BS: I am no longer a criminal!

Subject: RE: BS: I am no longer a criminal!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 24 Jul 20 - 11:06 AM

I drive over the speed limit, too. But in this one respect I have been declared not a criminal.

Subject: RE: BS: I am no longer a criminal!
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 23 Jul 20 - 02:34 PM

If someone has smoked pot daily for a number of years and also drives a car, can they really be sure that they are no longer a criminal?

DC

Subject: RE: BS: I am no longer a criminal!
From: gillymor
Date: 23 Jul 20 - 06:59 AM

You're bringing back memories, Steve. I was 27 when I kicked but I still can't turn down the occasional cigar, as long as it's a good one.

Subject: RE: BS: I am no longer a criminal!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 23 Jul 20 - 06:18 AM

Camel cigarettes were described as the only cigarettes with a picture of the factory on the pack. :-)

I smoked for twelve years, giving up at the age of 26 (at 8.05 PM on 21 Feb 1978 with 17 Embassy left in the pack). I haven't touched tobacco ever since. I'd have been well dead by now had I carried on, as I was obsessively addicted. A night in the pub equalled twenty fags. I could smoke anything, including strong pipe baccy and cigars. I was a walking pollution hazard to all around me. It took three months of sighing agony to give up and I could still fancy a ciggy even today. Fortunately for me, Mrs Steve got pregnant with our first during that time so I had just the incentive I needed to ditch the fags. I still dream occasionally that I'm smoking. I remember the amazing hit you'd get if you'd deprived yourself for two or three days then lit up. Aaaahhhhh...

Subject: RE: BS: I am no longer a criminal!
From: gillymor
Date: 23 Jul 20 - 05:16 AM

Back in my smoking days I favored unfiltered cigs,Camels, Players,Luckies, but I damn near choked on the one and only drag I took off a Gauloise.

Subject: RE: BS: I am no longer a criminal!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 23 Jul 20 - 05:04 AM

Not so much privet, though. Even wjen O smoked cigarettes, those were unconsumable.

Subject: RE: BS: I am no longer a criminal!
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 23 Jul 20 - 04:11 AM

One of my (cigarette-smoking) friends once described Gauloises as being ‘made from privet-leaves and dried dog-s**t’.

Subject: RE: BS: I am no longer a criminal!
From: gillymor
Date: 23 Jul 20 - 04:02 AM

Sounds like the true definition of whacky terbaccy.

Subject: RE: BS: I am no longer a criminal!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 22 Jul 20 - 11:05 PM

[Shudder]

Subject: RE: BS: I am no longer a criminal!
From: Jack Campin
Date: 22 Jul 20 - 07:00 PM

Hash Gauloises would be *really* hardcore.

Subject: RE: BS: I am no longer a criminal!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 22 Jul 20 - 04:37 PM

It's not just the Brits who mix tobacvo and reefer... In North Africa and many Francophone places it's really hard to find pot, or hash, not already premixed with tobacco.

Subject: RE: BS: I am no longer a criminal!
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 21 Jul 20 - 12:23 PM

Still completely illegal to supply here, Jeri, although consumption is frequently ‘turned a blind eye to’. Your ‘dispensaries’ are what I’m advocating above, I guess.

Subject: RE: BS: I am no longer a criminal!
From: Jeri
Date: 21 Jul 20 - 12:18 PM

It's weird in this day and age that the philosopy of "Reefer Madness" still hold some sway.
We have dispensories around here. Maybe "dealers" still exist, but I can drive to two different states and buy weed. I don't like it, though, but I know people who do, and that's fine. I think it's a matter of how my body chemistry reacts to it.

I smoked cigarettes for a long time, and din't really notice a correlation (desire, or addiction-wise) between weed and tobacco.

Subject: RE: BS: I am no longer a criminal!
From: Jack Campin
Date: 21 Jul 20 - 11:23 AM

I can't imagine that too many people who have never smoked a fag took their first puff on a rollup containing marijuana.

I did. So did everybody I knew in New Zealand, Australia and the US.

The British approach is uniquely disgusting.

Subject: RE: BS: I am no longer a criminal!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Jul 20 - 11:04 AM

I can't imagine that too many people who have never smoked a fag took their first puff on a rollup containing marijuana.

Subject: RE: BS: I am no longer a criminal!
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 21 Jul 20 - 10:38 AM

Never had any interest in either cannabis or tobacco.

Tried one cigarette, coughed up what felt like pieces of lung, almost vomited with the disgusting taste, thought “Bugger that”, and never bothered again.

Never even tried cannabis. Completely and irrevocably disinclined.

Subject: RE: BS: I am no longer a criminal!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 21 Jul 20 - 09:59 AM

Indeed.

Subject: RE: BS: I am no longer a criminal!
From: Jack Campin
Date: 21 Jul 20 - 05:56 AM

In the UK, cannabis is often a gateway to tobacco. The British thing (not done anywhere else I've been) is to smoke hash in cigarette roll-ups. I know a few people who got hooked on tobacco that way. Probably a higher death rate than moving on to heroin.

Subject: RE: BS: I am no longer a criminal!
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 21 Jul 20 - 04:06 AM

I guess she didn’t see you as a prospective recruit to the dealing team, Mrrzy! If she had, you might have found yourself in a different situation. Y’know, we actually agree, but there are two levels that have to be taken into consideration.

On the first level (and I **think** this is the level your ‘published, peer-reviewed scientific opinion’ was probably studying) there’s no evidence that the simple act of using cannabis, even on a regular basis, leads **automatically** to hard-drug usage and, in that respect, it most certainly is not the ‘gateway’ drug it’s been widely thought to be. There are plenty of cannabis users who never progressed from cannabis to other, ‘harder’ drugs to testify to that.

But, on the second level, it definitely is used as a ‘hook’ by high-level dealers in their recruitment process to their dealing network - that’s a hard fact in the area I live and worked in, and my (now 40 year-old, so no longer an impressionable kid) son’s experience, and the experience of the other user/dealers I worked with. Now, you can heap scorn on my ‘anecdotal evidence’ vs. your ‘published, peer-reviewed scientific opinion’, but my anecdote is fact-based, witnessed with my own eyes. An ‘opinion’ is just that, ‘peer-reviewed’ or not, and hard experience will always Trump ‘opinion’, at least for me.

But, as I say, we agree, to a great extent at least. I’m glad you’re no longer a criminal, and I look forward to the day when no-one is criminalised for their use of a drug which is no more dangerous, and probably less addictive, than nicotine and alcohol.

Subject: RE: BS: I am no longer a criminal!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 20 Jul 20 - 05:13 PM

Backwoodsman, me too, but the plural of anecdote is not data!

Once my pot dealer was out of pot and asked if I wanted "the other" which I assumed was hash. Opening the disappointingly tiny packet I found coke, not hash, which I had never bought, so I didn't, and still don't, understand why she thought I might have wanted it...
But she never otherwise tried to sell me anything else. That was a misunderstanding rather than a push.
Gave it to a cousin I knew would appreciate it. Still have never bought coke on purpose...

Subject: RE: BS: I am no longer a criminal!
From: Donuel
Date: 20 Jul 20 - 02:50 PM

I gave creedence to 'Love and other addictions' by Gail Sheehy

Subject: RE: BS: I am no longer a criminal!
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 20 Jul 20 - 11:50 AM

Mrrzy, I think you’ve just confirmed my point!

As I said earlier, I agree that there is no **automatic progression** from cannabis to hard drugs, and in that respect, it isn’t a ‘Gateway’. I know a number of cannabis-users who never progressed any further than a recreational spliff at the weekend. That’s not under any kind of debate AFAIC.

But, in my actual real-life experience, over many years, with my own son and working in a pastoral and educational role with a number of other hard-drug users, there is no doubt that cannabis is used as a ‘come-on’ by dealers when they target young people. So, AFAIC, in that sense, cannabis does represent a ‘Gateway’ - of a different kind, and dependent on the circumstances of the user’s introduction to it.

And I repeat, because I’m not sure you’re getting it - I do not criticise the consumption of cannabis or, for that matter, any drug, and I support the decriminalisation of consumption of all drugs. However I do support the setting up of legal, licensed supply routes, and the continued criminalisation of unauthorised supply.

Subject: RE: BS: I am no longer a criminal!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 20 Jul 20 - 10:51 AM

I took an addiction seminar in the 80's, in grad school at UVa, cognitive area, psych dept. The general consensus of published, peer-reviewed, scientific opinion, was that while pot was, indeed, almost always encountered before other drugs, there was no evidence -none- that it *led to* [eg was a gateway to] abusing harder drugs. More people go from mother's milk, cigarettes, and alcohol to heroin than pot to heroin. More people stop at pot than stop at mother's milk, cigarettes or alcohol.
The one thing that *did* correlate with hard drug use and addiction was inconsistent use of affection in upbringing, especially alternations of neglect and spoiling.
I know "general consensus of opinion" is doubly redundant.
I wish I still had the materials for that course.

Subject: RE: BS: I am no longer a criminal!
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 19 Jul 20 - 03:02 PM

Thanks Mrrzy, things look better now and he’s working. But addiction is forever, it’s the controlling of that addiction that matters. One day at a time...

Subject: RE: BS: I am no longer a criminal!
From: Donuel
Date: 19 Jul 20 - 02:49 PM

There are lots of new criminals mushrooming up in the form of ununiformed police kidnapping demonstrators in unmarked SUVs detaining people in jails and later releasing them without records or reports.
This tactic reminds me of Putin Troops fighting in Ukraine without identification.

In ICE detention camps there are children treated much worse than criminals. I suppose kids who do not return to school will become the neo criminals.

Trump tried to criminalize Obama and Hillary and has decriminalized General Flynn and Stone.

Who will eventually pardon Trump?

Subject: RE: BS: I am no longer a criminal!
From: gillymor
Date: 19 Jul 20 - 01:50 PM

As I wrote, BW, even when I was using illicit, recreational drugs I didn't feel the need to justify it to anyone and I never got the impression that Mrrzy or anyone else in this thread was either. I'll just chalk it up to Bonzo being Bonzo. Btw, I hope things work out okay with your family's situation.

Subject: RE: BS: I am no longer a criminal!
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 19 Jul 20 - 12:03 PM

Gilly, I don’t believe anyone here was talking about medical cannabis. That’s a different subject altogether, and I can’t imagine anyone criticising its use for medical purposes.

And, as I’ve said several times now, although I’ve never used cannabis recreationally (I do use cannabinoid-oil for arthritic pain relief), I don’t criticise those who do, and I support the de-criminalisation of the practice.

Just so we’re absolutely clear on that!

Subject: RE: BS: I am no longer a criminal!
From: gillymor
Date: 19 Jul 20 - 11:39 AM

I'm fortunate enough to live in a state where medical cannabis is legal so I don't feel compelled to justify my usage to anyone but I didn't even when I used it recreationally decades ago. What pisses me off are the social conservatives who have never used it and have no knowledge of it's benefits but still would deny it to folks whose lives would be improved by it's use. Bonzo is the one spewing drivel, as he often does on this site. (Still though, the guy is good for a laugh now and then.)

Subject: RE: BS: I am no longer a criminal!
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 19 Jul 20 - 10:42 AM

Bollocks! Try again - “In which case, their need to justify its use at all would disappear”.

Subject: RE: BS: I am no longer a criminal!
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 19 Jul 20 - 10:39 AM

Sorry, should have ended -” in which case their need to justify its use would disappear.

Subject: RE: BS: I am no longer a criminal!
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 19 Jul 20 - 10:37 AM

Hopefully, Steve, my post based on a very great deal of personal experience, some of it very bitter indeed, dealing with drug users and dealers first-hand and being made only too aware of how they operate, has to a great degree debunked that highly irresponsible statement.

For once, I do have to agree with Bonzo when he says that, “People who smoke pot, cannabis and the like.....speak drivel to justify its use“. However, I don’t see that as a justification for criticising their consumption - on the contrary, I’d far prefer it if consumption of cannabis was de-criminalised, in which case their need to justify its use would disappear.

Subject: RE: BS: I am no longer a criminal!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Jul 20 - 10:04 AM

Well, before responding to that I've looked at a number of sources and I can say that the debate over whether cannabis is a "gateway" drug is far from settled. So I regard your assertion The idea that pot dealers can try to hook you with freebies and then force you into anything has looong been debunked, made with such comforting certainty, to be highly irresponsible.

Subject: RE: BS: I am no longer a criminal!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 19 Jul 20 - 09:24 AM

Right. Because with pot you don't get forced into crime. Exactly. The idea that pot dealers can try to hook you with freebies and then force you into anything has looong been debunked.

Subject: RE: BS: I am no longer a criminal!
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 19 Jul 20 - 05:23 AM

In the UK, nobody is ‘court-ordered to rehab for pot’ or, for that matter, for any drug-use offences.

Subject: RE: BS: I am no longer a criminal!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 19 Jul 20 - 12:02 AM

I am reminded of the scene where somebody is court-ordered to rehab for pot, and all the addicts are, like, Did you ever turn tricks in the alley for pot?

Subject: RE: BS: I am no longer a criminal!
From: Donuel
Date: 18 Jul 20 - 06:25 PM

Thats enough to make a parole officer proud :^>
But seriously, thanks for your efforts. There are people who need help with constructive moderation or sobriety. That being said I'm sure I would enjoy breakfast with Mrrzy after a bong hit or two.

Subject: RE: BS: I am no longer a criminal!
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 17 Jul 20 - 10:51 AM

And, for the record, and in case anyone thinks I’m a closet-toker, I’ve never used any ‘illegal’ substances, never smoked cannabis, never even been a tobacco-smoker. My drugs have been caffeine (still is) and alcohol (but no longer, my last alcoholic drink was consumed on 20th December, 2005 - haven’t touched a drop since).

Subject: RE: BS: I am no longer a criminal!
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 17 Jul 20 - 10:32 AM

Mrrzy, don’t try to tell me how it works, I have 20 years’ experience, both with my son and 12 years working with young people, a significant number of whom were users, during a 12-year spell as a Youth Worker with our local Education Authority.

Please read my posts again - properly this time. I said that consumption should be decriminalised, and that legal (and therefore presumably licensed) suppliers only should be permitted to sell it.

The way dealers work - and this is from my actual experience of what happened with my son, and with several other ‘hard’ drug-users whom I worked with during my time as a Youth-Worker, not something I read somewhere - is that they employ a ‘carrot and stick’ technique to hook their victims. They give cannabis ‘free’ to young, gullible people for a while but then they ‘call in the debt’ by giving them cannabis and other substances to sell, on pain of getting a beating-up, or informing on them to the parents, or both. If the victim doesn’t sell the stuff, or fails to hand the requisite amount of money over to the dealer, they get the beating. The dealer then has the victim under control.

The next step is to suggest to the victim to ‘try a bit of this’, the ‘this’ being something a little ‘stronger’, and again for ‘free’. Various techniques of ‘persuasion’, physical and psychological, are employed by the dealer to get the victim to comply once again. Sooner or later, the new ‘debt’ is called in, once again on pain of a beating or being informed on. Refusal to comply usually results in the aforementioned beating - as my son found out the hard way in the car park of the place where he worked when he tried to refuse to do what his supplier(s) wanted. His explanation for his injuries to his mother and me was that he “Fell off the top of a stack of pallets in the warehouse at work”.

And so it goes on, step by step, deeper and deeper, until the user becomes a part of the dealing network - whether willing or not. Once the victim becomes addicted to whichever drug - heroin in my son’s case - the dealer has a ready-made ‘employee’ whom he uses to move drugs around, sell drugs, engage in criminal activities, whatever.

So, whilst I agree that the idea that cannabis ‘automatically leads to hard-drug habit’ is nonsense and is not a valid reason for its use to be a criminal offence, there is no doubt that, for those who become hard-drug users, and definitely for the many users who find themselves part of a dealer’s network of mules, many, perhaps most, begin with cannabis.

As my son often says, “Nobody who’s a Smack-Head started with Heroin, he/she started, almost inevitably, with cannabis”, and I believe that the decriminalisation of all ‘illegal’ drugs, and the setting up of legal routes of supply, would go a long way to dis-arming the dealers of the psychological and physical weapons they use to control their dealing-network and their customers.

Subject: RE: BS: I am no longer a criminal!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 17 Jul 20 - 09:19 AM

That should read TO sell it. Morning fingers, not breakfast bong-hits.

Subject: RE: BS: I am no longer a criminal!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 17 Jul 20 - 09:18 AM

So it should be legal to buy pot but not tplo sell it?

Also, heroin pushers don't sell you pot to get you to try heroin. That is a long-debunked myth.

Subject: RE: BS: I am no longer a criminal!
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 17 Jul 20 - 03:14 AM

Quite so, Jack. It’s not that cannabis is especially physically addictive (although it is thought to be psychologically addictive), it is the way dealers use it, along with their well-documented manipulative ‘techniques’, in order to lead users - especially young, malleable, and often fearful users - down the road of ever-‘harder’ and, ultimately, more profitable, substances.

I see no worthwhile purpose served by the criminalisation of cannabis consumption or, for that matter, consumption of any of the ‘illegal’ substances. I’m convinced that decriminalisation and the setting up of legal sources of supply for those who choose to use would go a very long way towards winning the ‘war on drugs’, and would remove a great deal of the criminality involved in funding substance-abusers’ habits.

Subject: RE: BS: I am no longer a criminal!
From: Jack Campin
Date: 16 Jul 20 - 05:57 PM

Almost all of my friends have used pot fairly often at some time. None has ever had an addiction problem, with one exception. She's never tried pot and has spent half her life addicted to codeine.

Subject: RE: BS: I am no longer a criminal!
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 16 Jul 20 - 05:40 PM

Correction - I should have said, “ I strongly believe in the de-criminalisation of the consumption by the individual of all drugs, and there should be resources for them to be legally obtained. Dealing should, of course, remain a criminal offence.

Subject: RE: BS: I am no longer a criminal!
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 16 Jul 20 - 05:35 PM

It’s not the smoking of cannabis per se that makes a person progress to hard(er) drugs, It’s the fact that it is used by dealers as a lever to draw people - often, perhaps usually, young and impressionable people - into a progression to hard(er) drugs.

As the parent of a son with a 20-year-long heroin addiction, I am only too well aware of how these people operate, how they are able to apply pressure by various means, and I’m in agreement with Dick, I strongly believe in the de-criminalisation of all drugs, which would serve to loosen the hold pushers have over their victims.

Subject: RE: BS: I am no longer a criminal!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 16 Jul 20 - 05:22 PM

Almost all hard drug abusers started with pot as their first illegal drug.
Almost all hard drug abusers started with cigarettes and/or caffeine before trying pot.
Almost all people who do not abuse hard drugs started with pot as their first illegal drug.
Almost all people who do not abuse hard drugs started with nicotine and/or caffeine before trying pot.
Ah, maths. Statistics, too, are a marvy thing.

Subject: RE: BS: I am no longer a criminal!
From: The Sandman
Date: 15 Jul 20 - 10:04 AM

well back in the sixties i had 3 friends who all started smoking dope , they all said they could handle it they all ended up fixing heroin.
now this couldbe used as an argument for legalising pot, to take it out of the hands of criminals ,
personally i would legalise every drug, but then i am not in charge
it seems you have to be an idiot like trump or johnson to lead a country.

Subject: RE: BS: I am no longer a criminal!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 15 Jul 20 - 10:02 AM

Snicker

Subject: RE: BS: I am no longer a criminal!
From: Vic Smith
Date: 15 Jul 20 - 09:26 AM

I am no longer a criminal!

Well, I am. I am a bank robber. I put on my mask and went into a local branch and asked them to put their hands and hand over all the money. The cashier just laughed and called to the other staff saying, "I've got another joker here!" I shouted and waved my gun about but they all just creased up with laughter. In the end I just walked out in disgust.

This new government edict about wearing masks in shops is hitting some professions harder than others.

Subject: RE: BS: I am no longer a criminal!
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 14 Jul 20 - 12:00 PM

I’ve had Entonox several times during emergency ambulance-rides - no light-headedness or wooziness, but it did significantly reduce the (very considerable) pain I was suffering.

Subject: RE: BS: I am no longer a criminal!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 14 Jul 20 - 11:44 AM

Donuelonuelnueluelell...

So right!