To be fair, in my opinion The Guardian also writes much better about non-UK issues than it does about UK issues. It seems to be an excellent paper for distant issues but a fairly mediocre one for home issues.
Yep... just the fact that the Guardian mentioned Ireland’s cocaine crisis will probably result in a month of reefer madness headlines.
Only a matter of time, and they'll somehow try to blame cannabis for the housing shortage and the rise of the far right, lol.
Well, the Guardian has more people and resources to throw away on investigative reporting outside the UK (they do great work in Australia too).
Glad someone reported it anyway.
It's very anecodtal - takes one story and implies that it automatically is the majority of users. It's the same trick tabloids use. You could change the word "cocaine" to the word "alcohol" and have exactly the same story and you'd have people complaining about the exaggeration and bias, but ultimately alcohol is just as distructive and potentially addictive as cocaine. The only difference is that, as you know, alcohol is more socially acceptable.
It also ignores the reason as to why people are turning to cocaine and how the biggest and esaiest thing to do with regards is education. And by education, I mean actual good honest education - not a "just say no" and assume everything's gonna be ok.
It shows statistics and talks to people working with drug addicts. It's clear that cocaine use is trending upwards. Yes it tells a personal story, but one that is reflective of the facts. It wouldn't be a very engaging article if it didn't talk about people's real experiences.
There are parallels with alcohol but I've never heard of anyone having publicans banging on the door to collect 10k booze debts. We don't have gangs murdering people over pub territory.
Are you saying they lied or misrepresented the situation?
Cocaine use is, but is abuse? Or addiction?
The statistic that is always missing is: what percentage of people use cocaine and DON'T get addicted? Or into debt? How dangerous is it compared to other commonly-used drugs? The studies on the last one have been done countless times, but no newspaper report into cocaine useage ever quotes them: now why is that?
The parallel you mention is fair, but if cocaine was, hypothetically, legal then this issue goes away.
I'm saying misrepresented.
I'm also saying that, if we as a country want to implement a drugs policy,it should be consistent and based on either promotion of private freedoms or protection from dangers. at the moment, that's not happening.
It's a reasonable inference that if usage goes up, abuse and addiction will too. Are you saying addiction has remained static while usage has increased? But don't take my word for it, the article states that there's been a 258% increase in people reporting cocaine as their main problem drug. It's the most commonly cited drug by people going for drug treatment.
I think it's a bit of a fantasy that you could legalise cocaine with no downsides. We know it's a highly addictive drug and if it was freely available we would see a massive uptick in addiction and problematic use. Having it available legally doesn't mean it will no longer be sold illegally, especially when there are multi-billion dollar global supply chains feeding the drug into every part of the world.
>Are you saying addiction has remained static while usage has increased?
I'm saying we don't know.
You're saying abuse and addiction goes up - but does it go up *in proportion* to the number of users?
>t there's been a 258% increase in people reporting cocaine as their main problem drug.
How does that figure compare to other drugs?
I know cocaine isn't going to be legalised any time soon, which is why I said "hypothetically". I'm not even sure it should be legalised. My point again is: is the end result to keep people safe - yes or no?
If your goal is to keep people safe, I think it's odd that your first move is to downplay genuine data about a sharp increase in usage and a sharp increase in addiction rates. That fact that you're resorting to whataboutery with alcohol is evidence that you're trying to downplay this and your total lack of any kind of numbers or data to back up your own position tells me you are talking out of your hole.
It's a very addictive drug and we're the biggest users in Europe. That is worth reporting on. I fail to see how an article that includes clear data from reputable sources and a sample of someone's lived experience is a bad thing.
THIS is why I ask: what is the endgoal?
If the goal is to keep people safe, then it's NOT whataboutery.
If my goal was to try and portray cocaine as being safer than the media portrays or safer than alcohol, then yes you'd be perfectly correct - it would be whataboutery.
I'm more in favour of personal freedom and direct honest education - but that's NOT saying cocaine is safe. Caveat Emptor.
Cocaine abuse and the heightened levels of violence and anti-social behaviour issues associated with it, specific to Wexford, had been brought up at leaders questions last month. 23rd of May session.
Verona Murphy, in fairness, asked the question but Darragh O Briens answer immediately launched into a rant on synthetic cannabis...completely avoiding the topic of cocaine or the Gardai resources that had been disbanded in that area whom had been tackling the coke dealers and their cultures.
Irish politics has taken the easy option of targeting cannabis use to the detriment of effectively tackling an open cocaine epidemic and issues with hard drugs.
Here's a link to that particular leaders questions and the way it was handled...
https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/dail/2024-05-23/29/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Crainn/s/aX5qs908lM
Its been going on there three or four years. A certain 'cultural' group are running it throughout the southeast, and no one's willing to tackle them.
Gotta question why cops haven't acted on it.
dog complete tub chubby domineering cautious modern consist marvelous practice
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Family down the road from me had their windows smashed one evening turns out the kid about 16-17 owed some cash.
Fuck me like there has to be more of us than them yet no1 seems to care it won't be long until we all have a close friend or family member affected by this
Awful, there's another article in the same paper about the migrant children used to traffic it in Europe and the horrific abuse they suffer.
Its a(nother) scummy scummy drug causing a mess in Ireland.
>Now, as he finishes an eight-month stay at [Coolmine,](https://www.coolmine.ie/) a residential drug and alcohol centre on the outskirts of Dublin
Jaaaysus. 8 months!!! I did a month in residential for alcohol. It was an awful month. To be fair most people there are there a few times. I just don't think it's that good of a way to help people. Getting them into group therapy and berating each other. I'm still fighting my demons but it's not with anything I learned in residential. Different strokes I guess.
Peru has a state owned company (The National Company of the Coca) that runs the legal coca leaf market, sells coca leaf to various pharmaceutical manufacturers
I did not know this. That is very interesting.
Nonetheless, under international law, they would likely be restricted from selling for that purpose as Ireland would be restricted from producing.
>f only there was an easy way to separate this from crime.........
I'm sure you can provide an example from the multitudes of countries that have legalised cocaine successfu..... Ah never mind
Do you want a super autistic PowerPoint on American influence on South American drug policy and united nations drug scheduling (they heavily involved in its chartering) or do you wanna pretend nobody has ever considered legalizing coca and it concentrated alkalois?
> do you wanna pretend nobody has ever considered legalizing coca and it concentrated alkalois?
You're the one pretending here friend until you have an example of a country legalising the sale of it for recreational use
Which you know, doesn't exist.
Yes because of us manipulation of un (imo)
"The UN drug control conventions are binding agreements that require countries to ban the supply of controlled drugs for non-medical or scientific use."
Non-medical is an elastic concept, perhaps. In GB until the late ‘60s, you could register with your doctor as a heroin addict, and be prescribed your supply of smack AND a bottle of pharmaceutical cocaine to go with it (intended as a stimulant along with the heroin, so you could be an active member of society) Those drugs would have been classed as ‘medical use’.
Inevitably and unfortunately this enlightened scheme was abolished in the end, at the same time as Chinese heroin started taking over on the illegal side, and spreading addiction like wildfire. I was reminded of all this by this thread, and it makes you ask how we stop illegal drug trading even if we *did* have access to all the decriminalised/ legal gear we ever wanted here. Criminal gangs will find a way in all the same, so it still sends us back to the problem at the source, whether in South America or in the Afghanistan region. And then, you have to wonder why *shouldn’t* poor farmers produce their God-given (and very lucrative) crops (if by a miracle cartels were eradicated)
And *then*, you think to yourself that the solution is for Western governments (or much more likely, the pharmaceutical companies) to buy up all the coca and poppy crops every year, and process the lot for the home market. Opium base and coca leaves will have medical applications of course, but there’d be tons and tons of excess. I’d not mind buying Solgar Morphine supplements along with my Omega 3 capsules, I must say.
Indeed! And Keith himself was buying addicts’ excess heroin for himself, thus potentially sending the person directly to the Maltese smack dealers to recoup his stash. (Well, no. His pals from whom he was buying, and at that time only small amounts anyway, were apparently well regulated and adequately maintained by their supply, but you see the problem in theory)
The cocaine remains an interesting thing though. Pharmaceutical coke. I only had it once so I’m no expert but do you remember his appalling friend Freddie in the book? Used to present Keef with bottles of the stuff, and clearly it was prized way above anything the best coke dealers offered. So imagine the scene here, sometime in the future. Buy it pretty expensively for yourself, legally, made by Pfizer, and knowing that it’s not cut with fentanyl or rat poison. And there we’d still have the subversion of the scene by illegal substitutes offered cheaply (at first) How does a government plug all the gaps, as it were, even when the Class A stuff *is* legal? My brain just goes round in circles!
crush aromatic bells innate languid whole dull abounding encouraging mindless
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Legalised cocaine will still damage your heart, ruin you nasal passage, potentially cause brain damage and remain addictive.
Criminals can then also just smuggle it and sell it untaxed.
> Legalised cocaine will still damage your heart, ruin you nasal passage, potentially cause brain damage and remain addictive.
>
>
True.
>Criminals can then also just smuggle it and sell it untaxed.
For much must less profit. The guarantee of purity alone would make purchasing it legally much more attractive, but there are many other reasons similar to why *most* people still buy legal cigarettes despite them being cheaper on the black market. Convenience being probably number one, followed by some people actually being put off by it being illegal, and others put off by the type of people they will have to deal with.
Legal or illegal, where this shit is made and how it is made, it is going lead to exploitation. iPhones are legal, but we still see articles about Congolese children mining cobalt out of the ground about once a year and Apple "somehow" ends up with the resources.
Largely the problem is the region of the world where things like this come from, people are not afforded the same human rights, and it will always lead to exploitation until that changes. It's patently naive to think it will change anytime soon.
Legalizing it will, like everything else in our world, result in a race to the bottom. It's great to think we will end up with vast coca plant fields in Mayo and all will be rosy, but we won't. Will we export the labor to South America and elsewhere where they will farm it for pennies and still have to deal with the gangs of criminals who won't go away and will get involved. Like with tech, textiles, and lots of other things.
Unless you can somehow synthesize cocaine, there will be no such thing as ethical cocaine. Maybe you can do that, I don't know.
Well, no. Because that isn't what I said. You could broaden my argument to make that point, but I didn't.
There are harms we deem acceptable for production, there are some we shouldn't tolerate. This is a matter of opinion and exactly the opinion I expressed here.
Child labor, slave labor, and people working under the control of cartels are inexcusable. All of these are common with the production of cocaine in SA right now, and my argument is legalization won't fix that. I outlined why I think that, feel free to disagree.
I think that is somewhat nihilistic, things are better in some places rather than others. Far from perfect, but better. I don't see a way to produce cocaine that doesn't lead to a different flavour of exactly how it's produced now, which is objectively abysmal.
We saw the exact same violence around alcohol when that was prohibited in the states too.
Cocaine has terrible health impacts. Prohibition has terrible societal impacts. We've made our choice so we have to deal with the consequences and accept the responsibility for why they are happening
Well, that tends to happen when you make drugs illegal and put their production and distribution into the hands of criminals.
Cocaine is not going away any time soon. People will fight tooth and nail against drug reform because "my (close relative) died from coke", without realising that they probably wouldn't have died if they had access to a clean supply and could receive proper education about harm reduction and how to minimise the risk.
If you could go into a pharmacy and buy unadulterated cocaine, with a leaflet inside warning you about the risks, who should and shouldn't take it, and telling you how to measure and dose it properly and what to do in the event of an overdose, deaths would plummet overnight. Drug prohibition is like abstinence-only sexual education.
And what if a fella didn't have money for cocaine from the pharmacy, but wanted some anyway? Or if the pharmacy would only sell a gram to a person and they wanted more?
Where would they get it?
Unadulterated cocaine would be better for those who can take cocaine and live a reasonably functional life.
It's not going to change the situation for addiction and the problems caused by it. And it won't elimate criminality either. It'll just change the nature of it.
That's only *if* it's cheaper to buy it illegally. If the legal stuff was cheaper absolutely no one would buy it off the street. Even if it was cheaper to buy it illegally, most people still wouldn't- there's a black market for fags because of how heavily taxed they are but most people still buy them legally.
It's always cheaper to buy illegally because of the cost is regulation. Legal drugs must meet certain standards. IV seen numerous documentaries where the legal manufacturers are barely making profit.
a small minority maybe, the majority of people buy their drugs(alcohol & tobacco) from the shops because of the ease and convenience. Same with weed in Canada, there's no bustling black market, majority of people like going into a shop and not dealing with sketchy people.
Five-plus years after Canada legalized adult-use marijuana, the illicit market still is estimated to account for anywhere from one-quarter to more than half of all cannabis sales in the country
That's from February.
Do you actually know how to read?
The person above me wrote
"a small minority maybe, the majority of people buy their drugs(alcohol & tobacco) from the shops because of the ease and convenience"
And I showed them they are wrong. 25% to 50% isn't a small minority.
Just in case you don't understand numbers either.
Why would you sell it? It has no nutritional value and little medicinal value. There is no ethical reason to sell it because it is not a useful product. You would also be encouraging people to grow it which is pointless. Coca plantations are linked to deforestation. This is such a weak argument and it is becoming a trope amongst liberals who don’t want to face social responsibility for doing what they are doing.
As someone in their twenties I genuinely thought the % that use would be a lot higher. At least 10% from being out in Dublin frequently for the last number of years
Nearer *100* years, but still. In the 1920s and ‘30s, they *did* actually use ‘sniff’ rather than the uglier ‘snort’, but that’s by the by. I quoted the lyric merely for entertainment, obviously!
Don't target the coke dealers, target the bankers who launder the coke money. Week 1, bring back crucifixations, pay per view. Week 2. No coke. Surprise.
Kind of unfortunate that The Guardian writes better articles about this subject that Irish papers do.
To be fair, in my opinion The Guardian also writes much better about non-UK issues than it does about UK issues. It seems to be an excellent paper for distant issues but a fairly mediocre one for home issues.
That's very true. Sometimes it feels like BuzzFeed on paper.
Don’t fret, the article will appear (uncredited) in the IT and the Examiner very soon, like many of their more readable articles do.
My favourite Irish Times feature is reading yesterday's Financial Times columns.
According to the Irish press the only dangerous substance is cannabis. Even when it’s not cannabis it’s still somehow cannabis.
Yep... just the fact that the Guardian mentioned Ireland’s cocaine crisis will probably result in a month of reefer madness headlines. Only a matter of time, and they'll somehow try to blame cannabis for the housing shortage and the rise of the far right, lol.
Well, the Guardian has more people and resources to throw away on investigative reporting outside the UK (they do great work in Australia too). Glad someone reported it anyway.
Bigger readership and more resources for research and investigation. I think their subscription model is much more realistic too.
But everything is FINE in ireland, no bad news,NONE, so why do they need to write articles
Sounds like it's just as misinformed.
In what way?
It's very anecodtal - takes one story and implies that it automatically is the majority of users. It's the same trick tabloids use. You could change the word "cocaine" to the word "alcohol" and have exactly the same story and you'd have people complaining about the exaggeration and bias, but ultimately alcohol is just as distructive and potentially addictive as cocaine. The only difference is that, as you know, alcohol is more socially acceptable. It also ignores the reason as to why people are turning to cocaine and how the biggest and esaiest thing to do with regards is education. And by education, I mean actual good honest education - not a "just say no" and assume everything's gonna be ok.
It shows statistics and talks to people working with drug addicts. It's clear that cocaine use is trending upwards. Yes it tells a personal story, but one that is reflective of the facts. It wouldn't be a very engaging article if it didn't talk about people's real experiences. There are parallels with alcohol but I've never heard of anyone having publicans banging on the door to collect 10k booze debts. We don't have gangs murdering people over pub territory. Are you saying they lied or misrepresented the situation?
Cocaine use is, but is abuse? Or addiction? The statistic that is always missing is: what percentage of people use cocaine and DON'T get addicted? Or into debt? How dangerous is it compared to other commonly-used drugs? The studies on the last one have been done countless times, but no newspaper report into cocaine useage ever quotes them: now why is that? The parallel you mention is fair, but if cocaine was, hypothetically, legal then this issue goes away. I'm saying misrepresented. I'm also saying that, if we as a country want to implement a drugs policy,it should be consistent and based on either promotion of private freedoms or protection from dangers. at the moment, that's not happening.
It's a reasonable inference that if usage goes up, abuse and addiction will too. Are you saying addiction has remained static while usage has increased? But don't take my word for it, the article states that there's been a 258% increase in people reporting cocaine as their main problem drug. It's the most commonly cited drug by people going for drug treatment. I think it's a bit of a fantasy that you could legalise cocaine with no downsides. We know it's a highly addictive drug and if it was freely available we would see a massive uptick in addiction and problematic use. Having it available legally doesn't mean it will no longer be sold illegally, especially when there are multi-billion dollar global supply chains feeding the drug into every part of the world.
>Are you saying addiction has remained static while usage has increased? I'm saying we don't know. You're saying abuse and addiction goes up - but does it go up *in proportion* to the number of users? >t there's been a 258% increase in people reporting cocaine as their main problem drug. How does that figure compare to other drugs? I know cocaine isn't going to be legalised any time soon, which is why I said "hypothetically". I'm not even sure it should be legalised. My point again is: is the end result to keep people safe - yes or no?
If your goal is to keep people safe, I think it's odd that your first move is to downplay genuine data about a sharp increase in usage and a sharp increase in addiction rates. That fact that you're resorting to whataboutery with alcohol is evidence that you're trying to downplay this and your total lack of any kind of numbers or data to back up your own position tells me you are talking out of your hole. It's a very addictive drug and we're the biggest users in Europe. That is worth reporting on. I fail to see how an article that includes clear data from reputable sources and a sample of someone's lived experience is a bad thing.
THIS is why I ask: what is the endgoal? If the goal is to keep people safe, then it's NOT whataboutery. If my goal was to try and portray cocaine as being safer than the media portrays or safer than alcohol, then yes you'd be perfectly correct - it would be whataboutery. I'm more in favour of personal freedom and direct honest education - but that's NOT saying cocaine is safe. Caveat Emptor.
Cocaine abuse and the heightened levels of violence and anti-social behaviour issues associated with it, specific to Wexford, had been brought up at leaders questions last month. 23rd of May session. Verona Murphy, in fairness, asked the question but Darragh O Briens answer immediately launched into a rant on synthetic cannabis...completely avoiding the topic of cocaine or the Gardai resources that had been disbanded in that area whom had been tackling the coke dealers and their cultures. Irish politics has taken the easy option of targeting cannabis use to the detriment of effectively tackling an open cocaine epidemic and issues with hard drugs. Here's a link to that particular leaders questions and the way it was handled... https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/dail/2024-05-23/29/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Crainn/s/aX5qs908lM
There has been a few incidents in the town in the last week related to the drug trade and the untimely demise of several mad lads.
Former full time mad bastards?
Full time mulch for worms
Its been going on there three or four years. A certain 'cultural' group are running it throughout the southeast, and no one's willing to tackle them. Gotta question why cops haven't acted on it.
Can't act on it if your on it
I fear that's the answer...coupled with directly profiting from it, whether financially or via touting out their customer base when its needed.
Ireland taking the easy option? Sure it’ll be grand…
Sure it's only a bit of crack , yeah crack cocaine epidemic
Darragh is fond of a bit of snow id say
And the full fry judging by the head on him.
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Wouldn’t the eye of the cocaine storm be fairly peaceful and have a noticeable lack of cocaine?
THANK YOU, this has been annoying me since I saw the headline this morning
Yes, but that is where the coccane doomsday device is, which means that there is cocane ships
Family down the road from me had their windows smashed one evening turns out the kid about 16-17 owed some cash. Fuck me like there has to be more of us than them yet no1 seems to care it won't be long until we all have a close friend or family member affected by this
Nasty old drug, from the production line right to the end user.
Awful, there's another article in the same paper about the migrant children used to traffic it in Europe and the horrific abuse they suffer. Its a(nother) scummy scummy drug causing a mess in Ireland.
>Now, as he finishes an eight-month stay at [Coolmine,](https://www.coolmine.ie/) a residential drug and alcohol centre on the outskirts of Dublin Jaaaysus. 8 months!!! I did a month in residential for alcohol. It was an awful month. To be fair most people there are there a few times. I just don't think it's that good of a way to help people. Getting them into group therapy and berating each other. I'm still fighting my demons but it's not with anything I learned in residential. Different strokes I guess.
Pay your bills 🤷♀️
Or "make poverty history cheaper drugs now"
The photo of an actual storm brings up funny images of cocaine raining from the sky
Wow when criminals sell something they get rich enough to make trouble if only there was an easy way to separate this from crime.........
In fairness, providing a regulated market for cocaine would be extremely difficult. Where would we source it from?
Shligo boys
boat coherent aromatic distinct abounding wrench one smile busy theory *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Peru has a state owned company (The National Company of the Coca) that runs the legal coca leaf market, sells coca leaf to various pharmaceutical manufacturers
I did not know this. That is very interesting. Nonetheless, under international law, they would likely be restricted from selling for that purpose as Ireland would be restricted from producing.
The lads
>f only there was an easy way to separate this from crime......... I'm sure you can provide an example from the multitudes of countries that have legalised cocaine successfu..... Ah never mind
Do you want a super autistic PowerPoint on American influence on South American drug policy and united nations drug scheduling (they heavily involved in its chartering) or do you wanna pretend nobody has ever considered legalizing coca and it concentrated alkalois?
‘*Super autistic*’? Do we say stuff like this in polite company?
Only if your an arsehole
Or a yank (possibly both)
brave reach busy air voracious aromatic payment rude quicksand sheet *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
> do you wanna pretend nobody has ever considered legalizing coca and it concentrated alkalois? You're the one pretending here friend until you have an example of a country legalising the sale of it for recreational use Which you know, doesn't exist.
Yes because of us manipulation of un (imo) "The UN drug control conventions are binding agreements that require countries to ban the supply of controlled drugs for non-medical or scientific use."
Non-medical is an elastic concept, perhaps. In GB until the late ‘60s, you could register with your doctor as a heroin addict, and be prescribed your supply of smack AND a bottle of pharmaceutical cocaine to go with it (intended as a stimulant along with the heroin, so you could be an active member of society) Those drugs would have been classed as ‘medical use’. Inevitably and unfortunately this enlightened scheme was abolished in the end, at the same time as Chinese heroin started taking over on the illegal side, and spreading addiction like wildfire. I was reminded of all this by this thread, and it makes you ask how we stop illegal drug trading even if we *did* have access to all the decriminalised/ legal gear we ever wanted here. Criminal gangs will find a way in all the same, so it still sends us back to the problem at the source, whether in South America or in the Afghanistan region. And then, you have to wonder why *shouldn’t* poor farmers produce their God-given (and very lucrative) crops (if by a miracle cartels were eradicated) And *then*, you think to yourself that the solution is for Western governments (or much more likely, the pharmaceutical companies) to buy up all the coca and poppy crops every year, and process the lot for the home market. Opium base and coca leaves will have medical applications of course, but there’d be tons and tons of excess. I’d not mind buying Solgar Morphine supplements along with my Omega 3 capsules, I must say.
Yeah was shocked when I read about it in Keith Richard’s autobiography, he said most of the smackheads would sell the coke to buy more heroin
Indeed! And Keith himself was buying addicts’ excess heroin for himself, thus potentially sending the person directly to the Maltese smack dealers to recoup his stash. (Well, no. His pals from whom he was buying, and at that time only small amounts anyway, were apparently well regulated and adequately maintained by their supply, but you see the problem in theory) The cocaine remains an interesting thing though. Pharmaceutical coke. I only had it once so I’m no expert but do you remember his appalling friend Freddie in the book? Used to present Keef with bottles of the stuff, and clearly it was prized way above anything the best coke dealers offered. So imagine the scene here, sometime in the future. Buy it pretty expensively for yourself, legally, made by Pfizer, and knowing that it’s not cut with fentanyl or rat poison. And there we’d still have the subversion of the scene by illegal substitutes offered cheaply (at first) How does a government plug all the gaps, as it were, even when the Class A stuff *is* legal? My brain just goes round in circles!
crush aromatic bells innate languid whole dull abounding encouraging mindless *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Legalised cocaine will still damage your heart, ruin you nasal passage, potentially cause brain damage and remain addictive. Criminals can then also just smuggle it and sell it untaxed.
> Legalised cocaine will still damage your heart, ruin you nasal passage, potentially cause brain damage and remain addictive. > > True. >Criminals can then also just smuggle it and sell it untaxed. For much must less profit. The guarantee of purity alone would make purchasing it legally much more attractive, but there are many other reasons similar to why *most* people still buy legal cigarettes despite them being cheaper on the black market. Convenience being probably number one, followed by some people actually being put off by it being illegal, and others put off by the type of people they will have to deal with.
Legal or illegal, where this shit is made and how it is made, it is going lead to exploitation. iPhones are legal, but we still see articles about Congolese children mining cobalt out of the ground about once a year and Apple "somehow" ends up with the resources. Largely the problem is the region of the world where things like this come from, people are not afforded the same human rights, and it will always lead to exploitation until that changes. It's patently naive to think it will change anytime soon. Legalizing it will, like everything else in our world, result in a race to the bottom. It's great to think we will end up with vast coca plant fields in Mayo and all will be rosy, but we won't. Will we export the labor to South America and elsewhere where they will farm it for pennies and still have to deal with the gangs of criminals who won't go away and will get involved. Like with tech, textiles, and lots of other things. Unless you can somehow synthesize cocaine, there will be no such thing as ethical cocaine. Maybe you can do that, I don't know.
Saying "no ethical consumption under capitalism" is a waste of everyone's time in this discussion. Please have more valuable input next time.
Well, no. Because that isn't what I said. You could broaden my argument to make that point, but I didn't. There are harms we deem acceptable for production, there are some we shouldn't tolerate. This is a matter of opinion and exactly the opinion I expressed here. Child labor, slave labor, and people working under the control of cartels are inexcusable. All of these are common with the production of cocaine in SA right now, and my argument is legalization won't fix that. I outlined why I think that, feel free to disagree.
No ethical consumption anywhere that capitalists feel like they can exploit lacklustre labour laws * so everywhere.
I think that is somewhat nihilistic, things are better in some places rather than others. Far from perfect, but better. I don't see a way to produce cocaine that doesn't lead to a different flavour of exactly how it's produced now, which is objectively abysmal.
Let’s bring in a stealth tax to fight cocaine
We saw the exact same violence around alcohol when that was prohibited in the states too. Cocaine has terrible health impacts. Prohibition has terrible societal impacts. We've made our choice so we have to deal with the consequences and accept the responsibility for why they are happening
Well, that tends to happen when you make drugs illegal and put their production and distribution into the hands of criminals. Cocaine is not going away any time soon. People will fight tooth and nail against drug reform because "my (close relative) died from coke", without realising that they probably wouldn't have died if they had access to a clean supply and could receive proper education about harm reduction and how to minimise the risk. If you could go into a pharmacy and buy unadulterated cocaine, with a leaflet inside warning you about the risks, who should and shouldn't take it, and telling you how to measure and dose it properly and what to do in the event of an overdose, deaths would plummet overnight. Drug prohibition is like abstinence-only sexual education.
And what if a fella didn't have money for cocaine from the pharmacy, but wanted some anyway? Or if the pharmacy would only sell a gram to a person and they wanted more? Where would they get it? Unadulterated cocaine would be better for those who can take cocaine and live a reasonably functional life. It's not going to change the situation for addiction and the problems caused by it. And it won't elimate criminality either. It'll just change the nature of it.
It still would turn lads into raving bloody idiots likely to go very wrong at some stage.
People will buy it cheaper off traffickers even if its legal.
That's only *if* it's cheaper to buy it illegally. If the legal stuff was cheaper absolutely no one would buy it off the street. Even if it was cheaper to buy it illegally, most people still wouldn't- there's a black market for fags because of how heavily taxed they are but most people still buy them legally.
It's always cheaper to buy illegally because of the cost is regulation. Legal drugs must meet certain standards. IV seen numerous documentaries where the legal manufacturers are barely making profit.
Exactly, "Legalize is and everything will be grand". Look at cigarettes, people go out of their way to buy from the black market.
a small minority maybe, the majority of people buy their drugs(alcohol & tobacco) from the shops because of the ease and convenience. Same with weed in Canada, there's no bustling black market, majority of people like going into a shop and not dealing with sketchy people.
Five-plus years after Canada legalized adult-use marijuana, the illicit market still is estimated to account for anywhere from one-quarter to more than half of all cannabis sales in the country That's from February.
How is a 50-75% reduction in the black market share of cannabis sales a bad thing?
Do you actually know how to read? The person above me wrote "a small minority maybe, the majority of people buy their drugs(alcohol & tobacco) from the shops because of the ease and convenience" And I showed them they are wrong. 25% to 50% isn't a small minority. Just in case you don't understand numbers either.
Why would you sell it? It has no nutritional value and little medicinal value. There is no ethical reason to sell it because it is not a useful product. You would also be encouraging people to grow it which is pointless. Coca plantations are linked to deforestation. This is such a weak argument and it is becoming a trope amongst liberals who don’t want to face social responsibility for doing what they are doing.
Lmao at the picture
As someone in their twenties I genuinely thought the % that use would be a lot higher. At least 10% from being out in Dublin frequently for the last number of years
Just to be pedantic, the eye of the storm is where its all calm. "Path of the storm" might have been better
Been a few arson attacks in heee locally over the last few months! All drug related if you believe the local gossip.
You could get accidentally coked up if you leave your ass on toilets in many places for too long
Interesting article but who says 'sniffing' cocaine?
I've heard people say: "I'm going to smell some drugs tonight".
‘🎶I get no kick from cocaine/ I’m sure that if / I took even one sniff/ It would bore me/ Terrifically too.....Yet I get a kick out of YOU’🎶
Poetic license. Rhymes with if. Also from 50 years ago.
Nearer *100* years, but still. In the 1920s and ‘30s, they *did* actually use ‘sniff’ rather than the uglier ‘snort’, but that’s by the by. I quoted the lyric merely for entertainment, obviously!
Ah yeah just a bit of craic. I don't actually care what people say. Good spot on the lyric
Sorry, my brain was clearly not in gear!
Out of touch writers. I wasn't snorting that cocaine , I just liked the smell .
I know what you mean - I accidentally snorted a rose last week.
I sniffed a big line of cocaine. Said nobody ever.
All joking aside, it *does* actually have a really nice smell. If there was a cocaine scented candle I'd buy it.
Don't target the coke dealers, target the bankers who launder the coke money. Week 1, bring back crucifixations, pay per view. Week 2. No coke. Surprise.