Posted: 2006-11-21 21:13:07
cannabis
All In London Forum
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jeoO
should cannabis be legalized?
Trudy
Good question.
I was always pretty much in favour of it being legalised because I thought that cannabis was a fairly harmless drug and that so much time and resources was taken up policing the substance that police time would be better spent concentrating on more serious crime.
However I was listening to a debate about this on 5Live not so long ago and someone made the point that society and legislation bends more and more as time goes on (and becomes more lax) and that if you legalise cannabis... where do you stop? It's the beginning of a slippery slope. If cannabis is legalised, it will only be another 10 years or so before amphetamine or MDMA is legalised… and then what? … another 10 years after that cocaine or heroin is legalized?
You’ve got to draw a line in the sand and say that all drugs should remain illegal.
You can use bad language as a paradigm for this. 40-odd years ago, you wouldn’t even hear a regional accent on the BBC (be that radio or TV) but then the language itself that was used became regionalized or slangy and then a few years ago you’d hear a broadcaster use the work “bugger” for example on the radio… and before you know it you’ve got Chris Moyles saying “that record is absolute crap” at 8:30 in the morning to an audience of 8 million listeners. It won’t be long before he’s saying “that record is shit and I’ll be f*cked if I’d spend my money on it.”
It just illustrates that when you start bending rules a snowball effect invariably follows… because if you make one concession it’s really easy to make another.
Keep the law the way it is, I think.
I was always pretty much in favour of it being legalised because I thought that cannabis was a fairly harmless drug and that so much time and resources was taken up policing the substance that police time would be better spent concentrating on more serious crime.
However I was listening to a debate about this on 5Live not so long ago and someone made the point that society and legislation bends more and more as time goes on (and becomes more lax) and that if you legalise cannabis... where do you stop? It's the beginning of a slippery slope. If cannabis is legalised, it will only be another 10 years or so before amphetamine or MDMA is legalised… and then what? … another 10 years after that cocaine or heroin is legalized?
You’ve got to draw a line in the sand and say that all drugs should remain illegal.
You can use bad language as a paradigm for this. 40-odd years ago, you wouldn’t even hear a regional accent on the BBC (be that radio or TV) but then the language itself that was used became regionalized or slangy and then a few years ago you’d hear a broadcaster use the work “bugger” for example on the radio… and before you know it you’ve got Chris Moyles saying “that record is absolute crap” at 8:30 in the morning to an audience of 8 million listeners. It won’t be long before he’s saying “that record is shit and I’ll be f*cked if I’d spend my money on it.”
It just illustrates that when you start bending rules a snowball effect invariably follows… because if you make one concession it’s really easy to make another.
Keep the law the way it is, I think.
Posted: 2006-11-22 13:24:34
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