Rise and fall of boxing champion Michael Nunn

[Coco]

The length of the sentence does not seem to stop the murders or rapes though. That is one messed up society over there.

24 years for being entrapped into buying 2lbs of coke from an undercover cop is bullshit in my book.

It`s supply and demand. If people did not take coke, no one would sell it. It`s is a drug of choice used for recreation, not like heroin.

You should get 5 years max for what he did. Why ruin his life over it?

My thoughts precisely.

I do coke, not because people push it onto me, but because I choose to do it. I seek people out who can supply me with it.

Legalise drugs, take the middle men out of the equation, and then governments can use the tax money they make off the top, and invest it in health services.

Suddenly there are no drug criminals to pursue, no money to waste on pointless prosecutions, and more money in the coffers to treat the ill effects of drug consumption.

All the evidence so far gathered shows a direct correlation between criminalisation of drugs, and increased consumption, so what is the point in pursuing that?

You do not get life for rape in the states, in fact, every state has its own legislature, so how could this be true. Murderers do not automatically get life either, that is not correct.

In the US, they will sling your arse in jail for smoking reefer if they catch you 3 times, completely ridiculous!

I agree Nunn's sentance was to harsh, but nevertheless, he was well aware of the law and the potential risks, furthermore he was a regular criminal.
I also agree on your legalisation argument because it would run he criminals out of business and it would also increase our ax revenue, perhaps fuel duty could then be lowered.
Criminalisation has done nothing to stop supply or demand, so if you cant beat them , join em! Also the system would be much easier to regulate
However, I would like to maintain, I am very anti drugs, it's a mugs game, James mate can't you find better things to do with ur time and money?

[Old bones Ian]

legalising drugs still wouldn't combat the drug addicts causing crime to get the money to feed the habit.

[forcefraser]

legalising drugs still wouldn't combat the drug addicts causing crime to get the money to feed the habit.

It`s all about pricing.

I don`t know many people who commit crime to get money for beer and fags (ie: drugs).

Just because coke, weed or whatever else is cheap due to legalisation does not neccesarily mean that it will be abused to excess.

This point is proven by the fact that alcohol is available very cheaply and 24/7 but not all of us go around pissed out our minds all day long.

[Coco]

legalising drugs still wouldn't combat the drug addicts causing crime to get the money to feed the habit.

No it wouldn't but I still say it is the lesser of two evils. If the only way the addicts could buy gear was from a regulated body, they would be easier to monitor

[Old bones Ian]

i can see what your saying, but we have free needle exchanges, and there has been a marked increase in Hepititis b in the country within the drug users. making things readily avalible doesn't always combat the problem.

Heroin is readily avalible in most towns now, and costs are going down, you can pick up a bag in most cities for around £5-10 . So its not high costs now, and the crime is at epidemic rates. even with legilisation of drugs and government selling it and the costs coming down, this would mean a crack or heroin addict would still need to get around, £30 to £50 a day to feed even a small habit, it wouldn't wipe out crime, just encourage it.

[BunglesFingers]

Nunn had plenty of chances to straighten himself out but chose not to. Habitual criminals tend to get back into their old habits which is why the US hands out stiff sentences and builds more prisons.

The way they look at it, if he didn't reform during previous stints in jail he's a waste of time. How mancy chances does he need? Lock him up until he's an old man and less likely to cause trouble.

[TheGoods]

"This point is proven by the fact that alcohol is available very cheaply and 24/7 but not all of us go around pissed out our minds all day long."

You've clearly never been to Hartlepool then...

[E]

The length of the sentence does not seem to stop the murders or rapes though. That is one messed up society over there.

24 years for being entrapped into buying 2lbs of coke from an undercover cop is bullshit in my book.

It`s supply and demand. If people did not take coke, no one would sell it. It`s is a drug of choice used for recreation, not like heroin.

You should get 5 years max for what he did. Why ruin his life over it?

My thoughts precisely.

I do coke, not because people push it onto me, but because I choose to do it. I seek people out who can supply me with it.

Legalise drugs, take the middle men out of the equation, and then governments can use the tax money they make off the top, and invest it in health services.

Suddenly there are no drug criminals to pursue, no money to waste on pointless prosecutions, and more money in the coffers to treat the ill effects of drug consumption.

All the evidence so far gathered shows a direct correlation between criminalisation of drugs, and increased consumption, so what is the point in pursuing that?

You do not get life for rape in the states, in fact, every state has its own legislature, so how could this be true. Murderers do not automatically get life either, that is not correct.

In the US, they will sling your arse in jail for smoking reefer if they catch you 3 times, completely ridiculous!

Thank you someone has a brain.

US has a whole industry and jobs reliant on harsh punishment and imprisonment - any change would mean job loss.

[harrygreb]

yeah, take the crime out of the drug industry. not a sniff has ever passed my nostrils but government controlled distribution of coke and H will do much to allieviate the suffering caused by the "trade" from one end of columbia to the streets of hoxton or hampstead. suffering that all users ignore.

let nunn stew for a bit longer yet, eh?

[Old bones Ian]

It doesn't make sense lads, i know what its like to over indulge .

If its made even more freely availible it would be a nightmare, I just can't see the logic behind it, how would anyone ever be able to recover from being an addict?

[Coco]

It doesn't make sense lads, i know what its like to over indulge .

If its made even more freely availible it would be a nightmare, I just can't see the logic behind it, how would anyone ever be able to recover from being an addict?

I doubt it could be any more freely available than it is now

[Old bones Ian]

yeah i know Coco, its pretty much flooded this country, but you try and get some at 2am in the morning

[Coco]

Haha, i've never tried, but i'm sure if you have a regular dealer it could be sorted and city centre clublands are full of it at that time.
If it was legalised however, I presume you would get it from Boots on a 9-5 basis, so by legalising it it would probably make it more difficult to get!

[BunglesFingers]

Haha, i've never tried, but i'm sure if you have a regular dealer it could be sorted and city centre clublands are full of it at that time.
If it was legalised however, I presume you would get it from Boots on a 9-5 basis, so by legalising it it would probably make it more difficult to get!

Tesco is open 24 hours.

Make it legal and freely available, create more addicts. You may get rid of dealers but there will be a shitload more people willing to experiment.

[Coco]

Would making it legal make it more freely available though??
Does being illegal have any impact on supply or demand??

[harrygreb]

of course the stuff being illegal and therefore "kool" makes it desirable to the more impressionable amongst us. legalise it and the aura disappears.
thats the theory anyway. i look at myself at 16 or 17 and see a twit who really thought weed was the bollux although i never smoked it at all! as i grew older and got involved in the music industry i came across countless people who had a similar attitude to that 16 year old boy but did smoke it and were in their twenties or 30's. the overpowering common denominator in them all was an idiocy that defies description. i smoked a little - a very little - realised i was as stupid as they were and decided against it. i worked with people who knew how to use coke to its advantage in the studio but every one of those people ended up getting used by the coke to ITS advantage.

now that world is in the distant past and i know for certain that drugs dont help in the creation of music at all. and ones life is a better one without it too.
my drug of choice - alcohol - is the greatest drug of all and harms no-one in its manufacture, hic

[forcefraser]

my drug of choice - alcohol - is the greatest drug of all and harms no-one in its manufacture, hic

No doubt alcohol is a neccessary form of wreckage and a great one at that, but it actually harms society more than any other other drug known to man.

I am sure a little five year old kid taking drunken right handers from his pissed up wanker of a father does not hold alcohol in high regard.

It`s all about control, the ability to control the use of drugs, be it alcohol, coke or whatever.

I certainly have not seen many people chuff down a bong and go into the nearest kebab shop and start brawling with the first thing that moves, like a pissed up ponce. However, I have seen people smoke weed, liked the feeling and decided to try something a bit harder, in some cases leading to a pretty harsh fall. It`s about one`s ability to control it.

Some people will use anything to excess, as it`s part of their make up. Others can take it and leave it all day long.

If you walk around Bergen (Norway) on a saturday night and watch the muppeted nuggets bumping into each other and barking like an injured walrus , you would think alcohol was nothing more than loopy juice, brewed straight from the devil`s pisspot.

[jamesmcdonnell]

i can see what your saying, but we have free needle exchanges, and there has been a marked increase in Hepititis b in the country within the drug users. making things readily avalible doesn't always combat the problem.

Heroin is readily avalible in most towns now, and costs are going down, you can pick up a bag in most cities for around £5-10 . So its not high costs now, and the crime is at epidemic rates. even with legilisation of drugs and government selling it and the costs coming down, this would mean a crack or heroin addict would still need to get around, £30 to £50 a day to feed even a small habit, it wouldn't wipe out crime, just encourage it.

It's not to do with just costs.

The fact is that people who do drugs are outside of 'the system' because drug taking is classed as criminal behaviour.

If drugs were legal and available widely, it would be taken out of the hands of the criminals, and people who take drugs would no longer be part of some sort of criminal underbelly.

I do Coke, but unless I've been sleep walking recently, I'm unaware of me mugging anyone, breaking or entering, or otherwise engaging in criminal activity to fund my choice of vice?

For every drug there will be people who get addicted, whether it is tobbaco, heroin, cocaine or fags.

If you make drugs illegal, all you do is create a bigger criminal underclass.

It would also be easier to treat addicts if they have to pass through official channels to get drugs.

Hepatitis is also on the increase because of immigration, it is not just down to heroin use and sharing needles, it's a sexually transmitted disease primarily.

The UK has the worst drugs problem in Europe, despite our until relatively recently, fairly harsh anti-drug laws. Holland, which takes a much more sensible approach, has a far more acceptable level of drug use and addiction.

[jamesmcdonnell]

Haha, i've never tried, but i'm sure if you have a regular dealer it could be sorted and city centre clublands are full of it at that time.
If it was legalised however, I presume you would get it from Boots on a 9-5 basis, so by legalising it it would probably make it more difficult to get!

Tesco is open 24 hours.

Make it legal and freely available, create more addicts. You may get rid of dealers but there will be a shitload more people willing to experiment.

Then explain to me why in Holland far fewer people smoke weed than do in this country?

Your statement is entirely illogical.

[DavidPayne]

I always preferred Rola Cola.

[Loftgroov]

McDonnell – I think your drug decriminalisation/liberalisation views are a bit ill conceived, possibly because you assume everyone who takes drugs does so entirely recreationally (like yourself) and knows when to call it quits.

Drawing comparisons between Britain and Holland is also drawing a comparison between two entirely different cultures, with different social norms, principles, laws etc. What is “proven” to work there doesn’t mean it will necessarily work elsewhere. Furthermore, the drug and prostitution liberalisation there has actually been widely condemned by Dutch law enforcement among others due to all the problems it creates. It might appear to all be ok – but then you and I are just tourists – we don’t live there.

Come on… if hard drugs were legalised tomorrow, and you could pop down to Tesco for a loaf of bread a small bag of smack, the repercussions in terms of national health, social services, economic prosperity and crime would be disastrous. What works for you won’t work for the masses. The country is having a tough enough job trying to rub out minor ills such as excessive smoking and drinking, so to make it such that idiot people (and most young people in the UK now are idiots) can also openly snort coke wherever they like is hardly going to lead society in the right direction is it.

[HughJohnson]

I dont know...i just think that if half those cuntz who hang around in gangs on every council estate in the UK would be even worse if they are on the old nosebag....the fact is they kick the arse out of it...instead if having a few joints and chilling, they`ll have shit loads of spliffs and masses of alcohol, maybe a can of gas between them, wizz,...all on the same night. Why should be the question.

[DavidPayne]

Why is the only question indeed.

And I'll tell you where it all went wrong. Save you the trouble.

Its all traceable to women going to work.

From that little social shift, the house of cards collapsed.

[HughJohnson]

Why is the only question indeed.

And I'll tell you where it all went wrong. Save you the trouble.

Its all traceable to women going to work.

From that little social shift, the house of cards collapsed.

I freakin knew it, It all boils down to snakes with tits......get back in the kitchen ladies.

I think it`s a lack of direction, any real self confidence...scared of the world, so block it off in a drug fuelled haze that there "mates" who are as wrecked would appreciate, thats why people get stabbed, jumped, mugged..etc, chavs try and looked good to thier mates. I was guilty of this when a youngster, i was saying if i ever saw so-and-so i was gonna dig him...needless to say who walked around the corner, so to prove i wasnt all talk i had to fight him....8 hours in the copshop later......anyway...to cut a long story short...drugs should not be available to all..just because it distorts your view of reality, now as any one got any shithot weed????

[jamesmcdonnell]

McDonnell – I think your drug decriminalisation/liberalisation views are a bit ill conceived, possibly because you assume everyone who takes drugs does so entirely recreationally (like yourself) and knows when to call it quits.

Drawing comparisons between Britain and Holland is also drawing a comparison between two entirely different cultures, with different social norms, principles, laws etc. What is “proven” to work there doesn’t mean it will necessarily work elsewhere. Furthermore, the drug and prostitution liberalisation there has actually been widely condemned by Dutch law enforcement among others due to all the problems it creates. It might appear to all be ok – but then you and I are just tourists – we don’t live there.

Come on… if hard drugs were legalised tomorrow, and you could pop down to Tesco for a loaf of bread a small bag of smack, the repercussions in terms of national health, social services, economic prosperity and crime would be disastrous. What works for you won’t work for the masses. The country is having a tough enough job trying to rub out minor ills such as excessive smoking and drinking, so to make it such that idiot people (and most young people in the UK now are idiots) can also openly snort coke wherever they like is hardly going to lead society in the right direction is it.

You are the one being simplistic, I never suggested that you allow Heroin to be sold in Tescos, and that is not what they do in Holland either.

Holland showed a marked decrease in problems with crime and addiction when they decriminalised the possession and use of drugs. That is bald statistics. Why have all the major drug agencies in the UK, and even British Law Enforcement called for the decriminalisation and legalisation of drugs, are we to suppose that none of these people know anything about the subject.