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Legal highs kill 50 people per year. Smoking kills 100,000. We're banning legal highs

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Smoking is so widespread you can't ban it, if the govt could, they would have done many years ago.
whos ass did you pull those figuresout of
Original post by a noble chance
Source for 100k figure


Original post by SalazarSlytherin
whos ass did you pull those figuresout of


Office for National Statistics

Action on Smoking and Health fact sheet

Original post by MasonM
The only reason tobacco/alcohol is legal is because it's been a part of our culture for so long.Legal highs are a loophole allowing newsagents to sell anything from benzo fury (MDMA substitute, ps i got sold this at 16...) and all the terrible synthetic cannabis, it's also affecting the black market as dealers are passing these off as the real thing. We know how things like MJ affect us not the artificial ****.Most people on legal highs are homeless, it's shutting down an industry that is thriving of getting kids/homeless people hooked.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6pmc7Tpx4w



Except it's not shutting down the industry at all. It's moving the industry underground, like what happened with Ireland when they passed the exact same piece of legislation. They now have the highest usage of legal highs in the EU by far.

The atrocious piece of legislation is also banning lots of safe, useful substances that aren't legal highs, and making it harder for medical researchers to do their work.
neither should be banned
Original post by AperfectBalance
I find anyone who uses drugs for recreational means to be pretty disgusting , It can create people and small cultures that are very hostile and can run down places.


It can also be used to helped create and inspire artistic masterworks. Additionally, your point is hypocritical if you don't also include alcohol which has had far wider negative effects for society.
Original post by Davij038
It can also be used to helped create and inspire artistic masterworks. Additionally, your point is hypocritical if you don't also include alcohol which has had far wider negative effects for society.


While it can have very limited good effects, the majority of people who do legal highs are just idiots.
and while alcohol can be bad in sensible quantities it can be fine.
Original post by AperfectBalance
and while alcohol can be bad in sensible quantities it can be fine.


The same can be said for every criminalised drug and most of the substances banned under the new legislation.
Reply 27
Avatar for unfilmde
unfilmde
Original post by Davij038
It can also be used to helped create and inspire artistic masterworks. Additionally, your point is hypocritical if you don't also include alcohol which has had far wider negative effects for society.


Hold up Jackson Pollack. You don't need drugs to create masterpieces. Ask Mozart or Beethoven whether they needed to smoke a joint before sitting down to write their great symphonies.
Original post by unfilmde
Hold up Jackson Pollack. You don't need drugs to create masterpieces. Ask Mozart or Beethoven whether they needed to smoke a joint before sitting down to write their great symphonies.


http://www.classicfm.com/discover/music/classical-music-drugs/
banning cigarettes would do more harm than good. people addicted to cigarettes will not just stop because its illegal. a black market will be created and a lot of unnecessary crime and violence will come with it.also the govt will have to spend a lot more money enforcing the law.
Original post by unfilmde
Hold up Jackson Pollack. You don't need drugs to create masterpieces. Ask Mozart or Beethoven whether they needed to smoke a joint before sitting down to write their great symphonies.




Meh, who knows? Certainly there was stuff like Opium in them days, which was quite popular amongst the nobility.

http://www.classicfm.com/discover/music/classical-music-drugs/mozart-alcohol-tobacco/
I'm going to stock up on balloons before they go. So not entirely sure that making them illegal will discourage their use...
Original post by JordanL_
Office for National Statistics

Action on Smoking and Health fact sheet




Except it's not shutting down the industry at all. It's moving the industry underground, like what happened with Ireland when they passed the exact same piece of legislation. They now have the highest usage of legal highs in the EU by far.

The atrocious piece of legislation is also banning lots of safe, useful substances that aren't legal highs, and making it harder for medical researchers to do their work.


Just because a smoker dies of lung cancer, doesn't mean they got lung cancer because they smoked.
Original post by Davij038
Meh, who knows? Certainly there was stuff like Opium in them days, which was quite popular amongst the nobility.

http://www.classicfm.com/discover/music/classical-music-drugs/mozart-alcohol-tobacco/


Weren't the romantics all on Opium?
Original post by SalazarSlytherin
Just because a smoker dies of lung cancer, doesn't mean they got lung cancer because they smoked.


And just because someone using legal highs dies of a seizure, that doesn't mean they died because of legal highs. But that's how we measure drug deaths.
Original post by JordanL_
And just because someone using legal highs dies of a seizure, that doesn't mean they died because of legal highs. But that's how we measure drug deaths.


perhaps they wouldn't have taken the drug if it was illegal.

I certainly know people who choose to never cross the legal line with regards to drugs.
Original post by Milzime
perhaps they wouldn't have taken the drug if it was illegal.

I certainly know people who choose to never cross the legal line with regards to drugs.


But they would have. There's been a lot of research done that found that making drugs illegal has little to no effect on how many people use them.
Original post by the bear
smoking is a mug's game

legal highs is a mug's game


I hope the slip in grammar was for poetic effect bear.
Original post by dean01234
I hope the slip in grammar was for poetic effect bear.


bear's orthography is bare good. u smell me ?
Original post by JordanL_
But they would have. There's been a lot of research done that found that making drugs illegal has little to no effect on how many people use them.


I feel so sad and helpless

I would easily have the same views as you do, but after being directly affected by a legal-high-related accident, I cannot be okay with psychoactive substances remaining legal. It's not the substance itself which causes problems, it's what people do when under the influence, and accidents that may have been extremely unlikely inevitably become more likely. It's a similar thing with alcohol abuse, and alcohol is legal, but regulated. Maybe if legal high supply and trade whatever is regulated in a similar way to alcohol, and viewed in a similar way, then I'd have less of a problem with it.

I'm just sat here shaking my head because it's like there's no real solution. People have died, people will die. All I can think is that those who refuse to cross the legal line might be preserved if these substances are made illegal.

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