Legal high to be legal no more after new research

SMOKING and possessing Spice is to become a criminal offence following revelations that it can be as strong as potent cannabis.

Under current law, it is illegal to import, sell or market the so-called ‘legal high’, but it is not an offence to use it.

Health want to make Spice a class B drug alongside cannabis. ‘It is as dangerous as cannabis and I recommend people do not use it,’ said Deputy Medical Officer of Health Susan Turnbull.

The decision by health chiefs to ban the possession and use of Spice comes at the same time that the UK’s Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, the government’s official drug adviser, recommended to Home Secretary Alan Johnson that Spice be added to their list of prohibited drugs following their study of legal highs.

Jersey’s own Advisory Council will now recommend the same thing to Health Minister Anne Pryke, and subject to her agreement it will then be classified as an illegal substance under the Misuse of Drugs Law.(from JEP)

Lets hope Guernsey does the same..

anyone fancy banning vodka? it's poisonous, you know.

About Time

Fast Robert wrote:anyone fancy banning vodka? it's poisonous, you know.

How about a wee drop of Absinthe?Now that is a potent brew

Yum that Addictive Psychoactive Drug nicknamed the Green Fairy- bring it on...... 8)

how about banning tobacco totally as well,or chocolate,or gin

Think 'black hole' and where they get their taxes from :-)

so very true karma lol :evil:

This sets an odd precedent too. There are no reported deaths, only circumstantial evidence that the substance makes you 'bad'. You can be assured that the violence or anti social behaviour reported in the Press in the courts will cite any drug use as the cause, notwithstanding that the perp was probably pissed up on cinzano bianca.

So they're banning something on the research (incidentally done a couple of years ago) that it mimics the demonised cannabinoids, studies on which show no direct causal effects of anything other than the usual high dose = bad.

So some kids spend too much money on it. These are the types who would abuse any substance for the kick. Let's be honest here, back in my day the scare stories were solvents, exactly the same news coverage was afforded. The difference was it could kill indiscriminately. And it was abusing the substance other than its intended use.

Instead of banning it they should just enforce any other standard on it. fags have BAD FOR YOU on them. Booze tells you the units and some arbitrary line you shouldn't cross. Paracetomol tells you to only take two every four hours for a day and then see your doc etc.

So why can't the logic be extended?

It's just crappy them and us politics. Heaven forfend you'd suggest banning port. Oh don't be silly, they'd say, it's just grapes. Then they'd waddle off round the corner and piss on their shoes, come back, burp in your face and tut sagely when another kid gets locked up for smashing something up and the advocate pointing to the easiest way out, namely something that is shunned, but "understandable cos its drugs and their bad, mkay?".

Booze isn't a drug! It's a drink!

No deaths, no provable social degradation, no scientific evidence linking the original substance with either deaths or mental illness within dosage parameters and without pre existing psychological markers, but they want to impede freedom for the poor saps that like this stuff, why? Because it gets you intoxicated? Or is it a vain, cosmetic, pandering to the police state that Guernsey always has been in reality?

If your face doesn't fit, then your actions don't either. If, however, you are part of the club; anything goes! Don't forget - the richer you are then the more days you'll get off SCOT FREE for booze related 'accidents'!

Planning permission? No problems!

I'm surprised they didn't ban skateboards altogether.

One day things will be judged for what they are, evidentially and reasonably, and the policies will be made to reflect intelligence rather than deep-seated snobbery and pretensions of 'law and order'.

More criminal records, more resentment for the ruling class, less compliance in other areas, more chance of sociopathic tendencies.

Right, I'm back off to my crystal meth "eyelid bath" before roast lamb with the Governor. Pass the tourniquet, old chap!

Fast Robert Wrote:

Booze isn't a drug! It's a drink!

No deaths, no provable social degradation, no scientific evidence linking the original substance with either deaths or mental illness within dosage parameters and without pre existing psychological markers, but they want to impede freedom for the poor saps that like this stuff, why? Because it gets you intoxicated? Or is it a vain, cosmetic, pandering to the police state that Guernsey always has been in reality?

Including my long time friend's son and several other people I know/know of - more people have died in my knowlege from alcohol abuse than any other substance - the day my late husband's godson was buried at St Saviours Church just short of his 40th birthday the lady officiating at the service told us that in the three weeks prior to his funeral she had buried 3 other young men all under 40!!!! Now that is really worrying! also when my son and husband's godson were growning up the amount of damamge (and yes a suicide or two) done after experimenting with substances like glue/aerosols etc was far higher than anything caused by cannibis!!!
When a certain 'ex deputy' who is still high profile smoked the weed - not much was thought about smoking this substance!!!

so if booze isn't addictive why do peeps become alcoholics.i have seen people battle the addiction and believe me it isn't pleasant.

Booze isn't a drug, it's a drink, is a quote from a satire about our attitude to drugs. Pisstake, yeah.

All substance abuse needs addressing. Solvents are slighlty different in that they're being used for something not intentioned. So their response. Labels. Don't inhale.

Booze has a label. it's not supposed to be drunk in quantities that will damage you, so they put a measure and a guideline, but they still let us do whatever, cheaper than chips, look pretty colour and a get-it-down-you-neck delivery system. Fine. It's booze.

Anything else though is like some seedy back alley of human existence. Don't look, don't touch or we'll make you a criminal and ruin your life.

Look at the fuss over MDMA. A handful of deaths since the 'mainstreaming' of E during the late eighties/early nineties - mostly attributal to allergy or hypo/hyper-hydration. In the early 2000s there was an estimated half a million on it every weekend - and that was a loose figure based on a questionnaire that would have been lied on out of being embarrassed because of the illegality.

It's a substance that's been doing the rounds since the first world war, it's been tested. It's been used in successful psychiatric treatments.

Put it in the hands of criminals and it starts to get 'pushed',it gets cut with other poisons, people buying what they think is a relatively harmless 200mg MDMA hit suddenly find themselves on ketamine and warfarin.

Look, I lived decades of my life with users of all manner of things. My mate when doolally through amphetamine abuse (twenty years ago) he spent a couple of years fighting the conspiracies but ok now. A geezer in my band was an ex solvent abuser. Put it this way - he looked, sounded and thought the part. It ain't pretty. Abusers of poisons will die and be injured. Etc.

It doesn't make it wrong though. It shouldn't make it a crime. 'Wrongness' and criminality forces users to take risks, talk to people they wouldn't even look at usually, disengage from social norms out of imposed self-disgust and so become rude and deliberately distant from loved ones.

All criminalising the passing trade of youngsters - the vast majority of youthful 'experimenters' stop soon after as they don't see the point - does is make it exciting, dangerous a little bit phwoar.

The same kids that daub the walls and smash windscreens are the ones that will seek to push the decency boundary. These are the ones who find themselves in A&E after injecting grams worth of anonymous ketones (the stuff in Toot is one of two chemicals, not sure from a two second google, but both are related to E/Speed (though if they were the real thing then they wouldn't be available on the internet so the 'high' can't be all that so it shows how ridiculous the concept of mainlining the stuff is) and these are the kids that determine social policy in Guernsey.

Because idiots smoke Spice after cheap booze, fall over and crack their heads, then another law has to be made to stop others having the freedom to ask the questions for themselves.

Many, many addicts would not become so badly enthralled if the taboo was lifted and if in the course of their usage they could be open and honest and seek advice and care from the people that love them. That's the key. Not pandering to the reactionaries.

It's cool to break the law as a kid. Smoking shit, giggling and swearing at coppers becomes the plan. It's a self fulfilling prophecy. And why the hell is alcohol abuse applauded? Everynight there are thousands of addicts in Guernsey drinking to get smashed. Drinking until they can't walk. Drinking to sleep. Drinking to face the wife/husband. Drinking to forget work. Just fucking piling it down their necks until they throw up. Killing themselves. Ending up in the Castel on other untested psychoactive drugs that big business tells us is 'good for us'.

WTF. I'm with the users. It's all nonsense.

thank you for the clarification fast robert.

Can't believe they going to ban spice

So they're banning something on the research (incidentally done a couple of years ago) that it mimics the demonised cannabinoids, studies on which show no direct causal effects of anything other than the usual high dose = bad.

Not what the Medical Officer of Health says, nor any of the medical staff who work in A&E and see loads of kids completely off their faces under the effects of goodness knows what substance every weekend!

The staff at the Castel Hospital will also tell you that there are long term psychological problems to a number of people who 'experimented' in their youth who are still receiving treatment many years afterwards (well, those that are still 'alive' if you can call it that!!)

I believe that we have been fortunate that there have not been any deaths associated with this stuff, as has been reported in other places such as New Zealand.




.

Dell, any abuse of substances will damage you. A pint a day probably speeds up various negative processes that could be avoided. Why are other drugs any different?

Clearly the manufaturer should disclose the active ingredients, or at least have them accessible if that rule is somehow uneforcable.

Nobody wants kids unduly risking themselves on unknown poisons but yet we actively encourage a small minority to take chances on mysterious substances with no case history other than the internet, still a recent development as real time knowledge, where strangers can encourage themselves.

Wanting people not to take stuff is the ultimate aim. Nothing I'm saying is in anyway promoting drug use. I just think that creating a set of laws that allows some intoxication with substances that are known killers and social poisons, in fact promotes it as a 'way', something we do, whilst a few people choose something else and because it's illegal, they let the criminal element into their lives. Then it grows too fast before the user finds the courage to confess. Then they start thinking like a criminal, lowering necessary moral filters.

Red rag to a bull, a new illegal commodity will do the rounds. Just what overstretched customs need.

If the message about moderate drinking were followed like good moral citizens that everyone seems to profess they are then there would only be a few obvious drunks, then people would notice the 'over socialising' and ask if that person was ok etc. But it isn't. Most people drink too much, but they know they can and still conform. I bet folk sit and read this with an unnecessary wine or whatever.
Intoxication is not safe. It should not be encouraged. But it should be regulated using empirical evidence.

If prohibition worked then I would support it. It doesn't and there's no evidence that it minimises the risks. In fact it builds empires for those that exploit, it builds labs and funds research to get more products sold to as many people as possible. Unaccountable, untrustworthy and directly linked to serious crime.

There must be a way to get back control of distribution.