Shut up, Johnson.
You just want to stop people enjoying themselves. Shove your determination where the sun doesn't shine.
Websites selling mephedrone are already offering the substance for half its previous price, thanks to an imminent ban announced by Home Secretary Alan Johnson yesterday. Sites are offering a gram for £4.50 rather than the usual £10. Prices per kilo have also fallen from £4,000 to nearer £2,000. Johnson said: “I am determined …
What am i going to feed my plants now? My cannabis* will be as limp and lifeless as Cheryl Cole's hair before she washes it.
Bleedin' government do-gooders!
And I havent heard from Uncle Pablo for years. I am beginning to think i wont be getting any more "Colombian Hospitality" Packages from him.
* I wish to inform any law enforcement officers that the word cannabis in this instant is a catch-all word for any plant not of narcotic use, and that it explicity excludes any illegal plant.... Now get back to work.
So let me get this straight.
A couple of kids doing what kids do have the misfortune of ending up dead from a dodgy batch of legal drugs. The press jump on it with their usual ravenous dog attitude and government passes a law within weeks of it happening claiming that it can kill so ban it, supported by the usual dodgy research.
So shall we apply this twattery to something else, oh like smoking or alcohol? no of course not, theres tax to be made from them!!
Is anyone else aghast at how 'knee jerk' this whole saga is?
Shame they haven't pushed through all the expenses and cash for honors corruption as quickly as this.
The sooner we get these self centred, personal agenda pushing, media pandering scum out of power the better
Someone else can explain more fully, but
- Methadone is a heroin substitute prescribed for addicts (not always successfully as it's quite addictive itself). It's a synthetic opiate. It isn't illegal to prescribe although there is inevitably a black market.
- Mephedrone is a cathinone, derived from khat. All the cathinones (including methylone, for extra confusion) are soon to be illegal. It's not illegal to sell right now, although it is illegal to sell for human consumption.
The names are similar, but they don't have much in common.
Excellent, one quick fire sale of existing stock, and then we can look forward to buying stronger but more dubious stuff for a while before the next legal substance that does much the same comes along.
FFS, the facts are plain - prohibition doesn't work. I like the idea of "ban it until we have worked out the safe-sh dose, the fag-packet warnings and how to distribute it in a reposible way", but the "war on drugs" has been lost. It was as if our government were making sword & cavalry charges against dug in mechanised infantry.
"Last year the Home Office banned BZP, GBL and Spice - a smokeable, synthetic cannabis"
With a net effect of.....bugger all. More nanny state crap. If only they would spend more time and money on actually educating people, or perhaps enabling them to have a future to look forward to so they didn't feel the need to piss their lives away doing drugs.
Same old same old.
Legalise and maintain quality, reap tax benefits that could fund rehabs and education - proabably with enough left over to spend on some road safetey and hospitals (more people die in RTA's in a day than this stuff causes in a year!).
"Maybe if kids could get STONED in peace They wouldn't need to explore this seriously dubious concoction."
Maybe if kids had real WORK to do instead of lounging around being pampered all their lives, they wouldn't have all that boring free time to experiment with useless amusements like recreational drugs.
Go ahead, downvote it, like the good little follow-the-leader mindless sheep that you are.
Get your arse to Tuffnells parcel express. Preferably the Haydock depot, where they handle anything up to 30,000 consignments per night. If you can survive six months there (let alone the year and a half I managed before a bust ankle and no sick pay while working with an agency put paid to that), then you can say you know what real work is.
Otherwise, stop tapping away on that computer and pretending you know what work is. Trust me, if you had any experience of "real work", you would probably love the chance to come home and forget about the night shift courtesy of some steaming hot marijuana tea. Or maybe just a spliff.
This post has been deleted by its author
The current administration feel they must be seen to act - especially given their track record of "going soft" on drugs (cannabis decriminalisation). With the forthcoming election they are trying to pre-empt the opposition from gaining capital by accusing them of being a soft touch on drugs.
This has very little to do with anything except political theatre.
It also allows Johnson a chance to get a few inches of press before he joins the Millbands, Wacky Jacky, Balls & Brown etc in the political wilderness for the next couple of decades as the public seem minded to eject them.
Reminds me of that cartoon strip where two guys are talking on the phone about the war on terror.
Guy 1: "Oh my god, this war on terror is gonna rule! I can't wait until the war is over and there's no more terror"
Guy 2: "I Know! Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem and then we declared a war on drugs and now you can't buy drugs anymore? It'll be just like that!"
Some clever soul buys up 10kg of <insert soon to be illegal drug here>, cuts it with 40kg of baking soda, flour, you know, whatever's in the cupboard, sits on it for a few months till it goes proper illegal, then sells it at five times the price the online suppliers gave for the clean, uncontaminated product for their potentially dangerous, dilute product.
Basically, the Govt is actually going to contribute to deaths caused directly by the ingestion of badly cut product, and to the capital holdings of your friendly neighbourhood drug dealers supplier.
What a bunch of fucking idiots.
Steven R
Nice one Mr Johnson. There's now not a 17-year-old in Britain doesn't know about this stuff and isn't making their way to an internet cafe with switch card in hand. You know, had you left it alone, it might possibly have faded away as today's silly young tw*ts become tomorrow's adults. But no, you had to publicise it didn't you? As well as giving it the added kudos of being illegal and rebellious and dangerous. You realise of course, that you will now NEVER get rid of it, will NEVER be able to impose any sort of regulation or quality control - making it far more dangerous than it ever is at present - and will be obliged to waste police time and effort until the end of time tracking down backstreet producers?
Bravo sir. With a single statement, you've introduced a brand new and far more dangerous drug into youth culture at the expense of pleasing a few hysterical voters. Have you ever considered a career in marketing?
Oh no! I can't legally *sniffle* get out of my stupid brainless head any more *whine*. I can no longer legally take risks *whinge* with my mental and physical health *pout* and the well-being of those around me *cry*, all for the sake of a few hours of dubious 'fun'.
Grow the fuck up......
Thanks for that, AC, but could you explain how the well-being of those around you would be compromised at all by your ingestion of dubious substances?
Incidentally, I had to laugh at this the other week
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/andrewmcfbrown/100028413/why-are-people-taking-plant-fertiliser-for-fun-inside-the-murky-world-of-legal-highs/
'Why are people taking plant fertiliser for fun?'
Er... for fun. (And it's not plant fertiliser.) The same reason people troll web forums, I guess.
"could you explain how the well-being of those around you would be compromised at all by your ingestion of dubious substances?"
Certainly. I was merely referring to the anguish your* loved one(s) would have to endure when they receive that call in the night, to tell them you've vommed your ring into a puddle and will need burying sharpish.
Or perhaps the friends and family you may end up stealing from to fund your dirty habit?
Sounds alarmist, I know, but it's an unfortunate fact of substance abuse that it can destroy not only your life but the lives of those around too.
And the sooner the "I just do it on Saturday and can totally quit when I want to" brigade get it into their chem-poached brains, the better.
Ok, rant over....
* Not you personally, of course!
"but if you don't fuck yourself up, it does no harm to anyone else."
That's true, no arguement here. But why take the risk? Is the pay-off really worth it?
I mean, getting high\stoned is great and you can have a fantastic time etc. but what are a few hours of fun compared to the risk of seriously messing your life up?
I know you can say that about a lot of things, that are perhaps much more likely to hurt you - such as bunjee jumping or driving a racing car. But in my experience, drug use hurts a much higher number of people than those other things and I can't understand, when people are fully aware of those risks, why they continue to take the risks and, worse, to argue their right to do so with such fervour.
It's just crazy, to my eyes.
Kind of reminds me of one person who is now diabetic, and gets money (well, vouchers) for alcohol because if they were to suddenly stop, the withdrawal symptoms would kill them.
Fucking idiot, basically. All done to themselves legally, too.
But hey, don't let reality get in the way of a Tabloid-inspired witch hunt against any and every possible form of fun that doesn't come from what amounts to yeast-shit.
I was under the impression that the ACMD was required to have a veterinary expert on board to meet it's requirements so, after Polly Taylor resigned, I figured the three new members of the ACMD would include a vet, but no: A pharmacist, a dentist and a phytochemist.
Can anyone explain how the government is still pushing ahead when the makeup of the ACMD doesn't meet its own rules on membership to issue advice and ACMD-consultation is required under the misuse of drugs act before any ban can be put in place (besides the obvious "We only apply the law when it suits us" argument)?
So some people in the UK has died from consuming a poisonous substance. Same sort of thing as drinking floor polish or meths - people have died from doing that too. The stupidity of the government however is not seeing that reponsibility lies with the equal stupidity of the individual for consuming poison but not seeing that SMOKING kills millions, yet that is not banned.
Simple explanation: Tobacco makes the government millions in taxes while mephedrone brings in nothing. The UK government puts finance before humanity? You bet!
>>So some people in the UK has died from consuming a poisonous substance. Same sort of thing as drinking floor polish or meths - people have died from doing that too.
Yes, but your logic's off. Quite a number of people have taken this particular substance and not died. One can safely say the majority of people who've taken it haven't died, in fact, and most of those haven't got ill, either. So I don't think the comparison to floor polish doesn't hold up, unless there are a bunch of floor polish drinkers who've evolved a special tolerance for it.
Model aircraft and car fuel is mostly methanol with some nitromethane and castor or synthetic oil thrown in for good measure. If you really wanted to get very high, then blind, then dead - it's about £20 a gallon for the really good stuff. Basic GX5 will set you back about half that.
Goggles, because even if you survive methylated body cells, your eyes won't.
You miss my point. I am not disputing the point that floor polish is more or less poisonous than mephedrone. I was just noting that substance abuse happens. Period.
The point I am making is that the UK government turns a blind eye to more or less harmful substances if it brings in money and I bet smoking and alcohol abuse kills a lot more people than mephedrone and other less harmful substances.