The camp outside Tesco....

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Sevlow

@Misscara Where I come from the polite word is conts.

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Arkady

@Mills: I’m certainly not preaching about chemical abuse! But I would suggest that the point at which it is not legitimate to spend your money on those things is the point at which you become a dependent on the support of society in order to fund it. I would argue that no-one has that right – to make that choice is to fail in one’s ethical obligations to society. If state & society are providing ways out of that situation – shelters, council housing, free food, drug rehabilitation, counselling - one is morally obliged to accept the offer. So yes, to be direct about it, I do think that society can insist that that people accept that provision rather than harm society through permanent dependence. And I do think that society can mandate the state to compel people to accept that provision, just as it can mandate the state to compel people not to steal or use violence. Given that drug addicts are – by dint of their chemical dependence – often incapable of making a rational decision I think that the argument for this is redoubled. Not to mention that many of these sufferers are also mentally ill and in need of personal care rather than being kept barely alive on the street. Does this approach not minimise harm to the individual and society as a whole? Given that the alternative to this is maintaining the highly vulnerable and afflicted in a state of permanent misery I refuse to accept that this is not a compassionate approach, and I strongly affirm that it is precisely what I would want to happen to me if I ended up in that situation.

Brodiej

Wrong name again Arkady

Arkady

Shit, corrected thankyou. I'm not taking the piss. Name of an old pal who's been on my mind lately. Arky

ADGS

It should also be noted, in amongst all this MY DOPE HELL-style discussion of heroin as a default destroyer of lives, that plenty of people manage to take it on an occasional basis while holding down jobs that are far more well-powered and middle-class than eg mine. Just like we shouldn't let our opinion of alcohol be defined by the SGR wasters with their purple tins at 9am, nor should the wasters outside Tesco be assumed to represent everyone who's been near the fruit of the poppy.

Arkady

I think that’s the first time anyone has accused the TESCO-campers of being lightweights.

ADGS

Damn straight.

andy

OK, you're now in three teams. Please arrange yourselves in the correct areas of the playground:

Team 1: Helping individuals is important. Efforts to compel them to seek help are unreasonably controlling. It doesn't matter that they make the street untidy. In fact, we secretly (or not so secretly) think people in Team 2 might be fascists. They are exasperating.

Team 2: Individuals helping individuals on a piecemeal basis does more harm than good. Especially if you're just helping them keep their head above water. People in that position need to be forced to accept help, for their own benefit and for the community. Drug dealing on the street isn't acceptable. We think people in team 1 are the worst kind of soft-headed bleeding heart liberals. They are exasperating.

Team 3: Heroin, whilst admittedly moreish, is no reason not to be a pilot, currency trader or top supermodel. Drink more water.Currently, only ADGS is in this team.

dawnage

I feel that I should offer ADGS support in Team 3... I'm with you, man.

JaneDoe

I'm with ADGS. He has strong plans for a zombie apocalypse, so I generally like to be on his team.

missthing

this might help:

http://www.nosecondnightout.org.uk/

Marquis

I'm with ADGS on this one too. These people are for heroin what lager louts are for booze. Unable to consume a substance, of which they know potency and effects, without making a nuisance of themselves. Although heroin louts tend to express themselves more in a passive aggressive way.

sincers

I'll bet 10,000 British troops in Afghanistan, risking their lives to keep that shite out of the country might make up a third, rather larger team.

ADGS

I thought they were risking their lives to deal with fundamentalist scumbags? Of which I am all in favour. Providing said scumbags with a massive revenue stream by imposing prohibition, just because a few wasters can't handle their medicine, is not doing the troops any favours.

sincers

Nonetheless, the Afghan warlords fund the oppression of their people and the killing of our troops by producing more of the stuff than anyone in the world. So next time you shoot up, bare in mind what these complete dick heads are doing with the profits. Back home, its tearing apart the fabric of our society - its not just keeping the paving slabs outside Tescos warm 24/7.

ADGS

I don't shoot up, it has never remotely appealed. I also don't go to football matches or play golf, but I don't think that banning those would be ideologically justifiable or socially useful either. As the USA's grand, foolish 20th century experiment should have proven even to our neo-Puritan overlords, all prohibition is good for is providing very bad people with a solid revenue stream. The problem with Afghanistan isn't heroin, it's the illegality of heroin. Ditto for South America and coke (which, again, I personally don't touch).

sincers

I don't entirely disagree, but I dread to think of the healthcare burden on the NHS, with A&E departments full of junkies taking legal heroin etc; all just to stop bad people making money. And the Taliban need their asses kicking for a whole load of other reasons besides.

WillM

You really think it heroin's legalised that most of the UK will suddenly start taking it?

I'm not a fan of legalising it, as (with cigarettes) it is far more addictive than you realise before you try it, and so for the few who think they can 'dabble', legalisation will be a tragedy. I don't think that there will be many idiots who want to dabble though.

Margolada

ehm ... actually its the US that encouraged Afganistan to go into heroin production to fund arms when they were fighting Soviet Russia ... lol

sincers

Eh?! who suggested that if it were legalized everyone would start taking it? Not everyone drinks or smokes either but huge chunks of the NHS's budget is spent dealing with a small minority who either can't handle it or are otherwise physically affected by the effects.

Ian

And as if by magic a study on price elasticity of Heroin pops into my inbox courtesy of [Freakonomics](http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/07/01/the-price-elasticity-of-heroin/) Basically [it is pretty elastic](http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=buy.optionToBuy&id=2011-06247-001). So if it is made legal, and therefore cheaper, one would expect use to go up greatly assuming supply could cope. It being illegal also matters - if there were no legal consequences users would up their dosage.

WillM

It doesn't suggest anything about potential numbers of users were heroin legal - it merely looks at the amount the existing users would use. You're extrapolating out from the observed price elasticity to speculate on who would consume it, without support from the study you're quoting.

Ian

@WillM I make no such extrapolation. You say that without support from the comment you are quoting. I'm assuming it is cheaper but it might not be (although it would seem odd that it wouldn't be) and I say nothing about there being wider use, merely more use. You have added, presumably in your head, that I said more people would use heroin.

ADGS

All of the above speculation re: costs to the government fails to take into account that, as with booze and fags, a government sane enough to legalise drugs would presumably also tax them. Meaning all the vast profit currently going into the coffers of narcoterrorists - to be spent either on hideous fundamentalist agendas by the Taliban, or simple ostentation and brutality by the heirs of Escobar - would instead be going to legitimate governments to fund precisely those hospitals the junkies end up in, and more besides. And Ian, if you're not saying that more people would use heroin, then this means a constant expenditure on junkies by government, matched to an increased profit by government from junkies. Result: PROFIT.

Ian

Indeed government could use taxes to ration but as it appears to be elastic it would indeed discourage. My base assumption is that illegality is a deterrent in all things, including heroin use. I'd be pretty amazed if there weren't more people using as well as more use. Probably worth studying other examples of decriminalisation for a sense of impact. For the record though I can't think of a stupider plan than legalising heroin. For a start every junkie in the EU would be straight on a train to St Pancras.

Siolae

Why would anyone want to legalise a drug that at best makes you semi-comatose and dribbly and at worst kills you? It doesn't even have the sociable effect of alcohol or ecstasy. Mind you I don't really get the attraction of ecstasy either, having never wanted to take something that would make me want to hug total wankers.

Sevlow

Wonder whether they'll work out how to make this <http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/krokodil-the-drug-that-eats-junkies-2300787.html>;

ADGS

"My base assumption is that illegality is a deterrent in all things"

On Thursday I was in the comic shop, deciding which of two Howard Chaykin collections to pick up. American Flagg! volume 2 was thicker, and cheaper, than the hardcover of Black Kiss. I asked the guy on the counter if there was likely to be a softback version of the latter, and he said that he didn't know, reminding me that technically it's not even meant to be on sale in the UK since a court case in the eighties. So just to spite bullshit censorship, I decided to buy Black Kiss.