No it shouldn't, but it might reasonably be compared to someone who
rides a horse sometimes, a bike some other times, and drives a car yet
other times.

Is it your personal loss that is causing you to make irrational claims?
If so, I sympathize; but you know it has nothing to do with the
correctness of Nutt's advice.

--
Which of the seven heavens / Was responsible her smile /
Wouldn't be sure but attested / That, whoever it was, a god /
Worth kneeling-to for a while / Had tabernacled and rested.

In message <0MHGm.66$Ym4...@text.news.virginmedia.com>
          "Hermeneutika" <hermeneutika...@ntlworld.com (nospam)>
wrote:

I thought you were going to say that one swallow does not necessarily
make one an addict.

God bless,
Kendall K. Down

--
================ ARCHAEOLOGICAL DIGGINGS ===============
|     Australia's premier archaeological magazine      |
|             http://www.diggingsonline.com            |
========================================================

news:4AF02B93.A9E8836D@tesco.net...

Not so because generally speaking there are far more than a single drug in
the system of the average user.

My claim isn't irrational, if you think it is then please explain how?

I have experience of the culture and the effects, what do you or the Nutt
have?

Phil

.. nor does one fine day.  And what Harry Stotle goes on to say is most
pertinent:

   one day or a brief period of happiness does not
   make a man supremely blessed and happy.

Something for the recreational drug user to keep in mind, perhaps.

--
Which of the seven heavens / Was responsible her smile /
Wouldn't be sure but attested / That, whoever it was, a god /
Worth kneeling-to for a while / Had tabernacled and rested.

Eh? I didn't claim, or suggest, or suppose, that there is any
decrease in the number of dealers. I said: If the only thing
that changes is that the police put less effort into catching
and prosecuting dealers, and the level of usage remains the
same, then that is a good thing. (And explained why I think
that.)

You appear to be responding to something I never said, and not
to what I actually said.

For sure. One of the reasons often given for legalizing, or
at least decriminalizing, some or all drugs is that this will
allegedly reduce the association of drug dealing with (other)
crime. After all, the reason why drug money tends to fund bad
things is that the people who get it are (by necessity) criminals
and therefore likely to be associated with other sorts of crime.
Make drug dealing, or at least some of it, a legitimate occupation
and that becomes less true.

(I have no idea whether the way things have been done in Portugal
has, or could be expected to have, this sort of consequence;
I do know that they have decriminalized possession rather than
legalizing the drugs altogether, which suggests maybe not.)

But: if the amount of usage in Portugal has remained unchanged,
then I see no reason to think that there is more drug dealing,
so all you're saying here is that what they did in Portugal hasn't
fixed every drug-related problem there. Which of course it hasn't,
but no one ever claimed that it has or should be expected to.

Er, no, they haven't said (actually or "effectively") said any such
thing. They haven't, AIUI, legalized drug dealing; nor have they
legaized "the violence and various crimes" associated with it.

What they've done is to make a change in how the end users are
treated, which happens to have improved some things and left others
basically unchanged.

There are probably other steps they could and should take to reduce
the harms associated with drug dealing. If you think that the first
such step is recriminalizing possession, then perhaps you should
explain why decriminalizing it doesn't seem to have led to an
increase in drug use, drug dealing, drug-related crime or drug-related
deaths.

Yes, quite possibly, and that's an idea I've always rather liked
(though I haven't thought it through carefully enough to know
whether I'd actually support it). Decriminalizing possession of
drugs seems like a step in the right direction if they're going
to do that eventually, and I bet that going the whole way in one
step would have been politically impossible.

Doesn't the report claim that in fact no such effect has been seen?

I see no evidence that that is what the Portuguese are doing.

--
Gareth McCaughan
sig under construc

Will know the statistics.

--
Which of the seven heavens / Was responsible her smile /
Wouldn't be sure but attested / That, whoever it was, a god /
Worth kneeling-to for a while / Had tabernacled and rested.

How would that be done?

--
Which of the seven heavens / Was responsible her smile /
Wouldn't be sure but attested / That, whoever it was, a god /
Worth kneeling-to for a while / Had tabernacled and rested.

Pardon?  I suppose I meant Nutt will know... or He will know... or
something.

--
Which of the seven heavens / Was responsible her smile /
Wouldn't be sure but attested / That, whoever it was, a god /
Worth kneeling-to for a while / Had tabernacled and rested.

news:87skcu7cto.fsf@g.mccaughan.org.uk...

snip

OK so we agree that there are as many dealers as before :-)

No but that point is importnant because...

snip

Not so. What they have done is to effectively legalise much street dealing,
which is why less dealers are being prosecuted. Just as many dealers but
less prosecutions is accepting things as they are with regards to street
dealing.

You don't know whether there has been an increase in dealing or not because
street dealing (being in posession of less than 10 days supply) has
effectively become legal and less dealers are being prosecuted.

If end users were the priority then what we would see is more dealers being
prosecuted and more users being treated.

What we are seeing is less dealers being prosecuted.

One must always be wary of statistical proofs I know but I that is a
significant contradiction in the data.

As the prices increase there will more money made by street dealers and thus
more money to be laundered and used for the commission of other crimes.

Phil

news:4AF168AC.37EEC01E@tesco.net...

In some countries alcohol is only available through state stores. Make drugs
legal and available but only through such outlets.

The manufacture of illicit drugs could be carried out by legitimate
pharmaceutical companies ( as is the case for many drugs now). The farms and
facilities used would then provide the raw product (where it is needed) for
supplying the labs which would supply the outlets.

This would allow for clean needles to be supplied with all injected
products, the standard/quality of the drug would be clear to all and the
cost could be made stable.

If, for instance, a farm were established to grow Marijuana instead of Maize
where is the difficulty?

When we bring all our soldiers back home they could then be used to provide
security for the farms, labs and transport.

Phil

news:4AF16927.1464DAE9@tesco.net...

Well as long as you are certain of your stats then.......

My friend Syd died in a Car crash, he crashed because he was stoned. The
death was not put down as drug related.

Phil

When we transcribed the alien script we found that Phil Saunders had
written:

And we all know it had nothing to do with this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannon_Street_Station_rail_crash

--
I am Robert Billing, Christian, author, inventor, traveller, cook and
animal lover. "It burned me from within. It quickened; I was with book
as a woman is with child."
Quality e-books for portable readers: http://www.alex-library.com

news:3ogIm.73018$KU2.17643@newsfe26.ams2...
When we transcribed the alien script we found that Phil Saunders had
written:

And we all know it had nothing to do with this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannon_Street_Station_rail_crash

I wonder if the Nutt counted that in the stats?

Phil

On Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:57:36 GMT, "Phil Saunders"

If the statistics are true, some 75% of burglary and theft is
committed to feed a habit.

Surely it makes sense to treat properly those that get caught and
crack down on the dealers responsible.

I reckon we could empty half the prisons over a reasonable period of
time.  Far too may go to prison for 6 months or less and then go
straight back into crime.

John

"John R (Ripon43)" <ripo...@spam.net> wrote in message
news:6d73f5h83qdp7117447495tmuk9bnke0ig@4ax.com...

Yes and that is a huge cost

Indeed it does

Here I must beg to differ, I don't think the length of sentence is the real
problem but that the options open to the offenders upon release and the
conditions in prison don't deter them from a life of crime.

I am an advocate of a return to shorter sentences for most crimes but for
the sentence for many of them to include hard labour and skills training.

It shouldn't take more that a year to train a person to a good level of
competence in a trade so that when released they have a marketable skill.

I'm also a fan of tagging offenders for a period equal to their sentence
upon release. I think such measure would reduce re offending.

In addition I support the idea that the sentence should reflect the
persistency of the offences. So a person convicted after imprisonment and
retraining etc should recieve a longer second sentence etc etc

As well as all that I think we need to build new and more sensible prisons
that isolate and thus protect the inmates. Each prisoner should have a cell
and facilities to wash and toilet without having to interact with other
inmates. There is far too much bullying and abuse in prisons and this needs
to be punished severely. I would install cctv and mics throught the whole
building so that there were no blind spots, no silent spots and no problems
of conflciting stories being the cause of no action.

On top of all this there needs to be a new number of mental health treatment
centres created so that those in prison with mental illness, and sadly there
are a large number of those, and also those on the streets with mental
illness issues can be properly helped to recover, cope and live a more
contented life.

I think that locking up more people, for a longer time for more and more
offences is not the way to go.

One last thing, all hate crime legislation should be scrapped. It is bigoted
nonsense to suggest that it is worse if a person kills another because they
are black than because they are a Goth or elderly or young or anything else.

Phil

On Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:52:57 GMT, "Phil Saunders"

I dont think a prison sentence of 6 months is much of a deterrent.
They are out in half of that time, little opportunity for
rehabilitation inside so back to the habit once out.

These short sentences should be replaced by drug treatment centres
that are properly managed and the user given every support possible.

If that doesn't work and they reoffend, possibly on the 3rd offence,
then a 1 year prison sentence.

Yep, couldn't agree more, especially on the skills training.  The
problem at the moment is that prisons are way overstretched and the
money isn't made available to do that.

And that is half the battle. Self worth is so important.

Thats a new one on me but certainly agree.

I have long been an advocate of this for any crime.   I would
personally have a minimum sentence of 1 yerar (out in 6 months) with
structured rehabilitation and doubling the sentence after each new
offence.   Offences that currently merit 6 months or less change to
community sentence but 2nd or 3rd offence merits the 1 year prison
sentence.  By all means shorten some prison sentences to relect the
new structure

I may be wrong but my view is that the prison population would drop
considerably.

I am in agreement but that would be impossible without reducing the
prison population.  

I couldn't agree more

Prison should be a strong deterrent, and i dont think it is any more.
Like I say, do away with 3/6 month sentences, replace with community
sentencing/tagging  but if they continue to offend then a 1 year
minimum sentence.

I really do not see the point in locking someone up for 3 months when
they actually come out in 4-5 weeks

John

[me:]

[Phil:]

Actually, I don't know what's happened to the number of dealers.
But I'm quite happy to suppose for the sake of argument that it's
remained approximately unchanged.

Except that it seems that what the Portuguese have done has
in fact helped with those nasty consequences of drug dealing
that you mentioned.

I know that (so far as can be determined from the stats) there hasn't
been an increase in drug *use*. I suppose it's possible that decriminalization
has led to an increase in dealing without any more actual drug use -- maybe
Portugal is full of people with a strong desire to buy drugs and then
destroy them, or something -- but it doesn't seem likely.

How do you know? Aren't you assuming that the Portuguese share your
opinion that prosecuting small-scale drug dealers is the best way to
reduce the numbers, and improve the lives, of drug users?

Suppose their reasoning was something like this:

  - Drug users need treatment rather than punishment.
  - That suggests that we should decriminalize the use
    and possession of small quantities of drugs.
  - If we do that, small-scale dealers will get away with it.
  - That's probably OK, because if you want to reduce drug
    dealing then what you need to do is to go after the
    big guys.
  - And decriminalization will probably weaken the link
    between drugs and crime, so the bad side-effects of
    drug dealing should be reduced too.
  - Let's do it.

Then they would have made end users their priority and ended up
with decriminalization. So, unless there's something obviously
crazy about that line of thought, I think it's clearly not true
that if end users were the priority then we'd see more dealers
being prosecuted.

It's also worth pointing out that decriminalization does, in fact,
seem to have helped end users: drug overdose deaths are way down,
drug-related HIV cases are way way down.

Eh?

What, in your opinion, is going to drive this increase in prices?
And why do you think that making small-scale drug dealers better off
will result in them committing more crimes?

My guesses would be the opposite. If small-scale drug dealing
incurs less risk of jail, the level of profit at which it seems
worth doing will go down, which will probably result in lower
prices because anyone doing business at pre-decriminalization
prices will be liable to be undercut by someone who's prepared
to do it for less. But if, instead, there is a rise in prices
and the small-scale dealers get more money from their drug
dealing, then they will have less need to engage in riskier
activities (such as crimes that incur a jail sentence) to get
more money, so they will commit less crime.

(If I'm right and small-scale dealers' profits should be expected
to go down rather than up on account of decriminalization, should
we expect them to commit more crime because of *that*? Only if
they're actually worse off as a consequence, which they may not
be because they won't spend so much time in jail.)

--
Gareth McCaughan
sig under construc

What distinguishes "hate crimes" is not primarily the effect
on the victim. It's the effect on other people.

Joe kills Fred because Joe wants to steal Fred's money.
Result: Fred dies.

Al kills Dave because Dave is homosexual and Al wants to rid
the world of homosexuals.
Result 1: Dave dies.
Result 2: Every homosexual person in the area is now living
          in fear of a similar attack.

The presence of result 2 seems to me to be highly relevant
in assessing the badness of the two crimes. Especially if
part of why Al killed Dave is that he *wanted* every gay person
for miles around to be terrorized, which is often the case
for this kind of crime.

(This suggests that some crimes that aren't "hate crimes" according
to current rules might properly be treated that way: for instance,
if one person kills another because s/he is a Goth or elderly or
young, that may very well also have, and may very well also be
meant to have, an effect like result 2 above. All these are quite
different from the case where Joe kills Fred for reasons that
have nothing to do with Fred's being a member of any group.)

--
Gareth McCaughan
sig under construc

Might I suggest that you try actually reading what I wrote?
Here's a bit that you deleted without comment:

  | (This suggests that some crimes that aren't "hate crimes" according
  | to current rules might properly be treated that way: for instance,
  | if one person kills another because s/he is a Goth or elderly or
  | young, that may very well also have, and may very well also be
  | meant to have, an effect like result 2 above. All these are quite
  | different from the case where Joe kills Fred for reasons that
  | have nothing to do with Fred's being a member of any group.)

Let me spell it out:

  - I think there is a useful distinction between crimes that
    affect only the victim, and crimes that (in fact or intention
    or both) are committed against the victim *as representative
    of some group* and thereby spread fear among other members
    of that group.

  - I think this is what "hate crime" legislation is aimed at.

  - I don't think the specific groups targeted by that legislation
    are the only ones that can be affected in this way.

  - It's possible that the laws defining hate crimes should be
    extended to cover more cases of this kind.

I'll add that it's also possible that there are adequate practical
reasons *not* to extend hate crime laws in that way. Clearly the law
can't enumerate every possible group that anyone might be attacked
for belonging to, so the choices are (1) give up on the whole notion,
(2) draw the line somewhere and make special cases of the groups most
egregiously affected, or (3) write the laws so that they apply to
every instance where someone is attacked for belonging to some group.
Perhaps #3 can't be done without making the law too broad in practice
(e.g., "Your Honour, I shall show that the accused attacked the victim
on account of the victim's membership in a group, namely the group of
people with a lot of valuables that could be sold on the black market.
After this foul hate crime, no one with valuables around the house
will feel safe.") As for #2, presumably the line gets drawn according
to how commonly a given group is targeted, how many people are likely
to be terrorized when that happens, etc., and I don't think it's clear
that the line is currently drawn in the wrong place.

It's hard to know anyone's motivations for sure. But look, e.g., at
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence_against_LGBT_people#2000-2009
which summarizes some such attacks over the last few years. Here
are some extracts which seem to me to indicate  that the perpetrators
wanted to spread fear as well as harming their individual victims.

  | 18-year-old Shaun Murphy, who reportedly bragged about attacking a
  | "fag".
..
  | Investigators found homophobic graffiti spray painted on the back of
  | the house.

And there are other cases in which the nature of the attack makes
it hard to believe that the attacker didn't have some such goal:

  | On September 22, 2000, Ronald Gay entered a gay bar in Roanoke,
  | Virginia and opened fire on the patrons
..
  | On February 2, 2006, 18-year-old Jacob D. Robida entered a bar in
  | New Bedford, Massachusetts, confirmed that it was a gay bar, and
  | then attacked patrons with a hatchet and a handgun

(And there are also several incidents described there which don't
look to me as if spreading fear was part of the attacker's purpose --
though it was likely part of the effect anyway.)

--
Gareth McCaughan
sig under construc