eh?
"the total weight of cocaine seized actually fell by 15 per cent a year, and it has halved in five years"
what an utter stupid argument, just cuz you dont seize it, doesnt mean its not there!
The price of cocaine has dropped so dramatically in the last ten years that a line of Bolivian marching powder is now cheaper than a pint of lager or a glass of wine, the Telegraph reports. The Home Office - using data collected by police forces and the Serious Organised Crime Agency - reckons that while in 1998 a gram of …
"A reduction in price may be associated with increased competition or reduced demand, not just increased availability."
It's that kind of pitiful understanding of marketplace economics that has got us into the financial mess we're in now.
Quod erat demonstrandum - ah how the brains of Britain runs our nation.
The governement says that alcohol and smoking are bad for us so they crank up the taxes to make said naughty products to pricey to buy. Drugs however are cheap as chips in comparison, you can buy an E for £1.50 !! - A whole night of sweating and gurning with chavs for £1.50 or you could get pi$$ed for £100. Then they wonder why more and more people are turning to drugs, because they are cheap, they are trying to take our normal sources of relaxation so people are turning to "alternatives".
The price of cannabis has also fallen significantly in real terms over the last twenty years. Just goes to show that all that prohibition and war on drugs has had little effect. If we could control and tax the market like with nicotine then the prices would be going up every year and usage would actually reduce.
Shame the Conservatives are spouting the same old rubbish and advocating the same failed policies we have had for the last thirty years. The intelligent response would be to put the dealers out of business, bring in tax revenue and make the products less glamorous and exciting by selling them in Boots.
>These startling figures show the reality of drug use in Britain.
Err, no. These startling figures show the ineffectiveness of the police force, border control and HM Customs and Excise in stopping the stuff from entering the country in such huge quantities as to make it so cheap. I suggest Wacky Jacqui creates a database immediately to count all incoming cocaine shipments so they can be tracked and intercepted whever PC Plod needs to be seen to be doing something. Tag the stuff with rfids and force the drug mules to carry ID cards. That should sort it.
Lager is clearly too expensive. What this shows is that in order to maintain the price differential, the government needs to urgently slash the level of alcohol tax, in order to massively reduce the price of our favourite tipples.
This will also have several positive side effects on the current economic blip/recession/slump/depression/apocalypse*:
Firstly, people will be happy and dancing (vomiting coming a close second) in the streets.
Secondly the boost in spending in pubs, including a rise in the sales of crisps, peanuts, kebabs and other ancillary items, will provide a positive economic stimulus.
Thirdly it will help to relieve the problem of unemployment. There will be extra work as bar staff, and for those unfortunates unable to get work, there will at least be plenty of cheap booze to spend their giros on.
Put simply, there are no downsides. This is clearly the only correct move for the Chancellor. Sensible Policies, for a Happy Britain!
*delete as applicable
Wot no pint of beer logo?!?!? Had to use a smiley, drunken face instead.
I doubt I'll be the last to rant at this junk science but here goes anyway:
* Not comparing like with like: a pint might be £2.75 in a pub but it's cheaper at home. Know any cocaine houses where one can drop in for a line? Me neither.
* What's a "hit?": A cheeky half-pint might equally be comparable.
* More confusion: The effects of alcohol last hours; the effects of cocaine minutes. You'll probably need more of the latter, then.
* Another pointless comparison: The government has failed to stem the tide of Sterling leaving this country, to the extent that a euro is now worth roughly the same as a pound. This is outrageous (and equally irrelevant).
A pint costs more than coke because of the huge amount of excise duty levied by the government. These "shocking" figures could be instantly fixed by cutting tax on booze or legalising and taxing drugs.
Of course, either of these solutions might encourage recreation instead of generating income.
... when the aim of the "War on Drugs" is not to reduce any harm from drugs, but to simply ban ban and ban.
I heard a spokesperson on the radio recently saying "we have seized more cocaine than ever before. Therefore the war on drugs is being won."
No, dickbrain. If you are using the amount of drugs seized to measure your success, then don't be surprised if you seize more and more every year. Otherwise the police would have nothing to do.
Now if you wanted to measure the success of the "War on Drugs" as a reduction in people treated for addiction/overdoses, then you might consider scrapping prohibition ....
And our current gov think this is a good stat. Like it’s a success to be finding less of the stuff flooding in.
Lets face it the two figures match up - Seized amount down = more getting through to street = more supply = lower price.
Simple logic. If they seized a high percentage of shipments then that would cause the price to go up, both from supply and demand as well as from the dealers having to charge more to re-coop costs of lost shipments.
Paris - cus even she knows about supply and demand.
you policy too many things, you do too little on each point.
what do you think about a bunch of ignorant that can not see the difference between opium base drugs and extasis-like drugs?
they will never reconize that the biggest damage of drugs are the mafia related one, not the heath ones.
My cynic side always told me that when a state do not tax someting is becouse they cant physically or they doing it in other more efficent way(for them).
Btw, the price should be per 1 gram of active subtance. if it is not the argument is flawed.
Where do they get 1 gram of pure colombian at 20 quid in UK?
Exactly.
'Using data collected by the police'
Um... how exactly? Do they ask for a price list from any dealers they bust?
Sounds like a wild guesstimation to me.
If they want us to believe that there are people out there selling it for £20 a gram they need to prove it. Ideally by giving us their names, telephone numbers and an introduction. Obviously we would need to try a bit. Just to test that it really is cocaine.
Being serious for a moment though - We have the government saying the price drop is because demand has gone down, we have the opposition saying that it is because the amount being smuggled in has gone up. There is a third option though - The dealers are just cutting it with more shit.
The government have previously stated themselves that cocaine siezed is much less pure than 10 years ago, so surely it has nothing to do with demand changing, just that a gram of pure coke now makes 4 grams on the street instead of two - As a result the supply has gone up (sort of) but people are less willing to pay £££s for it.
Or the prices will go up. The government loves taxing stuff that gets you wasted. Wobbilies were one squid last time i checked, down from a fiver. That's consumer power for you, a night of dancing and no need to buy a drink for a quid!
Must dash now, off to murder some grannies and steal their pension to pay for my drug addiction. Being the head of a global bank during in these hard times means expenses won't cover my habit.