Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ireland to 'decriminalise' small amounts of drugs for personal use

independent.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 166 posts

Re: Ireland to 'decriminalise' small amounts of drugs for personal use

#111

Post by blumkvist »

bcook wrote: post #99
ryanlol wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not heroin, but a completely unknown substance presented as heroin that probably consists of around 30% heroin.

Heroin addiction is one of the most harmful documented drug-addictions. The need for heroin, physically and psychologically, is the driving force behind the social and personal damage attributed to heroin. People do not get addicted to non-narcotic adulterants and become prostitutes. A cutting agent like caffeine or sugar is probably the safest ingredient...

Caffeine? Sugar? Lol! How about mice poison?

Reading wikipedia and actually knowing stuff about drugs are very different things. Please stop posting, you don't have a clue.

Re: Ireland to 'decriminalise' small amounts of drugs for personal use

#112

Post by [deleted] »

peteretep wrote: post #88
madaxe_again wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a nice idea, but I can see the UK leaning on them, hard, not to do this. I can see the arguments now: - People will get the ferry to Ireland and bring them to the UK! - Drug tourism! Amsterdam! Everybody hates Amsterdam! Look at how terrible everything is there! - Think of the children!! - It's not aligned with the UK's policy of increasing criminalisation! - Think of what you'll do to your prison sector! Hopefu…

> I can see the UK leaning on them > Hopefully Ireland will give their former (hell, > ongoing) occupiers the finger I think you vastly over-estimate the importance of Ireland to the British government.

[deleted]

Re: Ireland to 'decriminalise' small amounts of drugs for personal use

#113

Post by madaxe_again »

peteretep wrote: post #88
madaxe_again wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a nice idea, but I can see the UK leaning on them, hard, not to do this. I can see the arguments now: - People will get the ferry to Ireland and bring them to the UK! - Drug tourism! Amsterdam! Everybody hates Amsterdam! Look at how terrible everything is there! - Think of the children!! - It's not aligned with the UK's policy of increasing criminalisation! - Think of what you'll do to your prison sector! Hopefu…

> I can see the UK leaning on them > Hopefully Ireland will give their former (hell, > ongoing) occupiers the finger I think you vastly over-estimate the importance of Ireland to the British government.

I take it you missed the bit where they fought a few dozen wars over the last century?

Re: Ireland to 'decriminalise' small amounts of drugs for personal use

#114

Post by cjhveal »

zanny wrote: post #101
moonchrome wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>cocaine are probably the only outstandingly dangerous ones due to immediate bodily effects Is that true about ? I "know" that heroin ends up causing a physical addiction + all the risks with the way it's used but I was under the impression that cocaine was in the same category as speed/extasy in terms of downsides.

Just quoting wikipedia on this one, but: Cocaine addiction occurs through accumbal ΔFosB overexpression, which arises through transcriptional regulation and epigenetic remodeling of the nucleus accumbens. It is definitely physically addictive, and alters brain chemistry through long term use. It also causes accelerated heart rate. I'll give its not nearly as bad as tobacco, but it is in a league above psychedelics.

The GP was comparing cocaine to (substituted) amphetamines, which as with most dopaminergic psychostimulants also cause addiction via changes to ΔFosB expression. Hence, I'd say the comparison isn't incorrect, even if the GP's appraisal of the potential harm of speed/ecstasy may have been understated.

However, ΔFosB expression is also impacted by all kinds of behaviors and substances, including palatable/calorie-dense foods, exercise, and sex. There's a lot of things that alter brain chemistry in the long term if abused.

Re: Ireland to 'decriminalise' small amounts of drugs for personal use

#115

Post by Nimitz14 »

hoodoof wrote: post #68
cthalupa wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The only caveat is that methamphetamine should remain illegal to buy or use. The idea being that people will use "less harmful" drugs than methamphetamine because they are available cheap, easy and clean. The strongest possible justification for legalization of sale and use of drugs is to minimize usage and supply of the greatest of all evils - methamphetamine. You seem to have an oddly demonized view of methampheta…

I'm not sure I understand your point. Are you saying meth is "not that bad"? If so then you and I must be reading different newspapers and watching different TV channels.

Your drug knowledge stems from newspapers and TV shows? No wonder you know nothing about them.

Re: Ireland to 'decriminalise' small amounts of drugs for personal use

#116

Post by patrickk »

anigbrowl wrote: post #46
iamcurious wrote: post #26

It is a step in the right direction, but it still half-baked. Without decriminalizing production as well, they are maintaining a monopoly for those that works outside of the law. Which means a very profitable tax free market that has to recreate all of the state features like physical safety and insurance policies from scratch. Every nation that forbids something that is in demand, is gestating its own competition. T…

I agree with you but remember that Ireland and the UK are islands, which immediately puts them in a better position to deal with smuggling compared to countries that share long land borders. I think this is why island nations are generally a bit more conservative - it's much more practical to control imports.

The Irish Navy is tiny, and there are countless inlets and bays which a smuggler could use. One popular drug smuggling route is Colombia -> up the coast of West Africa -> Ireland, and then onwards to the UK market.

There was a famous incident a few years back where a relatively small boat deployed from a 'mothership'; sank in high seas (heh), dumping its cargo of hundreds of millions of cocaine into the water. Locals were finding bales of coke worth €1.75m each on the beaches in the area.

If you look at what has been intercepted, and what must get through to the end market, then billions of Euros worth of the drug must be smuggled through Ireland/Irish waters.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/icrime/wild-coast-sinks...

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/news/cocaine-in-yacht-s...

http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/jul/08/drugsandalcohol.dr...

Re: Ireland to 'decriminalise' small amounts of drugs for personal use

#117

Post by bcook »

blumkvist wrote: post #111
bcook wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heroin addiction is one of the most harmful documented drug-addictions. The need for heroin, physically and psychologically, is the driving force behind the social and personal damage attributed to heroin. People do not get addicted to non-narcotic adulterants and become prostitutes. A cutting agent like caffeine or sugar is probably the safest ingredient...

Caffeine? Sugar? Lol! How about mice poison? Reading wikipedia and actually knowing stuff about drugs are very different things. Please stop posting, you don't have a clue.

You focused on the least important part of what I wrote then resort to ad hominem attacks. There is no sensible conversation to be had here.

Re: Ireland to 'decriminalise' small amounts of drugs for personal use

#118

Post by ionised »

llamataboot wrote: post #77
zanny wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tobacco and alcohol are legal and used because they were staples of the founding of the US. Tobacco was one of the chief exports of the colonies and the new US for centuries and made a lot of people rich and even more people happy. Alcohol is legal in almost every country on Earth because you can make it out of almost everything. What might end up happening is regional fermentation variants are stigmatized. Cannibis…

MDMA and LSD also have medical applications. http://www.maps.org/

They're also immensely fun.

Re: Ireland to 'decriminalise' small amounts of drugs for personal use

#119

Post by patrickk »

anigbrowl wrote: post #11
bovermyer wrote: post #3

Ignoring the quality of the article, I am struck by one thing. Why has Ireland all of a sudden taken such a progressive shift? First national recognition of gay marriage, now this? I'm loving it, wherever it came from.

Irish guy here (although I live in California now). Demographics, mass abandonment of the Catholic church in recent years (not least due to sex scandals, and the bruising effects of the global financial crisis, which has led to a more pragmatic assessment of priorities. I'm very happy about it too. While I'm not in any rush to head home to the inclement Irish weather it feels like a great validation to see this tide…

Another Irish expat, living in Germany.

The cynic in me says the timing of the gay marriage, the abortion referendum on abortion and now this progressive drug stance is the government playing a game of misdirection with the electorate.

This current government was elected on the specific promise of fixing the economic mess and getting rid of the disastrous policy of bank debt being hoisted onto the sovereign balance sheet.

I know plenty of people who are struggling financially, losing their homes and so on back in Ireland, but by using controversial social measures (which I agree are a step in the right direction) they are distracting from their pathetic failure to fix the economy (any progress you see economically has nothing to do with the government, but a recovery of the global economy and the multinationals in Ireland along with it. We have very little indigenous industry, startups, etc.)

Re: Ireland to 'decriminalise' small amounts of drugs for personal use

#120

Post by DanBC »

bcook wrote: post #85
aianus wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Herion junkies lead a functional life including work and family? Seriously, what the fuck?! Cite just one source that heroin addiction is controllable because the addict uses "clean" heroin. There are countless rock stars, for example, that maintained families and highly successful careers while regularly using heroin. > Heroin addiction is the problem, not the adulterants, so purity is unimportant. Heroin addictio…

Anecdotes are not a valid citation. Heroin is the most harmful drug, statistically, according to numerous studies.

Do you have links to those studies?

A lot of the harm from heroin come from adulterants which are injected, causing abscess; or from the illegality of providing clean needles and injection advice and safe spaces to inject which causes infection etc; or from the illegality of providing maintenance doses from doctors which cause people to burgle or sex work to get money to buy the drug.

Heroin is undoubtedly an unwise choice, but keeping it illegal has been a public health disaster.

Post reply on HN