View Poll Results: Did they know they were going to be smuggling drugs?

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  • Of course they did.

    7 46.67%
  • Of course they did!

    7 46.67%
  • Probably not.

    0 0%
  • Don't know.

    1 6.67%
  • Don't care

    3 20.00%
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Thread: Drug smugglers

  1. #21
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    Re: Drug smugglers

    Quote Originally Posted by Dreadful Scathe View Post
    3 years is pretty lenient if you ask me even the daftest of pigmy tribes in some godforsaken (literally forgotten by the missionaries ) area of dense foliage know that someone giving you lots of something useful to you, in this case money, wants something in return for it....
    3 years in a Ghanian prison is worth 6 in an English one.

    Think of the heat, mosquitos, culture shock etc. Prison visits will be pretty rare too. What food will they get? They don't get much to eat in English prisons.
    Quote Originally Posted by stewart38 View Post

    Although i have said in the past it makes good sence too legalise drugs but if there not legal then these two knew what they were doing
    Agree with legalising.

    Look at the stockbroker, media industry, entertainment industry - all running on cocaine. They need it to keep their edge.

    Ghana is a tourist destination.

    The tourists must have their drugs and it's too risky for them to carry them on the plane.


    All schools should show the film "Midnight Express", set in Turkey. That will make kids think twice about taking risks.

  2. #22
    Registered User Mezzosoprano's Avatar
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    Re: Drug smugglers

    For 3 years in my twenties I was priviledged to work as an Anti-Smuggling Officer for Customs and Excise so this will have coloured my opinions.

    Yes, they knew what they were doing. And even though they are just kids that still doesn't stop it from being the illegal importation of a prohibited or restricted item (smuggling of a highly addictive illegal narcotic). Kids in today's Britain are very well aware of the monetary value of drugs and of how they reach our population. I agree with the whole "what were/are the parents thinking/doing" statements.... Tell you what... lets get the parents to serve the jail sentences if we're all so touchy about the girls age!

    Possibly an extreme opinion but I don't believe the softly softly approach works.

    ps - Cannabis should be restored to Class B

  3. #23
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    Re: Drug smugglers

    Quote Originally Posted by Mezzosoprano View Post
    ps - Cannabis should be restored to Class B
    Nah.

    Decriminalise all drugs.

    1. There's no moral justification for preventing people from enjoying recreational drugs.

    2. The criminalise and interdict strategy is not only failing but failing abjectly and miserably.

    3. Not only is it likely that more people are trying/taking drugs as a result of the strategy, but some very unpleasant people are becoming extremely wealthy and influential as a consequence of dealing drugs.

    4. If it weren't for the profit motive provided by the drugs trade, there would hardly be any guns in the UK. Probably gang activity would be a lot quieter and less menacing also.

  4. #24
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    Re: Drug smugglers

    Quote Originally Posted by Barry Shnikov View Post
    4. If it weren't for the profit motive provided by the drugs trade, there would hardly be any guns in the UK. Probably gang activity would be a lot quieter and less menacing also.

    On the surface I agree. But wouldn't it just get replaced with something else? Surely part of gang culture is looking/being "tough". Drugs happen to be illegal, and profitable and so have become associated. Make them legal and non-profitable, and it doesn't remove the need in that social group to look "big".

  5. #25
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    Re: Drug smugglers

    Quote Originally Posted by Barry Shnikov View Post
    Nah.

    Decriminalise all drugs.
    good reasons.

  6. #26
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    Re: Drug smugglers

    Quote Originally Posted by Barry Shnikov View Post
    1. There's no moral justification for preventing people from enjoying recreational drugs.
    It's too general. You could say that junkies injecting heroin on street corners is recreational. I don't want that to be acceptable.

    Quote Originally Posted by Barry Shnikov View Post
    4. If it weren't for the profit motive provided by the drugs trade, there would hardly be any guns in the UK. Probably gang activity would be a lot quieter and less menacing also.
    C'mon Barry..if it wasn't drugs it would be something else. There are just as many bad people in the world, drugs or no drugs.

  7. #27
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    Re: Drug smugglers

    Quote Originally Posted by Barry Shnikov View Post
    Nah.

    Decriminalise all drugs.
    Prohibition does not work.

  8. #28
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    Re: Drug smugglers

    Quote Originally Posted by Double Trouble View Post
    C'mon Barry..if it wasn't drugs it would be something else. There are just as many bad people in the world, drugs or no drugs.
    Maybe. Like what?

    As for recreational drugs - give it a little thought. Almost all of the things we find unattractive about the drug culture are largely a function of it being illegal. Of course there'll be a few people out of their head in public, here and there, but we get that now with alcohol.

    Somebody mentioned prohibition, and it does amaze me that politicians and others fail to see the parallel. Until the drugs boom of the sixties, which was very much related to GIs bringing drugs back from Vietnam, all of the US' major crime problems flowed from the people who had flourished during prohibition. It allowed organised crime to get a grip which they have only recently loosened. If we don't do something about the headless-chicken drugs policy we've had in this country since the Conservatives screwed it up in the early 70s, this country will suffer the same thing.

  9. #29
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    Re: Drug smugglers

    Quote Originally Posted by Double Trouble View Post
    It's too general. You could say that junkies injecting heroin on street corners is recreational. I don't want that to be acceptable.
    Alcohols perfectly legal yet you don't see people swigging that back on street corners....oh hang on...


    the point is though, there may still be junkies but the real nasty crime is the illegal trade of drugs.... if thats gone, we can then look at the junkies themselves - just as we look at alcoholics now.

  10. #30
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    Cool Re: Drug smugglers

    Legalise all drugs.

  11. #31
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    Re: Drug smugglers

    Quote Originally Posted by StokeBloke View Post
    Legalise all drugs.

  12. #32
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    Re: Drug smugglers

    Quote Originally Posted by Dreadful Scathe View Post
    Alcohols perfectly legal yet you don't see people swigging that back on street corners....oh hang on...


    the point is though, there may still be junkies but the real nasty crime is the illegal trade of drugs.... if thats gone, we can then look at the junkies themselves - just as we look at alcoholics now.
    I don't accept the comparison between heroin addicts and drunks. Heroin addicts leave dirty needles lying around the streets and in some cases, share needles risking infecting themselves, other drug users and any passing child who picks it up with HIV and other terrible infections.

    Alcoholics are dangerous in other ways and we shouldn't be saying "We have drunks on street corners so why not drug addicts?". We should be saying "lets deal with both of these problems".

  13. #33
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    Re: Drug smugglers

    I think that the point is that if drugs were decriminalised, that the addicts wouldn't need to be on the street corners, so it would remove the problem that is concerning you DT.

    Yes, you would still have odd bits of trouble with them, as you do with alcoholic street drinkers, but it would be much reduced as most people would do it in their own homes.

  14. #34
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    Re: Drug smugglers

    Quote Originally Posted by Twirly View Post
    if drugs were decriminalised, that the addicts wouldn't need to be on the street corners,
    That makes no sense whatsoever. If you were in danger of being arrested for taking illegal drugs on street corners, surely you would go home and do it.

    Quote Originally Posted by Twirly View Post
    Yes, you would still have odd bits of trouble with them, as you do with alcoholic street drinkers, but it would be much reduced as most people would do it in their own homes.
    Eh? How do you make a connection between decriminalisation and doing it at home. It just doesn't make sense. Drinking isn't illigal, but people still do it on street corners.

    I do see the logic of decriminalising drugs, but the only advantage I can see is that the dealers won't make any money any more...that's great, but it still means millions of people will be abusing their bodies, dying, becoming totally disfunctional and a waste of space. Shall we just let them get on with it?

  15. #35
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    Re: Drug smugglers

    Quote Originally Posted by Twirly View Post
    I think that the point is that if drugs were decriminalised, that the addicts wouldn't need to be on the street corners, so it would remove the problem that is concerning you DT.

    Yes, you would still have odd bits of trouble with them, as you do with alcoholic street drinkers, but it would be much reduced as most people would do it in their own homes.
    That's really weird.

    I thought I posted that?

  16. #36
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    Re: Drug smugglers

    Quote Originally Posted by Double Trouble View Post
    Shall we just let them get on with it?
    Turn the question around: what right do we have to stop them?

    People have a right to self-determination. Some people, obviously, will mis-use that right but does that mean we can take their self-determination away from them?

  17. #37
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    Re: Drug smugglers

    Quote Originally Posted by Double Trouble View Post
    Shall we just let them get on with it?
    No, it is far easier to tackle when the criminal issue is taken out of the equation.

    One of the biggest issues for drug addicts is that trying to fund their habit can take over their whole life, leaving it impossible for them to hold down a job or a home, leading to a breakdown in their relationships with family and friends and eventually to criminal activity e.g theft, prostitution.

    I saw a documentary about a pilot scheme whereby instead of drug addicts being put on methadone, they were prescribed the actual drug by their GP in progressively lower doses while attending a therapist to deal with the addiction. The people were still able to work and function reasonably while dealing with their problem and didn't need to go near a drug dealer.

  18. #38
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    Re: Drug smugglers

    Quote Originally Posted by Double Trouble View Post
    I do see the logic of decriminalising drugs, but the only advantage I can see is that the dealers won't make any money any more...that's great, but it still means millions of people will be abusing their bodies, dying, becoming totally disfunctional and a waste of space. Shall we just let them get on with it?
    I see the advantage in decriminalising drugs not as an answer to the problem, just a way of trying to limit the harm that they do.

    If the state provided the supply and controlled the circumstances under which they taken then the advantages would be

    to the public

    All the dealers, their lookouts, couriers and armed protectors would suddenly have no trade. These people are just a menace to the population.

    The police would not have to investigate all the dealers, smugglers, drug related violence and killings. The courts would not be needed to try and convict them a the prisons would not have to contain them and feed them and manage their release.

    Addicts would not have to steal to pay for their addiction so fewer people would be the victims of crimes committed by addicts. As above fewer police, court and prisons would be needed.

    To the addicts themselves.

    The drugs they would get would be of a known purity and concentration, not contaminated by all sorts of junk that is going to further destroy their bodies above and beyond the damage that the drugs themselves are doing.

    The needles they get to use would be clean and would be disposed of properly so the the equipment that they use would not be a danger to them or the public. The cost of providing herion to an addict for a year is about £19k but the cost of treating Hepatitis or HIV is much higher (and you would still have the addiction to feed).

    The addicts are vunerable violence when they are buying from a dealer. They are vunerable when they are intoxicated. If they don't have to interact with ruthless people they are safer. If they can get their drugs in a safe enviroment they are safer.

    No female addict would have to prostitute themselves just to feed an addiction. Pimps who get people addicted so that they can maintain control over them would lose that control.



    Just because there are advantages of decriminalistion of drugs it doesn't mean that if we go that way then all would be rosy. It could just mean that we get a huge rise in the number of addicts and the rest of the population would have to work to provide the resources to support them in their drug habit, food and shelter as they lay about intoxicated all day.

    There is a country (might be Yemen or a country near it) where chewing the leaves of a plant have hallucienogenic effects is so widespread that 25% of the countries GDP goes on growing and transporting the stuff. How would this country look if 25% of our GDP went on supporting our addict population? What would we have to give up? Health service? Schools? Roads?

  19. #39
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    Re: Drug smugglers

    Quote Originally Posted by Barry Shnikov View Post
    Nah.

    Decriminalise all drugs.

    1. There's no moral justification for preventing people from enjoying recreational drugs.

    2. The criminalise and interdict strategy is not only failing but failing abjectly and miserably.

    3. Not only is it likely that more people are trying/taking drugs as a result of the strategy, but some very unpleasant people are becoming extremely wealthy and influential as a consequence of dealing drugs.

    4. If it weren't for the profit motive provided by the drugs trade, there would hardly be any guns in the UK. Probably gang activity would be a lot quieter and less menacing also.
    Sorry, I have run out of rep.

    Very brave post Barry, considering it would cause a whole lot less work for you.

    ..........or is it because you know it's never going to happen?

  20. #40
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    Re: Drug smugglers

    Quote Originally Posted by Chef View Post


    There is a country (might be Yemen or a country near it) where chewing the leaves of a plant have hallucienogenic effects is so widespread that 25% of the countries GDP goes on growing and transporting the stuff. How would this country look if 25% of our GDP went on supporting our addict population? What would we have to give up? Health service? Schools? Roads?
    For a start 25% of people would look a lot happier surely ??

    Give me a few splifs and I might even smile ??

    No one would care re Typos or grammar and if you pranged someones car so what lifes too short

    you would sing to strangers on the train and give strangers hugs

    Sounds good to me I love you all and want to have your babies

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