Atheist Ireland Forum

Do/did you smoke it?

Where do you stand on it's legalization in Ireland?

I smoke myself, I enjoy it. Like few drinks there is little harm. I agree it should be legalized regulated and taxed both for recreational and medicinal reasons.

I just want to see where the rest of the forum stands on this issue.

I dont smoke it but i think it should be legalised for medicinal purposes like arthritis and for cancer patients since it has been shown to help stimulate their appetite.

I agree, but I would oppose general decriminalisation.

I don't smoke it, don't like it but agree that it should be legalized, regulated and taxed. On the regulation, though, I'd tend to the view that it should be allowed for home use, but I wouldn't be enthusiastic about the establishment of Dutch-style coffeshops (although maybe this is more a local planning issue than a criminal one).

I've smoked it but I found no attracion in it. Likewise with cocaine. It should be legalised, taxed and made to a standard. A lot of people are doing skunk now. I don't know what that is exactly but I'm told it's a lot stronger. A lot of the attraction with drugs is that they're illegal.

I used to smoke a fair bit not in a good while now though. I support the decriminalisation of all drugs. I think the hysterical attitude towards drugs in society is really unhelpful. I note that Portugal decriminalised drug use some years ago and they seem to have had generally positive outcomes. here's an article in scientific american about it.

I use to smoke long time ago, last year had a few tokes of hytroponic grass and swear I'll never go near that again.
Basically if someone grows a few plants for personnal use then that should be ok, like Australia. I heard of someone being raided a few weeks ago, they got two small plants and he never sold it, just for himself at home to enjoy. Seems like such a waste of Garda time. The illgality of it just finances criminals and therefore harder/harmful drugs, also deverts the laws time/money from stopping lets face it Heroin.

Not just heroin. Crack cocaine is a big problem here already and we dont have the treatment provisions to cope with it. Crack addicts presenting for treatment are being treated with flippin methadone.

I agree with this.

I am consistently baffled by drugs being illegal. It appears to do nothing. We spend millions on policing the drugs and the only effects of this are:

1) The drugs get to the users anyway
2) The quality of the drugs that get to the user varies wildly, with all kinds of things mixed in to up the profits, mainly because of the loses caused by the policing.
3) Huge amounts of police power are wasted so when a user who is an abuser of the drug commits crimes to finance the habit there are no cops on the beat to deal with it. Response times of gaurds are hampered by less men on the beat.
4) We spend millions which are wasted as it is ineffective.
5) We make the people who do sell it very rich.

I always thought that if we legalised them the effects would be:

1) Huge amounts of police money and manpower would be freed up for the real crimes
2) The quality can be standardised like it is in food, beer, alchohol and more. Especially now when even Hash is becoming too potent to be as safe as it once was. There will be real people, in real companies to be held accountable for bad product.
3) Money will actually be MADE by taxing the product which can be put into the police force too, or other medical applications
4) Supporting those who abuse the products would be easier, just like it is with alchohol and cigareetes etc.
5) Our jails will be emptied of the many people put there for mere possesion or sale, freeing up space for the people who are committing real crimes.

Of course this is a general point and I think each drug should be examined on its own merits and demerits to find out if there is a reason it should be illegal. However the general default seems to be to make it illegal, and its only an accident of history that made alchohol legal and the big M not, expecially considering its cheaper, less harmful and less addictive than its tobacco and alchohol counterparts. I would hope that some day there is a massive review of these things.

I was delighted to see, in a music festival in St Gallan recently, that there were "Test your hash" tents which the police turned a blind eye to. You were able to take yours in and have it tested for its potency level to make sure it was good, pure, safe stuff.

I tried cannabis once in Amsterdam and had a very bad reaction to it - some kind of fit – never want to try it again. I think it should be legal for chronic pain sufferers but not for teenagers or youngish people.

Alcohol/cannabis and morphine is like comparing apples and...AK47s.
If we look at methadone as the prototype for legallized morphine it is apparent that it solves nothing and has in fact brought treatment to an impasse. There are now methadone addicts who were never even on heroin, the motivation to get clean is replaced by a cosy sense of ease and methadone maintenance patients continue to abuse various other substances. Removing the intrigue associated with the illegality of the drug has not resulted in reduced numbers becoming addicted.
I take the point about freeing up the prison service but i think efforts would be better focused on providing access to residential detox services and non-pharmacological treatment modalities. Methadone should be used for the purpose of detoxification and not as a life-long plan.

The way you phrase this makes it sound like they are some how mutually exclusive. That if you focus on one it would be to the detriment of the other. I see no reason at all not to implement ALL of the things here and not treat any one as "better" than another.

I did read that Hemp which was grown for many years in the US for paper, clothes, canvas (where cannibus got its name), was seen as a treat by the paper industry and they claimed that the Hemp plant was the Marijuana plant, and got it outlawed.

^ - Your on the right general direction. A few major companies got in a twist about it threatening their businesses and bigger businesses nearly always win...

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I do smoke it myself quite regularly, and I am in favor of it being legalised for those who need it. People such as those with medical conditions that are untreatable by certain other drugs due to a patients incompatablilty with them and as a aid or possible cure for many other conditions.

I wouldn't mind waiting on general legalisation. I know that general legalisation could go one way or another on the scale of how many people would ruin it for the rest of the population using the substance with reason and caution.

However, if it was made available through say a system like off-licences that where government controlled in some way and where secure, asking for background checks on individuals using the service (for obvious reasons like criminal charges etc) and the person buying was a citizen, then that would be the best method (in my opinion) for starting the ball rolling.

However I don't fool myself into thinking that it'll happen this year, next year or in the ten years following that. I'm optimistic, but not stupid.

To be perfectly honest I don't even see a massive change happening on the subject before I kick the bucket, but then again I *could* be in for a shock...