NEWS: Lemmy Calls for Legalization of Heroin in UK

about as often as alcoholics seek help and cigarette smokers try hypnotism.

I'm not lessening the seriousness of either alcoholism and smoking but i think drugs can have a serious effect on someones mental well-being and in that case is legalisation really gonna help? Although I guess mental illness has a lot of stigma attached to it as well so maybe its another issue that has to be looked into too.

Do you think that making addicts criminals helps them? Does sending addicts to prison help them? Does socially marginalising addicts help them? Do you think an addict benefits from a supportive family structure? Do you think that families are helped by having their addict relative a convicted criminal who has served time in prison and is on the margins of society?

You are right that smoking and alcohol abuse aren't thought of as being as bad as drug abuse. Any corelation to the fact that both are legal and drugs are illegal do you think?

We've done the "War on Drugs" to death and it's just gutless political posturing. Just because you make drugs legal doesn't mean you make it compulsory.

No I don't think making addicts criminals helps etc and I can see that legalisation could probably do a lot of good, I was curious as to whether it will really make addicts seek help though. My friend is an addict and she was brought up in a supportive liberal family and they continue to support her, they adopted the baby she had rather than see her go to a foster family. But I'm not sure if anything, even the legalisation of drugs, will stop her being an addict.. but that's just one case.

Yes there probably is some correlation between smoking and alcohol abuse ebing thought of as less bad and the fact they are legal, but I'm not sure if smoking can cause the type of extreme behavious you see from drug addicts maybe that has something to do with it too?

Just so you know I wasn't attacking your previous statement, I'm under no illusion that I know very little about many of the issues which is why I asked my original question.

Didn't think you were attacking Chesca, I just thought I'd pose you a few questions to try and round out my opinion.

I guess the real question isn't whether or not legalisation will make addicts seek help but whether it will help those that seek it. I can see no circumstance where criminalisation helps addicts and it doesn't stop people from becoming addicts so it's just a very stupid situation to continue with, in my opinion.

It's tricky though isn't because even if you legalise drugs so in that way addicts aren't labelled criminals what about associated crime? stealing etc. I think that to some degree people will probably continue to stigmatise addicts because the stereotype will exist of the 'druggy criminal'.

One good thing about legalisation would be quality control. There'd be a lot fewer ODs, because the user would know what they were buying.

Definitely not decriminalised.

That we would be a very good plus!

Legal drugs are much, much cheaper than illegal drugs, from what I understand. If you can support your habit more cheaply, you're less likely to need to steal to do so. You also don't have people fighting over control of the drug trade (with actual violence, anyway). And so on.

Yes, they will probably still be stigmatized, but so are drunks and smokers, to some extent.

Oh, and to an earlier post: what will drug dealers do when drugs are legalized? One option would be to sell drugs. It probably is a bit tougher to enter into the field, and the profits go down, but so do the risks.. Of course, they still might go into some other avenue of criminal activity, but there's not much you can do about that sort of person except lock 'em up when you have the chance.

god bless lemmy ..hellua guy!

I agree with him. The fact that heroin's illegal does not stop people from taking it. I think decriminalisation is the only way that the government will be able to control and limit the damage caused by this particularly destructive drug. It will also make it more likely that the victims of heroin will receive adequate help.

I knew someone who died from a heroin overdose a few years ago, he had been trying to get himself clean and was on a methadone programme. Unfortunately he was still surrounded by his fellow smack-head 'friends' and girlfriend. He had concealed the fact that he had relapsed back in to heroin from his real best friend and his family, who all thought he was coping; thus his death was a particularly devastating blow to them.

I'm not sure whether the fatal dose was due to an unusually high level of purity or the fact that his tolerance had decreased because of his courageous application to the programme. What makes it all worse was the fact that he'd have probably survived had junkie 'friends' called an ambulance: It was later revealed at his inquest that they knew he was dying, as he had turned blue and stopped breathing, but they would not call an ambulance because they knew they would get in trouble with the police. So he died. He left behind two children who are now sporadically cared for by their junkie mother.

As is evidenced by the donning of his aforementioned "daisy dukes".