so what do you think....?

[David E]

My two bobs worth...

The World is spending countless trillions of dollars on support programmes to try to rescue millions of ordinary people, mostly youngsters from the awful results of drug addictions caused by the totally non-defensible actions of the producers, importers and pushers of this pestilence.

There will never be an end to this treadmill until the World gets TOUGH with the source.

The death penalty is too good for most of these people....I have no sympathy whatsoever for those "poor unfortunate people" who were duped into being couriers for the "Mr Bigs"...they were not doing it for free....they all were into making money from the miserable suffering that their traffic inflicts on countless people.

In Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and China there are BIG, repeat BIG notices everywhere in airports and public places that say "Drug dealing and/or importation will be treated as a Capital Offence and will attract a Death Sentence...you have been warned"

If anyone wants to take their chances...."do the crime, get the time".

DavidE

[Peter]

I think some of you know that I am working as a detective at the police in my hometown. I do all sort of investigations but mostly robbery and thefts but also some cases about possession of drug. I can say that about 90 to 95 % of all the cases are related to drugs in some way. Either the suspect is on drugs when he commit the crime or he needs money to buy his drugs.
I think that we have about 7000 cases of thefts and 1000 cases of robbery every year. You can understand why I hate drugs and those who make money on it. Drugs only make everyones life a misery and is to no good at all. I all of my years (34) as a policeman I only have meet 2 people that could quit the use of heroin. Everyone else are only making the society loose money when they go through every program that is trying to quit. Every day a program for stopping the use of drugs cost about 200 Euro.  
The natural way to stop using heroin or other heavy drugs is to die and we see that quite often...

[Paul Todd]

90% of the heroin in the world comes from Afghanistan says a world heath report for 09. The UN say it brought 428million US into the countries economy last year.  Now according to US figures $1,673.45  is spent by the government each and every second of every day in the fight against drugs . What percentage of this is spent specifically against heroin I don't know, but I bet its a fair bit especially if you take into account the eradication costs.
 
In England alone,out of 207,000 problem drug users who were in treatment last year [70% of whom where heroin abusers] the official data show that just 4,600 managed to access a residential rehab bed. Meanwhile, the number of heroin users in England prescribed methadone and other substitute drugs has gone up to a record 147,500. Official figures state that it costs between 500 & 1500 pounds per week for someone to get treatment. That adds up to roughly last year alone to between 2 to 6 million a week for the lucky 4,600 who managed to get a bed and that's just England. Multiply that across Europe alone and that's a lot of money.

What I'm trying to point out here is the vast amount of money that is spent trying to control and treat the people using this drug I'm not including the cost of all the crime that is committed because or it either or the amount of money flowing into the hands of criminals. So why don't we just buy all the raw opium from the farmers in Afghanistan and stop it at its souse. Seems like a good deal to me!  As a plus we would not be alienating the farmers to the point where they start shooting for a start, or having them pay the Taliban protection money. We have all the logistic's we need there right now. Put it all in one big pile all 6,900 tons of it and burn it and if production moves elsewhere we should buy that too! As a side note there was a shortage of morphine in the world year because of a lck of "medical" heroin to process.

 Why don't they do this I don't know, I mean its got to be cost affective and what about all the suffering it would save! I wrote to the House of Parliament about this and I got a reply that said that it was not that simple and the farmers might not want to sell it to us. If the price was right I'm sure we could make a deal or is there another agenda at work here?

[David5o]

How long has NATO been in Afghanistan now?? You can't tell me that they don't know where this stuff is being produced, so why aren't they destroying it at source??
They can pay these farmers a fair price, but make it compulsory purchase!! They can even section off an area for legitimate production, for the worlds medical needs. It' doesn't take rocket science to sort this out while NATO is in Afghanistan, just the will to make it happen!!
Which makes you wonder WHY it's not been happening these past years!!!!

Same sort of thing goes for Cocaine, that's produced mainly in the South American countries. If there was a genuine desire to eradicate this production, it would have been done and dusted by now. And cocaine is far worse for destroying lives than Heroin, especially when it's been processed into Crack Cocaine..... For some reason, and it just has to be Money, the US and other Western countries just haven't the will or grit to carry this through!!...

David....

[Vince G]

Living here in Florida, the once drug import to the US. Smuggling drugs in is an everyday thing. There are reports of large amounts of Pot and Coke being found in ship hull's and other ways. I still wonder how much comes in for there doesn't seem to be any storage. On the Pot, there are reports of homes rented and the entire home is for pot growing. More times they fine it from a house fire. The Fire Dept. goes to put out a fire and fines nothing but Pot. Meth labs are sprung up in wooded areas and the producers are living in tents. It's a hard fight.

[David5o]

I have no problem with pot, it's no more harmful than tobacco, and probably a lot less so.
As for the Meth', compared with the market for Cocaine and Heroin, there output is miniscule, but none the less, needs to be jumped on like all the other A class drugs. If ever these 2 main drugs are eventually brought under control then these Meth labs will start going into hypo production to make-up the shortfall!! .....Not Good!!!

David......

[David E]

De-criminalise ALL drugs, make them available thru' Doctors and Pharmacy's at prices that compare with standard medicines.

Make every user who buys from Doctor or Chemist fill in an "addict registration"

Make every "wanna have a try" person who goes to purchase drugs from legal sources have a certificate of validity signed by at least 3 responsible Adults including parents and also at least one Police Officer.

The cost of drugs through this system would be peanuts, the list of addicts would be known, the criminals exit the scene because there is no money in it. Would you ads an addict spend $500 on a "hit" from a dealer...or go to your pharmacist and get it legal for $10 ?

Governments buy up all source drugs at whatever cost is necessary.

Once existing addicts can get their fix without the criminal element, their habit is sustainable without crime and they can also be enrolled in re-hab.

The producers would get the same returns, because poppy and pot farmers get tiny money for their products anyway....its the Mr Bigs who make all the dough !!

I was once told that the cocaine smuggling trade into US from S.America is so profitable that the dealers figure on losing one twin engine delivery aircraft and its cargoe out of 5...and still make squillions !!

[shaun]

You forget that once government gets the drugs they will tax it into oblivion.   The will always be a market for the illegal because of taxes.

No one has been able to explain to me how decriminalizing will help when there are those who go nuts on others like police trying to subdue a crack addict.  Even if a hit of heroine that costs $10.00 will soon cost $30.00 with taxes.  Heroine addicts do not use mess they increase until they overdose.

[jeffm]

Common sense still reigns in the China courts.  They don't let lawyers get away with rationalizations.

Try suing McDonalds over spilled hot coffee in the China courts.  The court would dismiss it in a New York minute, and tell the lawyer "your wasting our time get out of here".

[rockycoon]

If you bothered to watch Natl Geographic in the last few days, they showed where the drug dealers are not only building high tech, stealth boats, but sub's as well.  But the planes spot the sub's every now and then, but they carry up to 6 tons of cocain or heron.  It showed them finding all kinds of subs on land and stealth boats designed to travel for weeks at a time to get the drugs to market. They were building them deep in the Amazon forest then brought down the river during heavy rains.  You had to see it, it was amazing how they were doing it and where, like in the most weirdest places in the jungle.:dodgy:

[ttwjr32]

6 tons?? now thats a lot as it is probably pure at that stage
  and needs to be cut.