Legalising Drugs

now I’m lucky if I reach 10 units a week.

Lord!

It’s pretty unusual for me to drink less than 10 units an evening on drinking days (Generally Friday to Sunday – or social occasions – or staying away from home).

That’s only three pints or a bottle of wine :apologetic:

Moggy

A riveting series of posts in this generally excellent thread. And I echo your last sentence, Trump, word for word. I smoked heavily – 60 – 80 a day – until I was about 25 and then after a couple of false starts stopped completely. Never drunk heavily except for the occasional total white-out in my much younger days – now I’m lucky if I reach 10 units a week. Had a few cannabis smokes in the 60s – not many didn’t I guess – but drugs generally never held any interest for me.

I was interested in the distinction Snapper made between alcoholism and alcohol addiction. Isn’t addiction a clinically defined condition?

I had to go on an exclusion diet for health reasons many years ago which means eating bland food then slowly adding stuff to see what causes what.
Cutting out coffee was a real headache -literally.
I’ve not smoked,don’t really drink and don’t do drugs but the odd cup of coffee.
Kayaking- I still remember the customer service Snapper [Thank you :)] and still have the ocean kayak + 4 others different types but really haven’t felt well enough to do much this year-hoping for a better 2014.
Well done on your work with the homeless and addicts- a better person than i could ever be.

Mark, It’s only the witty banter on here, that keeps me young…..:D
Jim.
Lincoln .7

I’m forty and I’m nowhere near grown up. Fortunately I’m not much of a drinker and never have been, despite my fair share of rampaging nights of incoherence when invited out with friends.

My own drinking was more ‘reckless’ when I was twenty-one-years-old than when I was sixteen-years-old. I suspect that may also hold true for modern youth.

Does the United States not have a drinking problem then?

Snapper, I agree entirely with you, re alcohol,I have attended more Domestic Disputes, caused by drink, than any other call outs.
I have NEVER once been sent to a Domestic, caused by smoking a fag.
I think we should go down the American way, and make the drinking age, illegal, until the age of 21, when hopefully, they would have grown up by then, and realise the implications caused by drinking.
Jim.
Lincoln .7

Caffeine. I’m a real slave to that…

I’m addicted to chocolate…..so I think I’d better steer-clear of heroin!

Pretty much all of it is addiction. Even the ‘non-addictive’ drugs have an addictive feeling, take cannabis for example. I’ll go back to the twenty year ago cannabis.

I recall feeling relaxed (sedate?), pleasant, warm and happy on the handful of times I smoked and the fewer handful when it had an effect. At peace with things. imagine that warm glow of a brandy by the fire – not in reality but picture that and it’s a kind of picture of the contented feeling of it. I also felt hungry after smoking part of a joint and I have to say that sex while stoned (based on two occasions I remember) was far, far more enjoyable and intense. Contrast that with drunken sex with which most of us are more familiar. I do remember that the cannabis ‘effect’ was far more pleasant than the alcohol effect and I have never witnessed aggression from someone stoned. professionally I find cannabis users, even heavy users, to be very easy as they never give any problems and don’t continually kick off like the drunken people do. Do I think cannabis should be legalised or decriminalised? No. It ****s you up, long term. Alcohol perhaps needs better control.

Don’t be Jim. My work is actually with homeless people, in a hostel – the drugs thing is incidental. If he is long term street homeless it is almost definitely through choice and/or a lack of effort to deal with it. there are many places to go to in Norwich for help and he will be homed, be it in a hostel or further up the chain and he will be housed at the expense of the benefits system. He will have support, counselling, medical assistance all available to him, food, clothing etc as well.

20 years old he could easily have a roof over his head within 48 hours. Whether he’d abide by the rules and remain there is another matter (sometimes I cause people to be evicted, or rather they cause it and I handle it and they’re back on the street; and then you see the same faces pop up again in a few months and a few months down the line they’re out again, their gratitude switching off again). The help is widely available.

I’ve been doing this less than two years though I did a few months as a volunteer first. It’s a hugely insightful job, at times very satisfying and at others you feel useless. Sometimes it’s incredibly disturbing. But the filthy junkie chav scum tramps I despised so much when wondering around all have another side outside of my former prejudices. I can honestly say that some of life’s biggest ****-ups that I’ve met through work, in other circumstances, i’d love to have in my life as friends.

I suppose for some Snapper, it’s a form of escapism from the stresses and strain this world puts on a lot of folks, for some it’s a temporary “Fix” but for some, it becomes an addiction.I was in Norwich the other day with my wife, Christmas shopping, as we walked past a “Closed down” shop, lying in the doorway, on a layer of cardboard boxes, and covered with a blanket, fast asleep, was a young lad who I would say was about 20 ish, and homeless. I stopped and looked at him, and as I walked away, I just thought to myself, that in my 72 yrs, I have had my ups and downs, as have we all, but have been very fortunate not to have ended up like that young lad, I have thought of him frequently since, in a way, I felt a sense of guilt, spending money on things,and then seeing that youth, who probably didn’t have 2 pennies to rub together.
Jim.
Lincoln .7

Jim.
Lincoln .7

Caffeine. I’m a real slave to that.. I work nights so the days between shifts I don’t drink any so I can sleep before the enxt one. I’m like a zombie. It affects me, I had the shakes from it once, I get other effects sometimes, heart racing and stuff occasionally. from drinking coffee. Haha, coffee! I kid you not. Best right, I get my happiness, my kicks, from kayaking – excellent cardio stuff that. I had an ecg a couple of years back, and checked the scores on the net later along with the diagnosis. had the heart of the top 35% of trained athletes. I drive around the corner, I”m an unfit smoker – all I do is paddle so limited parts of me get the benefit. well anyway, went for a pre-op earlier this year and they said they were doing an ecg. I had to warn them that I’d been on shift all night and consumed a lot of coffee so not to panic. no idea on my score but I was buzzing my **** off, really fidgety and trembling. That’s a nice easy addiction for you. Thankfully affordable!

You know, your post has just crystallised something for me. We all crave happiness.

Unfortunately to me there seems to be no answer.:(
Drugs have been around in various forms since humans learnt how to use natural ingredients.
The rich the poor ,clever ,stupid,famous have all had a try of it.It’s been the height of fashion and hounded into backstreets .

Rock stars,authors ,actors and heroes in books have been affected and died.
Maybe the answer isn’t the drugs but the life and stresses and reasons for people to want to try them,need to try them.

I bet this conversation will still be taking place in 100 years time.

Thanks again for the well written post and a huge well done for helping these people affected.

Drugs are very accessible. There’s dealers on my road, the smell of cannabis around my end of the road is strong at times with it being smoked openly in the street, it’s come through the ceiling voids from my neighbours, raids happen now and again…would legalisation make any difference? Dunno. People will use and destroy themselves whatever I would expect. I can legally buy cigarettes and alcohol and some people go to excess on both…the ‘bad guys’ would still find ways to prey on people, there’s a market for prescription drugs, people abuse over the counter drugs. My view of it all is a very tiny one, I have no idea about the wider picture and to be honest I care very little – I don’t really care about anything that happens outside of my own bubble.

I hear little snippets, little facts sometimes. This one is really relevant to this but is quite an insight in itself. fella once told me that he’d been off the gear (that’s what it’s called) for a while then things went wrong for him. he was homeless, somewhere strange and bought a bag. But on its own it’s no good, you need citric acid to break heroin down to inject so he went wandering and found the local market place. Found a lemon lying in the gutter. he squeezed the juice out to break down the heroin, cooked up and injected it. Squalid isn’t it. Sounds awful to anyone outside of that lifestyle…so much is. Selling *******s for a tenner to get a fix, stealing bikes to get enough for a wrap, selling anything you have to get high because there’s just nothing else more important. And the amount of extortionate money lenders around are incredible; yet strip all that away and you have good, decent people behind it all, people who’ve just taken a wrong turn somewhere along the way. And not just those you’d expect – there are a lot of doctors addicted to various things for example. Coke, £50-60 for a bag, that’s something only the well off can usually afford. It’s totally mind-numbing.

To me as well. And has given me pause for thought. Nothing better than up to date facts to aid consideration of the question.

That is a fantastic post,well written and very factual.I didn’t realise that the drugs in a small batch are as cheap as that.A packet of cigarettes i’ve been told is nearly £9 a packet which took me by surprise.

Have they expressed an opinion on legalising drugs ,would it change their attitudes and behaviour?

Has there been any luck tracing the suppliers ,not the local small fry but the big importers and top dogs? do you think making drugs legal and more accessible to those that need it would put the bad guys out of business.
Your post was an eye opener.

Right, basically in town, all except coke are a tenner. The amounts vary of course. With heroin a tenner would get a fairly new user high a couple of times, and a longer term user once. Weed you’d get a gram or a bit over for that, used to get about 1.7 so the price stays the same but the quantity changes. 1.7g is 1/16 of an ounce which when I was about twenty – twenty years ago – was around £8 and half the size of an oxo cube in resin form so the price has effectively remained static until recently. resin is uncommon here nowadays and it’s pretty much all weed. I had friends who smoked it quite often and I occasionally had a few drags on a passing joint, usually with no effect but a couple of memorable occasions did occur. However, cannabis now is a lot stronger and more refined than it was then so anyone who, like me, thinks they are familiar with it from a long time ago are not. I probably hadn’t even had a drag on a joint in 12 or 13 years (though I’d inadvertently eaten some cake that was made with it once) but about 3 years back I had a joint to myself, for the first time ever, and it was incredibly strong and halfway through I had to fling it away. I was floored by it, big time. There was no comparison whatsoever to what I’d previously remembered. Haven’t had a drag on any since, it was never my thing anyway (I rarely even drink) but sometimes I think it’s important to gain knowledge of certain things, bearing in mind I have children that will no doubt try it in a few years time. Anyway, that’s an openly honest ‘for information’ post, it’s not condoning drug use which, from my professional viewpoint is nothing but sordid and destructive.

What do drugs cost now; I thought illegal drugs were not that expensive anyway, it was just the quantities ‘required’?

That’s pretty accurate. Depending on who I see tonight I’ll try and get a ‘menu’ on street drugs. You can get high on a fiver though.

However how do you differencitate between an alcoholic and alcohol dependent? Ie, what do you see as different between an alcoholic or alcohol depentent?

Once you become alcohol dependant survival relies on you being able to ingest alcohol – if you don’t you will die. Usually through fits. You cannot remove alcohol from someone dependant. An alcoholic you can, before they get to that stage, though it can still be quite dangerous dependant on the severity. Heroin? Easy to stop, apparently, cessation doesn’t have any dangers although you’re a mess while you purge the **** out of your body. I’ve had heroin users, clean or otherwise, look aghast at me when I’ve mentioned my trying giving up smoking again. One said “**** that, heroin I can stop, but cigarettes? no way!”

Having PTSD isn’t a reason to turn illegal drugs? Understandable, yes, but to turn to heroin doesn’t equate for me.

Reason, no…but I dread to think how many sufferers would fit into the same category with alcohol use to self-medicate. It’s one affliction with a very high rate of ‘dual diagnosis’ intervention.

You want a dirty drug look at ketamine. That is one bad bitch. there’s kids walkinga round with colostomy bags because of it – leaves crystals in your organs that rip you apart from the inside. Not even a nice high apparently. ‘A ****ty, dirty drug’ in the words of the heroin user aforementioned – so take that as pretty accurate!