spain’s example
“Legal heroin clinics in Geneva look like a branch of Toni & Guy. No one ever dies there. Everyone leaves and gets a job,” he says. He adds what he calls his “Jerry Springer moment”. “Policies based on shaming stigmatisation have been tried and failed. Policies based on love and compassion and reconnection have also been tried. Everywhere that’s tried them has a drug problem that’s diminishing all the time. That has to tell us something.” Some change has come. Hari concedes more change will take “political capital” to overcome failed orthodoxies about what works, adding: “Who wants to spend it on this?” The world’s most populous country still enthusiastically puts people to death for drugs offences. Whether reformists get what they want at this week’s UN session, it will mark a point beyond which “no one can ever say ‘the world is united behind this goal of a drug-free world’.” he says. In words that suggest there’s optimism for the cause of drug reform in Britain, he says: “It becomes part of a much deeper momentum, with the rebellions happening all over the world... Knowing you are part of global movement really empowers you.”
Chasing The Scream, published by Bloomsbury, is out now in paperback.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/drugs-uk-johann-hari-interview_uk_5710a266e4b0636a3f6c75ab?utm_hp_ref=uk
Guest- Guest
Re: Why The War On Drugs Could About To Reach A Turning Point But Britain Lags Behind
by Raggamuffin Mon Apr 18, 2016 5:49 pm
didge wrote:Raggamuffin wrote:
For goodness sake Didge, sort yourself out. This is no way to carry on all the time - the bitterness is eating you up. Get out more, go and chat to people in the real world, have a laugh. Don't sit here for ever getting more and more bitter about the religion you chose to give up. Having hissy fits at funerals won't help you.
Again making an absurd and irrational view point, where again you are basing my happiness to be based off what you think constitutes happiness.
Your first mistake is to think others can make you happy, as happiness is born from within. Its we ourselves and how we feel that matters as all people can is momentarily make others feel good about themselves, as they dint actually solve their problems for them. Advice is always good for people, but they have to take on board that advice, if of course it is important and needed.
Where in your case, the sad reality is you have had a closed mind for years.
So again being that I am very happy, does not actually require doing anything, to have this Rags. Then everything else that further brings more happiness, is then a bonus
I think you really need to stop obsessing about religious faith. It's made you so bitter, and you clearly take drugs to deal with that bitterness. It's no life for you Didge - you need to get over it. You might think the drugs are making you happy, but that's an illusion. You'll never be happy until you live and let live.
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Re: Why The War On Drugs Could About To Reach A Turning Point But Britain Lags Behind
by Guest Mon Apr 18, 2016 5:56 pm
Raggamuffin wrote:didge wrote:
Again making an absurd and irrational view point, where again you are basing my happiness to be based off what you think constitutes happiness.
Your first mistake is to think others can make you happy, as happiness is born from within. Its we ourselves and how we feel that matters as all people can is momentarily make others feel good about themselves, as they dint actually solve their problems for them. Advice is always good for people, but they have to take on board that advice, if of course it is important and needed.
Where in your case, the sad reality is you have had a closed mind for years.
So again being that I am very happy, does not actually require doing anything, to have this Rags. Then everything else that further brings more happiness, is then a bonus
I think you really need to stop obsessing about religious faith. It's made you so bitter, and you clearly take drugs to deal with that bitterness. It's no life for you Didge - you need to get over it. You might think the drugs are making you happy, but that's an illusion. You'll never be happy until you live and let live.
There is nothing bitter about helped people to open their eyes to reason and sense.
In fact I am amused you would class being free and hope people can achieve that freedom, to be anything other than bitter.
Again you are making a stand point on what a good life is, based off no sound reasoning but again the warped regressive religiously backward view held by yourself. I do not take drugs (though I have in my youth), other than the medication I use for my asthma, not that it matters whether if I or others do or not. If a person is happy and not addicted, that would not make them bitter as well. So your reasoning is born from the realms of being indoctrinated with man made beliefs, formed to control you into the slave you are to your faith.
So your view point on happiness is again born from a falsehood, as to live and let live, would allow many people who are suffering to fundamentally continue to suffer and die. Even more comical is how you yourself do not allow others to live and let live.
Again, true happiness, is born from within.
Guest- Guest
Re: Why The War On Drugs Could About To Reach A Turning Point But Britain Lags Behind
by Guest Mon Apr 18, 2016 6:01 pm
Well I have things to do, but one thing is emphatically clear here after the numerous posts made between myself and Rags.
As she has herself proved that she is not been harassed at all.
Thank you Rags, it was easy to prove once again you were feigning victim hood
Catch you later
As she has herself proved that she is not been harassed at all.
Thank you Rags, it was easy to prove once again you were feigning victim hood
Catch you later
Guest- Guest
Re: Why The War On Drugs Could About To Reach A Turning Point But Britain Lags Behind
by Raggamuffin Mon Apr 18, 2016 6:05 pm
didge wrote:Raggamuffin wrote:
I think you really need to stop obsessing about religious faith. It's made you so bitter, and you clearly take drugs to deal with that bitterness. It's no life for you Didge - you need to get over it. You might think the drugs are making you happy, but that's an illusion. You'll never be happy until you live and let live.
There is nothing bitter about helped people to open their eyes to reason and sense.
In fact I am amused you would class being free and hope people can achieve that freedom, to be anything other than bitter.
Again you are making a stand point on what a good life is, based off no sound reasoning but again the warped regressive religiously backward view held by yourself. I do not take drugs (though I have in my youth), other than the medication I use for my asthma, not that it matters whether if I or others do or not. If a person is happy and not addicted, that would not make them bitter as well. So your reasoning is born from the realms of being indoctrinated with man made beliefs, formed to control you into the slave you are to your faith.
So your view point on happiness is again born from a falsehood, as to live and let live, would allow many people who are suffering to fundamentally continue to suffer and die. Even more comical is how you yourself do not allow others to live and let live.
Again, true happiness, is born from within.
You are sooooo bitter, it's just pathetic. You don't try to "help" anyone do anything, you just bully them and rant at them in the hope that you'll force them to think the way you do. It won't work Didge - leave others alone and concentrate on sorting your own life out. Isn't it about time you did that? As for anyone being "backward", that's what those drugs will do to you. They're already making you delusional, so don't let them rot your brain totally as well.
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Re: Why The War On Drugs Could About To Reach A Turning Point But Britain Lags Behind
by Raggamuffin Mon Apr 18, 2016 6:06 pm
didge wrote:Well I have things to do, but one thing is emphatically clear here after the numerous posts made between myself and Rags.
As she has herself proved that she is not been harassed at all.
Thank you Rags, it was easy to prove once again you were feigning victim hood
Catch you later
As the forum owner saw what happened and chose to blame me for your harassment, I decided to deal with it myself. He clearly supports your view, which is probably why you haven't been bounced from this forum a long time ago.
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Re: Why The War On Drugs Could About To Reach A Turning Point But Britain Lags Behind
by eddie Mon Apr 18, 2016 8:00 pm
Okay time out.
Rags, Didge is allowed to opine about why you think something, if he's wrong, just ignore him? Why do you care what he thinks anyway?
Secondly, I never saw Ben blame you for Didge's "harassment" he posted a picture of water coming off a duck's back, which is what I'm saying too.
Didge, perhaps your debates may be more successful if you didn't assume WHY another person thinks what they do? As soon as you do that, you are shutting down any form of debate.
Don't spoil a thread, you two, all because you can't miss the chance to have an argument.
Rags, Didge is allowed to opine about why you think something, if he's wrong, just ignore him? Why do you care what he thinks anyway?
Secondly, I never saw Ben blame you for Didge's "harassment" he posted a picture of water coming off a duck's back, which is what I'm saying too.
Didge, perhaps your debates may be more successful if you didn't assume WHY another person thinks what they do? As soon as you do that, you are shutting down any form of debate.
Don't spoil a thread, you two, all because you can't miss the chance to have an argument.
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Re: Why The War On Drugs Could About To Reach A Turning Point But Britain Lags Behind
by Raggamuffin Mon Apr 18, 2016 8:10 pm
eddie wrote:Okay time out.
Rags, Didge is allowed to opine about why you think something, if he's wrong, just ignore him? Why do you care what he thinks anyway?
Secondly, I never saw Ben blame you for Didge's "harassment" he posted a picture of water coming off a duck's back, which is what I'm saying too.
Didge, perhaps your debates may be more successful if you didn't assume WHY another person thinks what they do? As soon as you do that, you are shutting down any form of debate.
Don't spoil a thread, you two, all because you can't miss the chance to have an argument.
I don't care what he's "allowed" to do. He had no reason whatsoever to mention religion at all. If he keeps on and on bringing up my religion in an irrelevant manner, I will respond, and if the thread is then spoilt, it's his fault, not mine. It's not a question of what I care about, it's a question of what he's doing day in, day out on here - just what he threatened to do. If disruption occurs, well that's down to him because he made that threat to harass me about religion in the first place. Deleting his account and coming back again doesn't make him a different person. Of course Ben blamed me. He replied to me specifically rather than Didge when he was moaning about the thread being spoilt. Well maybe if just once he actually addressed the problem - ie, Didge - it might not happen so often.
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Re: Why The War On Drugs Could About To Reach A Turning Point But Britain Lags Behind
by eddie Mon Apr 18, 2016 8:16 pm
Listen to me rags: Didge isn't breaking a rule by assuming why you think something, that's his problem - why make it yours?
He does it to me sometimes: if I think he's wrong I'll tell him or I won't, but what does happen is he effectively closes down communication with me as there's no point in debating with someone who is telling you what you think.
If you choose to respond that's entirely up to you.
He does it to me sometimes: if I think he's wrong I'll tell him or I won't, but what does happen is he effectively closes down communication with me as there's no point in debating with someone who is telling you what you think.
If you choose to respond that's entirely up to you.
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Re: Why The War On Drugs Could About To Reach A Turning Point But Britain Lags Behind
by Raggamuffin Mon Apr 18, 2016 8:18 pm
eddie wrote:Listen to me rags: Didge isn't breaking a rule by assuming why your think something, that's his problem - why a make it yours?
He does it to me sometimes: if I think he's wrong I'll tell him or I won't, but what does happen is he effectively closes down communication with me as there's no point in debating with someone who is telling you what you think.
If you choose to respond that's entirely up to you, and if the thread descends into chaos it isn't the end of the world.
Water off a duck's back rags.
No matter - I won't report him again, but I will reply if he harasses me about my religion if it's not relevant, and I will tell him why he thinks like he does - because he's a drug-addled moron. If you don't like that, don't blame me. You were the one complaining about the thread being disrupted, not me.
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Re: Why The War On Drugs Could About To Reach A Turning Point But Britain Lags Behind
by eddie Mon Apr 18, 2016 8:19 pm
However you respond is up to you.
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Re: Why The War On Drugs Could About To Reach A Turning Point But Britain Lags Behind
by Raggamuffin Mon Apr 18, 2016 8:20 pm
eddie wrote:However you respond is up to you.
Yes it is, and that's why I responded in the way I did. I'll respond the same way in future, but you won't be bothered about that obviously. That's fine with me. If you want threads all over the place to descend into chaos, it's not my problem.
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Re: Why The War On Drugs Could About To Reach A Turning Point But Britain Lags Behind
by eddie Mon Apr 18, 2016 8:23 pm
Raggamuffin wrote:eddie wrote:However you respond is up to you.
Yes it is, and that's why I responded in the way I did. I'll respond the same way in future, but you won't be bothered about that obviously. That's fine with me. If you want threads all over the place to descend into chaos, it's not my problem.
Rags what exactly do you want me to do.....Ask Didge not to "assume" something?
Assuming is dumb and detrimental but it's not a rule-breaker!
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Re: Why The War On Drugs Could About To Reach A Turning Point But Britain Lags Behind
by Raggamuffin Mon Apr 18, 2016 8:27 pm
eddie wrote:Raggamuffin wrote:
Yes it is, and that's why I responded in the way I did. I'll respond the same way in future, but you won't be bothered about that obviously. That's fine with me. If you want threads all over the place to descend into chaos, it's not my problem.
Rags what exactly do you want me to do.....Ask Didge not to "assume" something?
Assuming is dumb and detrimental but it's not a rule-breaker!
I don't want you to do anything now as you've clearly forgotten how he threatened to follow me around bleating on about my religion. If you and the other mods think that the onus is on me to ignore Didge rather than the onus being on him not to start trouble, well I'm not accepting that, so I'll respond how I see fit at the time.
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Re: Why The War On Drugs Could About To Reach A Turning Point But Britain Lags Behind
by eddie Mon Apr 18, 2016 8:29 pm
If you are being harassed after asking a member ti stop harrassing you, then report it.
If you engage in arguing and mud-slinging then you're not being harassed, you're getting involved.
I don't want to fight with you rags; I'm not the enemy.
If you engage in arguing and mud-slinging then you're not being harassed, you're getting involved.
I don't want to fight with you rags; I'm not the enemy.
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Re: Why The War On Drugs Could About To Reach A Turning Point But Britain Lags Behind
by Raggamuffin Mon Apr 18, 2016 8:31 pm
eddie wrote:If you are being harassed after asking a member ti stop harrassing you, then report it.
If you engage in arguing and mud-slinging then you're not being harassed, you're getting involved.
I don't want to fight with you rags; I'm not the enemy.
That's exactly what I did, but Ben was here and made it clear that he thought I was at fault, and you've just told me Didge is allowed to harass me, so I'll deal with it myself.
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Re: Why The War On Drugs Could About To Reach A Turning Point But Britain Lags Behind
by eddie Mon Apr 18, 2016 8:43 pm
He wasn't harrassing you! You engaged in a war of words with him so where was the harrassment??!
If he thinks you're a blue terrapin and you know you're not, then let him think it! So what?
I've spent long enough talking about this now, you're not really listening anymore so I'm going to do what you shoud have done and I'm not replying anymore.
If he thinks you're a blue terrapin and you know you're not, then let him think it! So what?
I've spent long enough talking about this now, you're not really listening anymore so I'm going to do what you shoud have done and I'm not replying anymore.
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Re: Why The War On Drugs Could About To Reach A Turning Point But Britain Lags Behind
by Raggamuffin Mon Apr 18, 2016 8:45 pm
eddie wrote:He wasn't harrassing you! You engaged in a war of words with him so where was the harrassment??!
If he thinks you're a blue terrapin and you know you're not, then let him think it! So what?
I've spent long enough talking about this now, you're not really listening anymore so I'm going to do what you shoud have done and I'm not replying anymore.
FFS, he brought up my religion for absolutely no fucking reason, and it was just the start, as it always is with him. Why the fuck do you think I reported it? It was to nip it in the bud before he got out of hand. Then Ben intervened and blamed me, so I decided I would deal with it myself. I'm very sorry to have fucking bothered you about you. Happy now?
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Re: Why The War On Drugs Could About To Reach A Turning Point But Britain Lags Behind
by eddie Mon Apr 18, 2016 8:47 pm
I didn't say you'd bothered me.
Just giving you some words of advice.
Just giving you some words of advice.
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Re: Why The War On Drugs Could About To Reach A Turning Point But Britain Lags Behind
by Raggamuffin Mon Apr 18, 2016 8:50 pm
eddie wrote:I didn't say you'd bothered me.
Just giving you some words of advice.
I didn't ask for any advice, and I won't be bothering you again.
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Re: Why The War On Drugs Could About To Reach A Turning Point But Britain Lags Behind
by Guest Mon Apr 18, 2016 9:58 pm
BACK ON TOPIC ***Ben_Reilly wrote:Here are a couple of good articles on how guilty and socially isolated the wealthy can feel in unequal societies:Raggamuffin wrote:I assumed that was what you meant actually as you were talking about income inequality. Are you suggesting that it's rich people who take more drugs because they have more money? It's not very clear how income inequality would encourage someone to take drugs.
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/17/wealth-therapy-tackles-woes-of-the-rich-its-really-isolating-to-have-lots-of-money
http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2011/03/09/dont-envy-the-super-rich-they-are-miserable/
Surrounded by people who are making them feel like they're everything wrong with the country, are you really that surprised that more rich people would turn to drugs?
Admittedly the 'War On Drugs' and all of our CZARS that were appointed since POTUS Richard Nixon made that feeble attempt {garnered loads of support from hopeful Americans} 'Ahhhhh, our good policies & government intervention will squish that increase in societies problems'; and it was a costly error and became yet another funded monolith that seemed to just keep growing with little to know results!
Here's an interesting article {one o many} that proves we {Americans} have so much to learn from our prior mistakes and better methods for diverting/helping/prevention for drug abuse and medical prescription abuses!
Regardless of what & how England looks for resolutions & solutions to their programs --- 'declaring aWAR ON DRUGS' is just another catch phrase that makes society feel better but serves NO ACTUAL PURPOSE!U.S. Looks to Other Nations for Addiction Treatment Ideas: Kerlikowske
/By Join Together Staff
May 23rd, 2012
The United States is looking to other nations for ideas on how to treat addiction as a disease, the U.S. Director of National Drug Control Policy said Tuesday. Gil Kerlikowske, who spoke during a visit to London, said the Obama Administration wants to speak to drug addiction experts in other countries to learn whether elements of their programs could work in the United States, according to Reuters.
Kerlikowske has visited Portugal, Italy, Mexico, Colombia and other South American countries to see different types of drug treatment programs, the article notes. He said the approach to drug addiction in Portugal was somewhat successful. Since 2001, authorities in that country have focused their efforts on prevention messages and treatment, and stopped arrests, trials and imprisonment of people who carry a personal supply of drugs.
He said the U.S. is taking a more balanced approach to substance use, with an emphasis on treatment instead of law enforcement. He urged the international community to work together on substance abuse prevention and treatment programs, to stop the cycle of drug use, criminal acts, imprisonment, release, and re-arrest.
Last week, the Office of National Drug Control Policy released a report that it said showed the importance of addressing the nation’s drug problem not just as a criminal justice issue, but as a public health issue.
The report showed a decline in cocaine use since 2003, which indicates that law enforcement efforts and public education campaigns may be having an effect. Illegal drug use overall has decreased about 30 percent since 1979.
An average of 71 percent of men arrested in 10 U.S. metropolitan areas in 2011 tested positive for an illegal substance when they were taken into custody, the study found. The rates ranged from 64 percent in Atlanta, to 81 percent in Sacramento, California. These rates were higher for almost half of the collection sites since 2007.
http://www.drugfree.org/join-together/u-s-looks-to-other-nations-for-addiction-treatment-ideas-kerlikowske/
Golly, Raggs...just put his huge ego busting ass on IGNORE; he's just using you to vent his spleen since so many members are ignoring his preaching/egotistical ass!
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Re: Why The War On Drugs Could About To Reach A Turning Point But Britain Lags Behind
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