If someone is imprisoned for drug offences, it beggars belief that those drugs that put them inside are freely available inside. That is a crime in itself. How can that not be tackled. Anyone that thinks cannabis is harmless is deluded, it is mind altering, that is why it is taken. How much it disturbs the brain is to a large extent dependant on the individual, what ruins one person almost straight away could take years for someone else. I think these drug barons that get people and children onto drugs not fit to live, they are committing mass murder, there is no excuse. Seized their assets, expose them. There is no deterrent now, people with loads of money frighten their victims into silence and if they are caught get clever lawyers to get them off on a technicality. Victims of crime do not get the justice they deserve.

Cannabis should be legalised and available just as alcohol and cigarettes are. Ok it has it#s dangers and problems as do alcohol and cigarettes, but better that the quality be controlled.

The police do not have the resources to control the current situation, they need to concentrate on the suppliers of hard drugs.

Drug users need help not prison, it's the suppliers that want locking up.

Alcohol is mind altering too

grannypiper Nobody is suggesting that legally regulated heroin should be freely available to just anybody. The model suggested by Transform Drug Policy Foundation is of medical prescriptions and supervised consumption venues for registered dependent users of the highest-risk drugs such as heroin. People who become dependent on heroin don’t set out to become that way. There are a multitude of reasons why it happens. If they did not have to rely on illegal dealers and supplies most would be able to get on with reasonably normal or even successful lives. You probably wouldn’t be able to tell that such a person was a heroin user. I think that is a far preferable outcome to the chaotic lifestyles they end up in at the moment, which too often tragically end in an early death because of the unknown nature of their illicit drug.

Yup I remember a long time ago someone telling me that an office in Cardiff was awash with cocaine, and I believe it is cheaper now. Go back 20-30 years and it was £60 a go.
We should be grateful that we do not have the problem with crack cocaine that they do in the states and the US. Really nasty drug that makes people high and aggressively so, for prolonged periods (according to my source).
There's a lot of dodgy money going through the drugs industry, none of it taxed. It then, presumably has to be laundered one way or another, leading to more crime.

When I was working, amphetamine combined with alcohol as drugs of choice seemed to create the more unstable, often very aggressive individuals. It may, of course, have been the people in the drugs, rather than the drugs in the people that caused this. Something about drugs of choice I suspect. I would not oppose the legalisation of cannabis though smoking is always to be avoided where possible. Countries that have taken a health rather than criminal approach to drugs seem to have better outcomes, less drug use, than we do.
I often wonder about national characteristics/culture etc - look at those Hogarth cartoons of gin lane and remember that Britain seems always to have been excessive where mind altering substances are concerned.

Drugs = big money for those that control the supply. The local / street dealers are often users too. If you take away the monopoly on supply there may be a chance to prevent an increase in use and reduce the numbers that take the journey from 'soft' to 'hard' drugs. Whatever is happening now is not very effective!

What about the children of addicts ? alcohol is not addictive from the first drink and it causes enough problems in households, Heroin is addictive form the outset so would cause suffering from the start.

Please dont tell me the children dont suffer, i know they do, i worked with the children of drug addicts and their lives are awful.Babies are born addicted to the mothers drug of choice and have to be weaned off the drug, this heartbreaking to see and hear. How do we justify that ?

Has anyone told you that the children don't suffer granny piper? I must have missed it if that has been said.
There are many gransnetters who have personal or professional, or sometimes experience of both on the impact on children of having parents who are dependent on substances, whether that be alcohol or drugs.

This is one of those occasions where an edit button would be good. We could add food to the list of addictions couldn't we. Parents who are preoccupied with their own needs are simply not emotionally available to their children. They are often unable to provide for their children's basic needs. Legalising drugs may in fact help reduce the problems children with parents who are addicted to illegal drugs face. Countries where drug dependence is seen as a health, rather than criminal problem, seem to have better outcomes than we do in the UK.

Grannypiper, legalising drugs would bring them under the control of authorities, which they patently are not at the moment. No one would be selling heroin in the corner shop but it would mean children could be monitored and actions taken to help and support them.

I too have worked with drug addicts and their families. Some of the parents care deeply about their children and would do anything for them not to end up in the same position as the parents have found themselves in. At the end of the day, they're all human beings.

Legalising drugs and making them available, legally, to those who need them will not turn the rest of society into a drug addicted mess. Just because something is there, it doesn't mean every one is going to use it. I have a drinks cupboard full of gin, vodka, brandy etc and it sits there month after month with nobody touching it; I don't feel drawn to drink it all just because it is there, and if I have a Gin and Tonic I don't empty the bottle. People take drugs for a variety of reasons, just as some people drink too much, or smoke or eat too much, and of these it is only drugs which have to be obtained illegally.

Of course they are human beings, i didnt say otherwise, my concern is for the babies born addicted.

It's dreadful for a baby to start off life addicted to drugs, no one denies that. But legalising drugs won't make that any worse. In fact, it could improve their chances because the mothers would be on the radar of the health services and perhaps supported to come off drugs while pregnant or at the very least have the right services available when the baby arrives.

I beg to differ grannypiper, heroin is most definitely not addictive from the very first use. There are many 'functioning' heroin users who can control their habit, very much like alcohol users.

As for alcohol, foetal alcohol syndrome causes terrible disabilities in children and these can occur at very low levels of parental use. In fact it could be argued that alcohol is far more harmful to unborn babies than other drugs but no one is suggesting it should be made illegal. I think the whole question of legalisation of other drugs needs to be considered carefully to break this horrible connection with crime, poverty, prostitution and needless deaths.

Yes night owl is right in saying heroin isn't addictive from the first use. I have a friend, now in her 50's who used heroin regularly at the weekends during her teens and twenties. She was a poly drug user. She gave up the drug use without the involvement of any statutory agencies by the time she was in her mid 30's. She always worked in a professional career and continues to do so now, as well as being a loving mother and grandmother.
This is anecdotal of course, but it's consistent with so many other stories of ordinary folk who live amongst us. 30 years ago I'd have been opposed to the legalisation of drugs, including cannabis. Life and work experience has led to me forming the view that criminalisation isn't effective. I agree with night owl's suggestion that the whole question of legalisation needs to be considered carefully to break the connection with crime, poverty, prostitution and needless deaths. As I typed that, I could see a number of young men but mostly, young women I knew when working, all of whom are now dead.

I have worked with drug addicts for years until two years ago. I agree with decriminalisation of drugs. It is noteworthy that countries who have decriminalised drugs have far better outcomes for drug addicts eg Portugal. The police also waste a lot of time running around after bits of cannabis etc and it does little good. If alcohol was new today it would probably be illegal.

I am blown away by the majority of enlightened , intelligent posts on this thread .
I also agree that the most harmful , health and family destroying drug is alcohol.

Agree with both sentences, f77ms

I m not at all sure why people are under the impression that legalising drugs will stamp out all the illegal use do you really think an addict will queue up at the pharmacy when the next door neighbour is offering them some under the counter stuff

Bluebelle just read through the carefully considered posts on here, many from people with experience, either personally or professionally. Criminalisation of drug use does not work. Drugs being legal does not mean everyone will start using them anymore than the legal availability of alcohol and tobacco mean that I am smoking or drinking myself to death.

This is a very complex issue, and it's not black or white.

I do agree with decriminalisation in principle.

But, why is there a big street market for licit prescription drugs like benzodiazepines? Because there is. So whatever the legal status of a drug is, it seems there will always be a "black (or street) market".

I have GillT57 that's why I commented

If people know they can get 'clean' drugs legally from a centre/GP/pharmacy most will likely choose to do that rather than run the risk of using drugs that have been cut with other substances. Someone who worked in the emergency services told me that he'd had to treat an addict whose heroin had been cut with one of those Harpic toilet block things. Imagine injecting Harpic into your veins!

Illegal prescription drugs are an issue but if there is less of a market for illegal drugs the drug gangs are less likely to bother trading in the U.K.altogether.