Decriminalising
a drug? Is it a good thing?
We have a
problem with drugs, the war on drugs is happening yet have we the need to
surrender.
I have been
studying the drug problem, from all angles.
I have been listening to not just the drugs issue from a user’s
perspective on the streets in Kings Cross.
From the dealers I have interviewed for the books, these dealers I have
met over the period of 18 months within Kings Cross have all threatened me in
one way or another.
You notice
that many of the drug dealers carry three types of drugs. To legalise the drugs across the board
doesn’t help society. The problems will
be devastaging. An example for people in
the western countries I will have to say it’s Kings Cross during the 2011-2012
where the drug known on the streets is Ice or GHB have taken a hold in massive
proportions.
When we look at the problems from the streets that
are created. We must also look at the
otherside why the Poppies are grown. The
affect on the country, the affect for the income of the farmers and the economy
in those some third world countries where poppies are grown.
From
working beside the heroin addict, the shots seem to be limited. They don’t over indulge in the drug as the
result is normally death. Therefore it
is a drug that could be looked at in the form of injecting or smoking.
The heroin,
is available within our community. Yet
the drug busts we have seen in Sydney 2012 have been primarily relating to the
drug known on the streets as Ice.
Ice can be
made anywhere by what is happening around Australia. The other drugs are from other countries
affecting economies around the world.
Even the countries relating to Government aid needs to be looked at.
I propose
that heroin, is not used as a over dosing drug on a large scale we need to look
at the history for this drug.
Poppy power
Opium poppies were among the first crops to be cultivated. No one
can say when the first human learned to use their unripe seedpods’ milky sap to
alleviate pain or fever or to soothe and pacify a teething baby. We can only
speculate when the first baker sprinkled the seeds on a loaf of bread. Poppy
seeds have been discovered in caves occupied by prehistoric peoples (and
probably stuck between the teeth in the skulls of prehistoric bagel eaters).
The species is thought to have originated in Asia Minor or the Mediterranean
region, but it has been cultivated so long that it has become naturalized from
Spain to India.
Poppies to ease
peoples cares and put them to sleep. People do awake refreshed and relaxed.
The poppy plant that
could relieve pain and hunger, ease anxiety, and allow people to work longer
and harder proved invaluable, but habitual use of the drug prepared from the
sap of its unripe pods proved addictive and even fatal.
Tests on some Egyptian mummies have revealed high levels of the drug, which we
know in our society today as opium.
Opium contains more than twenty-five alkaloids, including morphine,
narcotine, codeine, and papaverine.
The ancient Greeks were well aware of the healing properties of
the opium poppy. The Romans spread the plant throughout Europe and into
England. The spread of Islam took the poppy to India, and Portuguese traders
introduced the practice of smoking opium to China in the seventeenth century.
Millions of Chinese became addicted to it, and the emperor banned its
importation. Smuggling of the banned substance from India into China
nevertheless became big business for English shipping companies. Attempts of
the Chinese viceroy in Canton to halt the drug’s importation led to the
infamous Opium Wars of 1839–1842 and 1856–1860, with capitalist England finally
prevailing. Everyone except the Chinese made oodles of money with opium.
Opium was
a chief ingredient of both British and U.S. patent medicines during that period. Opium has played an important
legitimate role in medicine. Morphine, one of its derivatives, is still a
primary weapon against intractable pain. Opium poppies have long been grown
commercially in many countries for use in treating diabetes, bronchial
disorders, malaria, dysentery, rheumatism, even elephantiasis, and as a
preoperative painkiller. In addition, they continue to be grown on a large
scale for the fine seed, particularly for use in baked goods.
The seeds of the poppy have no narcotic value. There is no effect
of poppy seeds on cakes, breads, cream cheese there is no effects of euphoria
from eating them. However, the seeds do contain some compound that has produced
positive readings in drug tests. Yet we
do eat poppy seeds, yes they are legal in fact some would label poppy seeds as
a spice.
People go to hospital, are given pethadene after a while they have a habit. Yet this is a legal drug in our country
Australia and many other countries around the world.
To legalise just one drug, heroin would be the most effective to
the world’s economy. Deregulating drugs
to allow personal use on the end user of the drug, well if this was just on one
drug that over the years has affected the world economies. By the growing of the Poppy’s
210
million people, or 4.8 per cent of the population aged 15-64 years, use illicit
substances each year. Drug abuse overall, including problem drug abuse, has
remained stable at 0.6 per cent of the population aged 15-64 years. However,
demand has soared for substances not under international control, such as
piperazine and cathinone, and synthetic cannabinoids that mimic the effects of
cannabis, such as Spice products.
How about if the Global Drug Commission looks at only
decriminalising one drug out of many.
Yes, the decriminalising at the end user for a small personal
quantity. However by allowing
Heroin/Poppy to be grown for a selective quantity legally moving between
countries will help countries that are third world.
There should be restrictions that the country can not buy
arms with the money, or be fighting with other countries or states of countries
to sell the product. The product should
be heavily scrutinized. To regulate it
like Alcohol and tobacco is all over the world.
