re

[Dulwich Born And Bred]

Sadly everyone else DOES pass judgement based on what is in newspapers, if Chav was not on this forum and no one knew about her, you would be passing judgement, it is human nature.

We ALL pass judgement but naturally we are more lenient when it comes to friends and family and people we know!

We ALL have an opinion.

Mine? well lets say, I have seen a lot, lived a lot and I would have taken a completely different road to Chav but then my personality and mentality is obviously different to hers.

We all have choices and when it comes to kids, well, I know I would never do anything that would warrant my going into prison if I had kids, but alas, that is me.

[Narnia]

We pass judgement because it is in our nature to. It is also in our nature to overcome this as something about it does not seem right. When we reach that point we understand something about our life. It is not based on what we think of other people as that changes like the seasons. We need to know ourself and if/when we do that we will be happy and judgement will not exist. Ce la vie!

[AllforNun]

Chav - I read your post/life story a while back which means you put it out in the public domain. If you do stand and win make sure you do not throw it away by handing the press or your rivals some silly soundbites. Make sure you learn from your past choices and think carefully about what you are going to say. The press is amoral and has a life of it's own, its all about copy and headlines. Remember if people do vote for you do not let them down by making there votes null & Void. Politics is just that.. politics.

[ChavWivaLawDegree]

I am not ashamed of having supported my family as a sex worker and believe that it should be decriminalised and unionised, but I do regret the fact that I got addicted to heroin and all the mess that came with that. I agree with Asset and Snorky we need an adult debate about drug policy and addiction in general (including addiction to prescription drugs and alcohol) as prohibition clearly does not work.

[snorky]

youve certainly lived a life CWALD - good to hear you are moving on.

everyone has regrets of a time they wish a different choice was made...

The sex worker aspect is an emotive topic - but we all use our bodies in some sort of slavery to "the man" - on a personal ( and maybe facile )level, It doesnt make any difference to me, be it digging roads or working in a bank - its best use of physical & mental assets to ensure survival.

Im surprised about your christianity, but its not that execptional I suppose - Ive seen it with family members in the past - I have nothing but respect for the christian ethos & the work that many people do ( not however the hateful judgemental US version) - the regimented organised aside of religion is another matter that I do have strong opinions on.but thats another topic entirely.

[*Bob*]

'middle class recreational drug use'

What is this exactly?

Every week, up and down the length and breadth of the country, millions - many millions - of people: old, young, poor, rich, short, tall, gay, straight, professional, unemployed, black or white - pick and choose what drugs they want to take for that night out, night in, trip to a nightclub, wedding, barbeque - according to what they want/can afford/can get.

I can only think of one or two people out of the hundred I know reasonably well who don't (and never have).

[Maurice]

I do wish someone in the know would address my two honest questions.

Is there a difference between drugs like cocaine, ectasy, etc. and heorin/crack? You've conveniently lumped them together and I'm keen to know if we those of us who are prepared to listen to legalisation are expected to lump them together too.

Also, your comparison of homosexuality and drug use seems to suggest both are choices. Is this what you mean?

[*Bob*]

Maurice,

I think you're reading something into The Snorks post which isn't there.

His point is simply that: legalising homosexuality did not lead to an increase in the number of homosexuals. You're either going to do it or you aren't, regardless of the law.

The same is true of drugs. There isn't a supply issue, because drugs are everywhere. Sooner or later the option will be there, and you're either going to do them or you aren't.

I've been offered every drug there is. Availability didn't mean I wanted to do them all.

[Maurice]

So drug use is a genetic?

[*Bob*]

Don't play the fool, Moz - it's unconvincing.

[Maurice]

Sorry Bob. I'm not against legalisation of some classes of drugs but such a comparison is really apples and oranges.

Surely anyone sees its weakness. It's not foolish.

[snorky]

Drug use isnt gentic no, but genetic preponderance to addiction or shtrill seeking is probabaly so

I worked in night clubs during a hiatus from study or travel, during the E & Acid boom of the '80s/ early '90s - many card carrying friday binge drinkers moved from 10 pints & a kebab to a pair of E's and staying up all night - peoples need for a Buzz adapts to what is around

in a facile sense, the drug is irrelevant - alcoholics dont class themselves as drug addicts, but they are

I thinkn getting bogged down in the emchanics of endlessley classifying drugs according to penalties ( & thus "danger" )is diversionary - I have never been asaulted by someone skunked off their face at an all night garage, but have been in iffy situations with beer monsters - yet Alcohol is delivered in measured doses ( a shot / a half / a nip ) at licenced vendors, yet weed isnt.

Comparing coke & skag isnt productive, because they dont compare - in buzz. hit or cost

that doesnt mean to say weed is great and risk free - far from it

but adult discussion is needed now the ( I think ) prohibition has been pretty much proven to do little except marginalise & criminalise the use & market for drugs.

On a personal and wholly detached view on this - this is just mine - one of the reasons for the booming need for "drugs" and the abuse / misure of drugs ( legal & illegal ) is to do with the streessful conditions humans live in now - we self medicate to give us a release form the constrained. trapped, stressed lives we lead - the 9-5, the routine, the grinding numbing mundaniety of our unfulfilled and sometimes proto - mechanistic lives.

We are not happy doing what we do - the baubles of success - the big house / new car/ armani after shave / bigger bonus - these are all a placebo - there is something innate within us that rebels against such a constricted and fruitless life.The drugs used to self medicate abnd to become addictive could be skag/ weed/ the job we do / anything whatsoever

as Chav suggested earlier, drug use is a symptom of a deeper malaise in many cases - the drug is a key.

[*Bob*]

Maurice.. I will take your objection at face value.

This is the quote you're talking about..

Snorky wrote:

"legalisation isnt the same as promotion- just as legalising homosexuality wasnt promoting it"

"Legalisation isn't the same as promotion." Do you disagree with this?

"Legalising homosexuality wasn't promoting it." Do you disagree with this?

[*Bob*]

I wouldn't disagree with a lot of Snorky's post, but it would be unfair not to add that a lot of people do drugs because they just like doing them. I do. I don't see them as filling some sort of vacuous hole. I just like them.

[snorky]

*Bob* Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> I wouldn't disagree with a lot of Snorky's post,

> but it would be unfair not to add that a lot of

> people do drugs because they just like doing them.

> I do. I don't see them as filling some sort of

> vacuous hole. I just like them.

theres that as well of course

I dont mean to trivialise many of the posts on here, but im sure someone once said something along the lines of

"if drugs werent fun, then people wouldnt do them"

fun can so easily turn grim of course

[Maurice]

I agree mostly Bob. But do appreciate, I think if you legalise drugs you will have more people do them that might not otherwise. Whereas with homosexuality, you weren't going to create more homosexuals.

[mockney piers]

Really, really sorry to hear that Maximay, I can't imagine what that must be like.

I have lost some friends to drugs (and cars mostly) as it goes, and it bloody hurts. Nothing I can say but my thoughts are genuinely with you.

[*Bob*]

Maurice Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> I agree mostly Bob. But do appreciate, I think if

> you legalise drugs you will have more people do

> them that might not otherwise. Whereas with

> homosexuality, you weren't going to create more

> homosexuals.

Ok Maurice.. I take your point.

I still think the comparison is useful though. In both instances, I think the idea that state approval (or not) is a key factor as to whether people want to take drugs or 'be a homosexual' misses the point entirely.

[mightyroar]

I think it's a terrible comparison.

Because after legalising homosexuality we were left with the exact problem of promotion. IE clause 28

only just been repealed and still causing misinformation in schools.

By which I mean that many teachers really dont think it's acceptable to talk positively and openly about homosexuality in primary schools.

but that could be a whole other thread.

Let's keep with drugs on this one

[*Bob*]

It's not an exact comparison and you can delve into the specifics to dispute it if you wish, but it isn't a useless one.

Criminalising something which a sizable percentage of the population wants to do is never going to be an answer to anything.

[Maurice]

We should not criminalise people for who they are: be it colour of skin, eyes, hair, height, sexual orientation. Certainly not.

However, it is less clear to me whether we should criminalise choices on drugs (of all classes). I go back to my issue about crack and heorin. They seem a different issue to ectasy and cocaine.

[Asset]

Ecstasy and marijuana have very little, if any, 'physical' dependency, amphetamines and cocaine have a slightly increased 'physical' dependency, not sure where heroin lies on the scale of physical dependency but there definitely is one, just as there is with alcohol and nocotine, in fact I think in studies that have been done, alcohol and nicotine come out as creating the highest physical dependency.

The issue is the tendency towards an addiction that the user will have, if there is an addicitve, destructive nature then that will manifest itself, whether by an addiction to heroin, alcohol or shopping!

There is no differentiation between the drugs really. How many lives are ruined by alcohol abuse? Is that going to change if alcohol is prohibited? It's been tried and it didn't work. Education is what is needed.

There will always be people who do things to excess.

We have to remember that getting into an altered state of mind has been part of the human psyche since we had a psyche!

[Maurice]

Thanks Asset, but I'm not sure I can believe that. Perhaps I need to study up a bit more. I always believed my neighbour smoking on cigs or drinking was far less likely to kill me for cash like maybe someone on crack.

[*Bob*]

The only way to truly understand what drugs do to you is to.. you know.. do them.

I have never 'done' an opiate or crack cocaine so I'm afraid I can't tell you anything about them. Due to the fear factor which these drugs still hold, most people who do them are in a certain 'place' already before they do. As Snorky said, "The problem with Skag isnt the skag".

The balance to drugs is your everyday life. I don't get up in the morning, pop a pill and head-out to a meeting with a couple of wraps in my pocket - regardless of how much I like it.

From ever since I can remember, the drug which has always brought the greatest threat of harm is alcohol. It is still the case.

[dave]

I'd quite like to hear from someone with more knowledge on this issue - seems like this thread is very much "I think/I feel" but very little hard evidence is being introduced to back these feelings up.

My own feeling is that there is validity in what some people are saying and that drug use has some relationship to the shittiness of the lives that people lead compared to the expectations they have been given (whatever social stratum they belong to) and some people choose to escape this. My own feeling is that all recreational drug use is a form of abuse, but I like a glass of wine and an occasional pint of beer - my own hypocrisy is shining there.

What I do know is that my own experience growing up in Northern Ireland was that the lines (pardon the pun) between the drug trade and illegal/paramilitary activity were clear. While it may be less clear in SE London, everyone must on some level recognise that the importation of things like heroin/cocaine can only be done by reasonably large-scale criminal conspiracies. It's not a cottage industry (or indeed a nice middle-class Farmer's Market option, Dita) and people are hurt and exploited all along the way. And Amanda appears to have been one of those people.

To Amanda, I would say that I admire you for turning things round. But I don't think that this is enough on its own to make you worth voting for, in the same way that I don't think that what you did in the past is the end of the story that makes you unsuitable for office. Your honesty on the past is neither here nor there. Let it come down to the issues and how you represent yourself now - I would probably have more trouble with your description of yourself as the reductive and confrontational "chav with a law degree" than anything else.

And by the way (and probably worth another thread) where do forums like this fit within the framework of the Representation of the People Acts?