Originally Posted by Kizzy (Post 5809250)

Seems it is ok the champion the opinion of one medical expert if they happen to mirror your personal view.

Originally Posted by Kizzy (Post 5809304)

You failed to acknowledge any data I supplied you last time, please don't claim any intellectual superiority for your half baked pseudoscience you post.
Fine take this thread off topic if you must, I haven't the inclination to discuss this again.

Originally Posted by Stu (Post 5809006)

No, they are not. They were banned for poor medical reasoning and out of a knee jerk reaction to fresh experiences of the mind that were misunderstood or wrongly perceived to be horrifying. They continue to remain illegal because it has built up in to a sturdy zeitgeist that no politician want to step out from the shadows to break. Politicians are typically weak people.

If medical reasoning mattered at all then the American government would have listened to Judge Francis Young - a DEA man - in 1988 when he declared Cannabis to be one of the safest therapeutic substances known to man.

If medical reasoning mattered the British government would have listened to Professor David Nutt - the then chair of the governments own Advisory Committee on Misuse of Drugs - when he declared Ecstasy to be safer than hose riding and when he repeatedly called for a relaxing of soft drug laws. Cannabis is currently ranked to be of equal danger to base amphetamines in British drug legislation. That is not scientific. That's science and policy on it's knees in the mud.

If medical reasoning mattered Professor Nutt would not have been unceremoniously sacked from his position. Governments would take their scientific advice first hand from unbiased scientific bodies when dictating drug laws and not from pressure groups with vested interests because the woman outside with the placard had a son who knocked back too many pills on top of a crate of alcohol and went sick then dead.

Medical reasoning does not matter.


Why are you using the word 'will'? Chances are Cannabis won't cause you long term health problems at all. Are you being facetious for the sake of it because you personally don't like an altered mind and prefer to stay in and check out a good old execution instead?

I have talked at length on this forum for a number of years now about the emerging trend of demonizing the mental state of Cannabis intoxication and it's purported effects on mental health. I was engaged in debate on topics like the ratio of cannabinoids in the make up of the plant years before the papers caught up with it [some still haven't].

The practical invention and mystical attributes given to "skunk weed" have created this weird sort of fantasy land for journalists who now have carte blanche to hanker back to the days of Reefer Madness and talk about smoking pot as if it's a trip down the rabbit hole with undertones of demonic possession.

Some are only coming around to and respecting the fact now that these mental health effects are not only blown out of proportion but are symptoms of the illegal environment the plant inhabits. It's not the strength per say of Cannabis that is sometimes dangerous but the exact chemical make up of the plant. It's easier to just say it's stronger and scarier than ever, I know.

The trend towards indoor grows where Cannabis is cultivated guerrilla style hard and fast in an ultra artificial environment by crime gangs who don't respect the product has resulted in THC enriched Cannabis that has all but had the CBD bred out of it. CBD is Cannabidiol. It's the true magic of Cannabis that is only coming to light in recent times.

Cannabidiol and other Cannabinoids like it in the Cannabis plant [if you ever want to flex your keyboard fingers in a improvisational groove band feel free to use that as a name, man] play a huge, very important role in mediating the effects of THC [tetrahydrocannabinol, the stuff that gets you groovy]. They round out the intoxication of Cannabis, infuse it with it's medical properties and protect against THC giving the brain too much of a kicking.

Cannabidiol is an anti psychotic, anti anxiety agent. It has all but been bred out of most commercial strains of the ganj because of the illegal marketplace it exists in. Because of the zeitgeist of cowardice and anti science that you support.

So it's not just a question of strength. I'm regularly getting great hash that is far stronger than most of the mass market variations of haze and cheese that are smoking up the marketplace on this side of the pond but it's infinitely relaxing.

So in essence this mental health scare is an overreaction to a market trend created and preserved by Cannabis's illegality in the first place. And that is without me even going into sprayed and contaminated Cannabis.


Of course it wasn't rhetorical. I was pretty passionate in my insistence that you grace me with an answer regardless of the hypothetical nature of it. You could be brave and just do that.

One would assume you would support a similar system of judicial catastrophe on British shores. I would like to know as an honest, up front recreational drug user who has had drugs in his back pocket before where I would stand and what punishment would befit me had I ever been caught.

Heck I grew three plants on my windowsill once. Surely I should be eligible for a Sunday matinee execution to brighten your day up?

Originally Posted by Stu (Post 5809318)

That data I recall was a single link to a single study. I don't play link trading games. It's a long, frivolous exercise in futility. I enjoy engaging with someone who can actually talk. People who are educated enough on a subject to actually post themselves. I made lots of long, long arguments that you completely avoided or thought you could somehow magically make disappear by lazily Googling a single study on the subject. A study which my posts before that addressed in detail. You failed to adequately respond to any of it.

Half baked pseudoscience? You're damn right I'm claiming intellectual superiority over you. I've shot better fish in bigger barrels.

Originally Posted by Kizzy (Post 5809343)

It was several studies on the topic actually, as it is pointed out regularly my opinion is invalid as I am not a professional in the subject.
With respect stu neither are you.
You can begin with the insults if you wish it does not change my position, neither does it make your points anymore valid.
Do you have an opinion on the discussion here?

Originally Posted by Kizzy (Post 5809343)

It was several studies on the topic actually, as it is pointed out regularly my opinion is invalid as I am not a professional in the subject.
With respect stu neither are you.
You can begin with the insults if you wish it does not change my position, neither does it make your points anymore valid.
Do you have an opinion on the discussion here?

Originally Posted by Redway (Post 5809362)

To be fair, you don't need to be a professional to realise that the current drug laws are simply not working and people have referred you countless times to case studies, such as Amsterdam and Portugal and it seems to be working over there.

If you genuinely support a system where people are put behind bars for doing what they want with themselves, then you really do have absolutely no knowledge about the topic and just believing what the biased media tells you. How about putting that aside for a moment and doing your own research without putting a spin on it?

Originally Posted by Nedusa (Post 5808717)

The amount she smuggled isn't really the issue, the fact she is going to be murdered for doing it appalls me. We stopped executing convicted murderers in the 1960's but this country thinks its ok to execute someone who has not killed anyone.

Hopefully she will get the sentence commuted to a lengthy prison term.

Originally Posted by Ammi (Post 5808967)

..Londsay Sandiford is a victim in this as well..the lives of her children were threatened, Julian Ponder, who was said to be the 'mastermind' was sentenced to 6 years imprisonment and the recommended sentence for her was 15 years..the judge gave the death penalty because he didn't want Bali's tourist image damaged..that was the reason he gave...it had nothing to do with concern for these drugs on the street...

..to execute her will achieve nothing as there will also be another 'victim' like her and is barbaric in the extreme..a 15 year term in a Bali prison, is sufficient to 'teach' anyone a lesson, Lindsay herself and anyone else in the future...

Originally Posted by Sticks (Post 5810196)

Bali has drawn a line in the sand about drugs.

I believe this drug smuggler WILL be executed, to send a clear message out. My sympathies are with those blighted by drug related crimes. Where I live I have come across abandoned hypodermic needles, where children could have been.

As for Norway, that is a different subject for a different thread, so please do not hijack this thread.

Originally Posted by Sticks (Post 5810196)

Bali has drawn a line in the sand about drugs.

I believe this drug smuggler WILL be executed, to send a clear message out. My sympathies are with those blighted by drug related crimes. Where I live I have come across abandoned hypodermic needles, where children could have been.

As for Norway, that is a different subject for a different thread, so please do not hijack this thread.

Originally Posted by Nedusa (Post 5810224)

Drugs like Guns don't kill people, people kill people. If and when this mother is executed she will be killed by a group of people.

Smuggling drugs from point A to point B does not kill anyone . To execute someone because they increase the chances further down the line of someone overdosing on a drug or someone robbing someone to get money to buy a drug, is a horrendous over reaction and results in a "taking a life to possibly save a life".

There is now and never will be any justification for executing someone because their actions may or may not lead to someone further down the line overdosing on a drug.

By all means give them long prison sentences but imposing a death sentence on them is utterly ridiculous ....!!!!

Originally Posted by Nedusa (Post 5810224)

Drugs like Guns don't kill people, people kill people. If and when this mother is executed she will be killed by a group of people.

Smuggling drugs from point A to point B does not kill anyone . To execute someone because they increase the chances further down the line of someone overdosing on a drug or someone robbing someone to get money to buy a drug, is a horrendous over reaction and results in a "taking a life to possibly save a life".

There is now and never will be any justification for executing someone because their actions may or may not lead to someone further down the line overdosing on a drug.

By all means give them long prison sentences but imposing a death sentence on them is utterly ridiculous ....!!!!

Originally Posted by Stu (Post 5810413)

No, it's not hitting home. The drug war is receding literally on a year by year basis. Bali or not.

Originally Posted by Kizzy (Post 5810479)

Where is your evidence to support this?

Originally Posted by Stu (Post 5810505)

Plenty of Western countries are in the process of adopting or have adopted more progressive decriminalization/legalization based approaches to drug policy. The various grassroot movements around the world to liberalize drug laws are the loudest and most prominent they've ever been. Viral videos with everyone from respected scientists and government agents right down to cultural figures like Richard Branson and Morgan Freeman are calling for a loosening of the drug laws and are being seen by millions of people on the internet. The governments own former chair for the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs has set up an independent research body and is calling for a relaxing of drug laws. Two U.S. states have fully legalized personal possession of Cannabis with more states to follow. Comedians and actors are talking openly about the reverential, eye opening experiences they've had with LSD and DMT. Responsible recreational drug use is at it's most accepted, understood point in the prohibition age of human history.

It's all around you and it's growing every day. It's called a paradigm shift. Even the most ardent prohibitionists who are actually well read on this topic would have to begrudgingly agree that prohibition is slowly shedding it's skin.

It's a war on some people who use some drugs and it can't be won.

Originally Posted by Kizzy (Post 5810571)

You made a statement that said that the war on drugs was being won and figures for drug smuggling and or related crime was dropping

Originally Posted by Stu (Post 5810582)

No I didn't. I said that the Western world is slowly pulling away from drug prohibition and more and more countries are adopting more decriminalization/legalization based approaches. I alluded to the fact that culturally recreational drug use is more open and accepted than ever and that more and more people in prominent positions of power are coming out of the closet in support of a radical rethink of drug policy.

This is all factual. I never once said figures for smuggling and crime were dropping. And I never once claimed my arguments were solely based in the country that you live in.

Read more careful and think for half a second longer. It will save you and more importantly me a lot of trouble. Or you could just do that thing where you give up and claim you're not bothered by it again. Because this really is not working out for you.

Originally Posted by Kizzy (Post 5810603)

Stop getting personal, these are your words..
''No, it's not hitting home. The drug war is receding literally on a year by year basis.''

Not here in the UK it isn't, what the rest the world do is up to them as seen in this case.

Originally Posted by Sticks (Post 5807581)

When I was at university we heard the sad case of a 12 year old who died after taking one ecstasy tablet.

Drugs are not harmless

Those who gave that girl the tablet should have been done for murder

Originally Posted by Stu (Post 5810925)

There clearly is a debate to be found. Whether you want to participate in it or not is up to you but a dialogue exists across the world now more than ever. If it's good enough to be debated amongst doctors, lawyers and musicians then it's good enough for TiBB.

If you are so deeply concerned that the subject of this thread and your involvment in it sticks to the specific news story then stop engaging me in this half arsed attempt at trying to one up my more general posts on drug prohibition across the globe because it's not going to help, is it. Especially when it continually follows the routine of me posting a long, detailed argument, you disrespecting the effort by replying with no argument of your own and ignoring all of mine because you've already concluded internally that it's bollocks, and you eventually reverting back to the "but that's not what this topic is about" line when you get bored of it.

Originally Posted by Kizzy (Post 5811564)

Your long detailed argument is nothing more than pro drugs diatribe, it has no supporting material, statistics or evidence.
There is no disrespect, after all it's a matter of opinion. And that's all I see here your opinion, it has no basis in fact.

Originally Posted by Redway (Post 5811569)

To be fair, civil liberties is not a matter of opinion and there's much more evidence to point out the idiocy of this drugs war than these biased, unsupported claims that you keep banging on about.