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Drug deaths in Scotland hit record high


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Enough of this nonsense. People choose to take this stuff. They are responsible for that and the consequences. 

 

People don’t wake up one morning with everything in their life perfectly fine and think “I’ll get addicted to heroin today I reckon.”

 

Yes, people make these choices, but a myriad of things lead to these choices. Personal accountability is one thing and to an extent, yes people have to deal with the consequences, but as a society we have (or at least should have) an obligation to protect the most vulnerable people within it, and that definitely includes drug users. Individuals dealing with the consequences of their actions doesn’t, in my view, mean that the rest of us shouldn’t play any part in dealing with the problem.

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Just now, Tibbermoresaint said:

Enough of this nonsense. People choose to take this stuff. They are responsible for that and the consequences. 

I haven't once said they didn't make a choice, but some poor c**t who's just lost his mother or father in a car crash may well not be in the best frame of mind when they make certain choices. Of course they need to deal with the consequences, but I don't see why they shouldn't be offered support when doing so. Every single junkie isn't someone who just got up one day and decided they were going to be a junkie. 

What I find the strangest is that folk who hate junkies (and a lot of folk really hate junkies) would rather leave junkies being junkies, rather than helping them and trying to stop more people being junkies. 

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1 minute ago, oneteaminglasgow said:

 

People don’t wake up one morning with everything in their life perfectly fine and think “I’ll get addicted to heroin today I reckon.”

 

Yes, people make these choices, but a myriad of things lead to these choices. Personal accountability is one thing and to an extent, yes people have to deal with the consequences, but as a society we have (or at least should have) an obligation to protect the most vulnerable people within it, and that definitely includes drug users. Individuals dealing with the consequences of their actions doesn’t, in my view, mean that the rest of us shouldn’t play any part in dealing with the problem.

Do the victims of crimes committed by drug users enter into your thoughts at all? 

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Just now, The Moonster said:

I haven't once said they didn't make a choice, but some poor c**t who's just lost his mother or father in a car crash may well not be in the best frame of mind when they make certain choices. Of course they need to deal with the consequences, but I don't see why they shouldn't be offered support when doing so. Every single junkie isn't someone who just got up one day and decided they were going to be a junkie. 

What I find the strangest is that folk who hate junkies (and a lot of folk really hate junkies) would rather leave junkies being junkies, rather than helping them and trying to stop more people being junkies. 

I'm all for stopping more people becoming junkies. Ideally we'd be junkie-free. 

What support would you give people who are the victims of junkies' crimes?

 

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1 minute ago, Tibbermoresaint said:

I'm all for stopping more people becoming junkies. Ideally we'd be junkie-free. 

What support would you give people who are the victims of junkies' crimes?

 

You're all for stopping people becoming junkies, but you're not for helping the ones who currently are junkies? Very weird stance.

I think they should get the same support as victims of non-junkies crimes :wacko:

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1 minute ago, The Moonster said:

You're all for stopping people becoming junkies, but you're not for helping the ones who currently are junkies? Very weird stance.

I think they should get the same support as victims of non-junkies crimes :wacko:

The ones who are junkies are responsible for helping themselves. 

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1 minute ago, Tibbermoresaint said:

The ones who are junkies are responsible for helping themselves. 

Could you point me to the studies which show that leaving people to "help themselves" is the best way of ending drug addiction?

Weird that you want to end "crimes carried out by junkies" but you don't want to do anything to reduce the number of junkies, thus lowering the number of crimes carried out. Is it just the fact that you don't want your tax paying for that? Because your tax pays for worse things than that, such as the wages of 330 Tory MPs.

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7 minutes ago, The Moonster said:

Could you point me to the studies which show that leaving people to "help themselves" is the best way of ending drug addiction?

Weird that you want to end "crimes carried out by junkies" but you don't want to do anything to reduce the number of junkies, thus lowering the number of crimes carried out. Is it just the fact that you don't want your tax paying for that? Because your tax pays for worse things than that, such as the wages of 330 Tory MPs.

Can you point me to the studies which show that encouraging people to become junkies is the best way of ending drug addiction?

I've already told you that I want a junkie-free society so how you can say that I don't want to do anything to reduce the number of junkies is beyond me.

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2 hours ago, the jambo-rocker said:

The circumstances are shit and it's only getting worse, but there are times when moaning at Westminster doesn't cut the mustard for me, and this is one of them.

It's not a little bit bigger than other countries, it's fucking huge in comparison. You could argue Wales and Northern Ireland aren't exactly hotter spots than ourselves when it comes to where devolved powers starts and ends in drug regulation (although I doubt there is much), I don't see or hear egregious levels of drug deaths in comparison to other countries per capita with them.

I know it's easy to criticise without being able to offer a feasible solution because there are a lot of reasons to why this has become as bad as it is, but that does not mean that Westminster's fault or not, IMO the Scottish government should be doing better here, and sometimes pointing the finger isn't the right call, regardless of complicity.

Any specifics or just "do better"

The Scottish Govt and the Select Committee arent "blaming Westminster" on some abstract level.

They are pointing out that they have been blocked from trialling a specific evidence based policy that is supported by NHS Greater Glasgow, GCC, Police Scotland and drugs charities because of the Tories "druggies are criminals" rhetoric.

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3 minutes ago, oaksoft said:

England and Wales had 66 deaths per million. Scotland has 217 per million.

That looks close to 3 times to me.

Did you actually read my post? If they'd stated as you posted I wouldn't have a problem with it but in the bit I heard they stated the 1100 odd then said that was 3 times the rest of the UK, it's bad enough having 3 times the rate without the state mouthpiece tagging us with 36 times the rate.

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20 minutes ago, Tibbermoresaint said:

Can you point me to the studies which show that encouraging people to become junkies is the best way of ending drug addiction?

I've already told you that I want a junkie-free society so how you can say that I don't want to do anything to reduce the number of junkies is beyond me.

If that's what I was advocating I'd be wrong, but I'm not. Plenty studies out there that show helping junkies out of the environment that got them in that hole and giving them opportunities to re-engage with society helps get people out of addiction though.

You want a junkie free society but you don't want to do anything to help junkies stop being junkies. Tell me how we end up junkie free in your world?

6 minutes ago, oaksoft said:

Congratulations on an entire post where you have fabricated every single word you have put in my mouth.

Feel better now?

You stated that junkies are junkies by choice and shouldn't get any sympathy, I was pointing out why people make the choice in the first place and why I can understand the sympathy. I haven't fabricated anything you've said. I feel much the same as I did before I replied to your post tbh.

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Just now, The Moonster said:

If that's what I was advocating I'd be wrong, but I'm not. Plenty studies out there that show helping junkies out of the environment that got them in that hole and giving them opportunities to re-engage with society helps get people out of addiction though.

You want a junkie free society but you don't want to do anything to help junkies stop being junkies. Tell me how we end up junkie free in your world?

 

We do everything we can to stop people becoming junkies.

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8 minutes ago, oaksoft said:

Yes. I even quoted it in full in my response. What bit did you think I missed.

They DID state it as I posted. It was in the article you linked to in that post. Rather than quoting "what you heard", maybe you should have READ the article you linked to.

No idea where you are getting 36 times or 1100 from.

Maybe you should calm the f**k down before responding to people.

Your posts might make more sense that way.

Radio Scotland was my source, f**k all to do with the article.

There were over 1100 deaths, as Radio Scotland were implying that rUK had a 1/3 of that figure then given the population differential they were implying that the rate was 36:1.

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3 minutes ago, Tibbermoresaint said:

We do everything we can to stop people becoming junkies.

How do you do that? Pretty sure we make our best efforts to stop people using drugs now, yet still thousands end up using. Tell me what you'd change.

1 minute ago, oaksoft said:

Show me exactly where I said that.

Sure, right here:

23 hours ago, oaksoft said:

Oh for goodness sakes. There cannot be a single human being who has not been made fully aware of the dangers of illegal drugs.

Every single person knows organised criminal cartels control, manufacture and distribute these things, that no testing has been done on them and that all manner of crap gets added to everything to bulk them out.

And yet millions of people make the decision to use them anyway and the consequence is misery for everyone who lives with and around them in terms of crime rates etc as they steal to feed their habits.

Why should caring about others be an exclusively one-way street?

This "all right Jack" nonsense seems to be the go-to phrase to use these days. It's ridiculous.

 

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3 minutes ago, The Moonster said:

How do you do that? Pretty sure we make our best efforts to stop people using drugs now, yet still thousands end up using. Tell me what you'd change.

 

 

Better education. More police resources. Better intelligence. Stronger penalties for supplying and using. Stronger penalties for drugs-related crime.

All basic stuff but anathema to some.

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Just now, Tibbermoresaint said:

Better education. More police resources. Better intelligence. Stronger penalties for supplying and using. Stronger penalties for drugs-related crime.

All basic stuff but anathema to some.

Your solution is to continue with the current policy that is failing massively then. We'll end it there.

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