Free heroin

Jeslek

Jeslek

Banned
SOURCE: http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewForeignBureaus.asp?Page=\ForeignBureaus\archive\200212\FOR20021204g.html (Copy and paste the link, phpBB is acting up again. :grumpy:

London (CNSNews.com) - Heroin addicts throughout England will be given the drug free through the state-run health service as part of a new government drugs strategy, officials said.

About 400 heroin addicts already legally obtain heroin through the National Health Service, but the new plan, announced Tuesday, will introduce prescription programs across England and Wales.

Under the scheme, users will be given clean needles and will be able to shoot up in medically supervised areas.

"There will be an increase in the number of heroin users being prescribed the drug, and in the number of licensed general practitioners (able to dispense the drug)," a Home Office spokesman said.

"But it will only be given to those who have failed to respond to other treatments, such as methadone. We're talking about a relatively small increase," he said.

Health and justice officials rejected calls to set up safe "shooting galleries" where heroin addicts can go to use illegally obtained drugs and obtain information about kicking the habit.

"We are not talking about providing facilities for people to inject themselves with drugs they have bought themselves illegally. That's not our policy and we're not going there," said Home Office drugs minister Bob Ainsworth.

In addition to the heroin prescription program, Home Secretary David Blunkett pledged to increase anti-drug education, treatment and law enforcement budgets by an additional $740 million per year by April 2005.

Drug-addicted suspects caught by police will be given a choice between treatment and jail at their bail hearings, the Home Office said.

Officials also promised a greater emphasis on the highest category Class A drugs such as cocaine and heroin.

British drug policy received wide attention earlier this year when Blunkett decided to downgrade marijuana from a Class B to a Class C drug, meaning that users caught with small quantities of the drug will be warned by police rather than arrested.

At the same time, the Home Office announced that maximum penalties for dealing Class C drugs will increase next year from five to 14 years in prison.

"All controlled drugs are harmful and will remain illegal," Blunkett said during Tuesday's announcement. "The misery caused by the use of drugs and hard drugs that kill cannot be underestimated."

"We will maintain our focus on Class A drugs as they cause the most harm," he said.

But the new plan also dropped a previous government target to cut hard drug use in half by 2008. The goal was set by a former government drugs czar, Keith Hellawell, who resigned in protest at the government's decision to downgrade cannabis

He has since kept up his criticism of the government's pot policy.

"David Blunkett is making the signal to young people that it (cannabis) is all right," Hellawell said in an interview with British television after Tuesday's announcement. "He will deny it, but that is the signal."

Blunkett said the previous hard drug targets were unachievable and that the government would no longer "pick a figure out of the air."

"We know cannabis is dangerous, but it does not lead to the kind of total disintegration of people's lives that heroin, crack and ecstasy do, and we know they kill," he said.

The opposition Conservative Party blasted the government for abandoning the goal.

Shadow Home Secretary Oliver Letwin said the Conservatives would "look carefully and constructively at the government's plans for the treatment of hard drug addicts, which seem to echo our own proposals."

"But we will need to see if they aim for real treatment and rehabilitation or are merely re-announcing existing and inadequate programmes," he said.

"The fact that the government [has] dropped their targets is an admission of their failure to date," Letwin said.

The country's leading drugs charity, DrugScope, also criticized the latest plan. Chief Executive Roger Howard said the government's drugs policy isn't bold enough.

"Important opportunities to save lives have been missed by refusing to back harm minimization schemes such as safe injecting rooms," Howard said.

"If we're going to tackle the drugs problem effectively the government [has] to be bolder," he said.
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they should do that here. Have the gov't regulate it like they do alcohol. Keep the prices low enough to where the blackmarket for the stuff will be non-existant.
 
I used to say that myself, but speaking from experience, all that legalizing drugs would do would be to create a whole new generation of addicts in our country. If I could go to the local store and buy a bag of weed, I'd be stopping by on a nightly basis. I know it's a hard war to fight, but I think it's one we need to keep on fighting, probably forever.
 
The go buy yourself an island and declare yourself a country.
 
PuterTutor said:
I used to say that myself, but speaking from experience, all that legalizing alcohol would do would be to create a whole new generation of alcoholics in our country. If I could go to the local store and buy a six pack, I'd be stopping by on a nightly basis. I know it's a hard war to fight, but I think it's one we need to keep on fighting, probably forever.
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there will always be a certain percentage of the population that develops a substance abuse problem. if drugs were legalized the quality can be monitored. the taxes, which i'm sure would be plentiful, could help fund treatment centers.
 
PuterTutor said:
I used to say that myself, but speaking from experience, all that legalizing drugs would do would be to create a whole new generation of addicts in our country. If I could go to the local store and buy a bag of weed, I'd be stopping by on a nightly basis. I know it's a hard war to fight, but I think it's one we need to keep on fighting, probably forever.
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Would you really buy weed legally at the local drug store if you could? What about things that are a bit heavier? Crack? Acid? Ecstacy? Heroin? I'm just wondering... I wouldn't buy any of those drugs even if I could, but thats me. :)
 
I had a very bad habit for a number of years. Would I? I really don't know, but I know there are days that I would love to roll up a fattie. I just don't want that kind of temptation around.
 
Drug prohobition obviously is not working. Alcohol prohibition didn't work either. Why would it work for drugs? It created a blackmarket which spawned the well-known "gangsters".
 
Actually...prohibition prevented the sale, and manufacture, of alcohol...not the use of alcohol. That's a key difference between the modern prohibition of narcotics and the earlier prohibition of alcohol. As for whether or not it's going to work, here's an example.

*ahem* There are specially trained dogs to find illegal Cuban cigars being brought into the US, and if you are on a flight from Cuba, or a flight that had a leg in Cuba, you are subject to searches for said cigars. If one is found (just one, mind you), that's a hefty fine and possible jail-time. Why isn't there a large black market for Cuban cigars (only the naive would assume that it's impossible to get them into the US)? Now let's look at this from another angle...It's illegal to import heroin into the US, yet you can find it in every city in the US...in rather large quantities. Why? Call me paranoid, but it's much easier to find a large stash of heroin being smuggled into the US than one Cuban cigar, so why are the drugs so prevalent? Because the government wants the drugs there. Keep the masses dumb and happy, and you can pretty much do as you please. If you let the drugs in and flood the market, so to speak, you risk damaging your middle-class (where the government has it's largest tax-base).
 
take the netherlands for example...we can buy a few soft drugs legally over here. the amount of people using the drugs stayed pretty much at the same level.
the 'market' asks for drugs. so the government makes sure they can be provided with clean drugs.
prohibition of drugs (xtc for example) made the sale go underground. the government couldn't keep an eye on it anymore, and all kind of shitty stuff entered the market, and quite some people died because of that.

the demand for drugs will never go, so in certain cases it's better to legalize in certain extents, to make sure that it can be regulated.

in certain cases the government also provided junks with free heroïn here, as part of a project. the results were quite surprising...a lot of junks turned up to get the free drugs (not every random junk was allowed though), resulting in less junks on the street. this saved rotterdam quite some money on police forces who had to move to 'clean up' the streets. also quite some people were asked to get off the drugs in clinics, and quite some people did quit on the drugs....this was possible because the centres who provided the drugs were able to register the junks, and actually help them.

even though the government invested a few million dollars in the project, they saved quite some money as well, and at the same time helped quite some junks, and made the streets more safe in a few areas of rotterdam....:)
 
If it works so well, why not legalize (simliar to the way weed is controlled right now) all the harder stuff including acid, crack, heroin, etc? And provide addicts to those substances "clean" versions?
 
Jerrek said:
If it works so well, why not legalize (simliar to the way weed is controlled right now) all the harder stuff including acid, crack, heroin, etc? And provide addicts to those substances "clean" versions?
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because of the politic outcry it will cause? remember when the netherlands legalized weed? whole freakin' europe started to whine, saying the netherlands would turn into some huge junkie paradise... that hasn't happened, but still society looks different at hard drugs than at soft drugs.
plus the government can't turn into a huge supplier of drugs, causing a lot of problems with relationships with other countries that don't agree with the dutch politic at this point.
 
Damn, that's a pretty poor comparison there, Gato :(. If you can't sell or produce alcohol, then how are you going to use it? :confuse2:

People don't care about Cuban cigars, it's just tobacco. You can get that at the gas station. There just aren't that many people who care to smoke a Cuban.
 
MitchSchaft said:
Damn, that's a pretty poor comparison there, Gato :(. If you can't sell or produce alcohol, then how are you going to use it? :confuse2:

People don't care about Cuban cigars, it's just tobacco. You can get that at the gas station. There just aren't that many people who care to smoke a Cuban.
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Actually, Mitch, it's exactly the way the law was written. There was no prohibition on actually drinking alcoholic beverages. In fact, you could actually get a federal permit to produce your own stash. What you could not do was sell it, or mass produce it. I know it sounds like a contradiction, but that was the way the government worked back then. Of course, the liquor industry wasn't selling good stuff, anyway. Remember the term 'rotgut'?

As for the Cuban cigars...most cigar smokers do prefer them. It's not the same tobacco as the mass-produced cigarettes and cigars you can buy at any store. Sure, it grows from the same species of plant, but the differences are noticable to those who smoke cigars. Now, there is a black market for cubans in the US, but buying them can cost you a couple of hundred USD each.
 
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