[BBC News] Charges over island ecstasy find

[Newsbot]

A 24-year-old man is charged over the discovery of ecstasy with a street value of £18,000 on the Isle of Man.

 

Source : http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/world/...man/6603215.stm

[TheJudge]

LOL, do they still work out "street value" based on a pill costing £10?

 

 

I've heard that the most recently used "street value" for pills was £6 a pill. If my maths 'O' level is worth anything, I work that out as 3,000 pills. Looks like there'll be a bit of a shortage this weekend!!

[ynsheltyn]

Try £3, tops, so the street value is £9000, not £18000. And that's assuming everyone is buying a handful at £3 a pop, and not getting 10+ and getting the price knocked down to £2.50.

 

Can't find any mention of the price of individual pills in this report, nor the number of pills confiscated. It was just "street value of £18,000".

If they're £3 each then it was 6000 pills. If they're 50p each it was 36000 pills.

I don't think the defence lawyer will be arguing with the judge about the price! "I pay £18 a pop m'lud so it was only 1000 tabs, let the poor guy go, it was obviously just for personal use."

[thebees]

Its a tragedy, the poor lad/girl will have to goto court and say "Sorry" - why? why do courts want people to beg forgivness, is it like some weird God trip?

[Grumble]

Poor lad!!??

 

Call me old fashioned, but it IS against the law to sell Ecstasy isn't it?

 

And having gone through the rigmarole of smuggling X000 pills onto the island, to sell at a profit, he can hardly claim any innocence in this!

[thebees]

It depends on how you see it really Grumble. Yes it is against the law to sell ecstacy but there is a market and I dont really see what the problem with ecstacy is. If people were dying from taking ecstacy all the time and it was making people crazy then I would agree that something needed to be done about the problem, but, this isnt the case is it? I know hundreds of people who take pills and have done for years - they arent criminals either they are just breaking out dated laws. (similar to not doing a day archery practice for the queen each year IMHO)

To be anti-drugs is a vote winner and the governments constant scare mongering controls the population into a fear of drugs which suits thier vote winning tactics.

 

In Imerica they are testing medical ecstacy and they are working towards a revolutionary new way of administering drugs - smoked (revolutinary my arse) soooo my thinking is like this, if it is ok for drug companies to make and sell e's why do 'free enterprise' people get arrested and put in prison?

 

It wasnt that long ago that it was against the law to be gay and now the biggest club on the Island is a gay bar. (ha haaaaaa it wasnt politically popular to hate 'the gays' though....I wonder why??)

[cheeky boy]

Call me old fashioned, but it IS against the law to sell Ecstasy isn't it?

 

 

 

 

It may be illegal but it is not neccassarily wrong.

 

A friend of mine ended up in a coronary ward recently (he is under 50) and the common denominator between the patients was that they all smoked cigarettes.

 

If you are going to use the damage/ cost to society to determine whether something should be illegal or not it would run something like :tobacco, alchohol,

cars & motorcycles, heroin, crack cocaine.

 

The first three are, of course totally legal and heavily taxed

 

We live in a place where a man who murdered his wife three years ago is now walking the streets a free man and I am willing to bet that the person with the £18,000 worth of happy pills will not be free in 2010.

 

It is not suprising then, that many people choose to ignore the law and make thier own moral judgements.

[Grumble]

Couldn't agree more - I've never taken an E but by all accounts it's as safe as any illicit substance, and safer than most.

 

Governments don't use safety as a criterion for approving things, they clearly use their ability to control and tax the supply. I'd rather people smoked weed than got drunk - but the point I'm making is that (whatever the rights and wrongs) it IS illegal, especially in the quantity noted, so he/she can't expect much mercy.

 

Just to stir things up a bit, I guess that hundreds of thousands of people have SAFELY driven home under the influence of a bit too much booze over the years - yet you WILL go to jail and (often) lose your livelihood if caught, even though you were extra careful and didn't do anyone any harm. I'm of the mind that the law should be there to penalise people who cause ACTUAL problems, not theoretical ones, but I guess I'm in a minority.

[keyboarder]

Looks like there'll be a bit of a shortage this weekend!!

 

Indeed. That'll be 25K street now then, lol.... We shan't be seeing this idiot around for a while....

[immortalpuppet]

The amount of pills that are about is huge, this wouldnt put a dent in a weekends partying.

 

Its not just people going clubbing either, people are getting mashed up in the local pubs, nightclubs partys and out on the streets. IMO its not a big issue and people will always be taking them no matter what. Well until they get bored of it anyway.

 

I had a dabble when i was younger and it was fun at the time but then i grew up a bit and realised that i enjoy having conversations in pubs while drinking rather than not being able to stop gurning and having legs like elvis.

[Donk]

Couldn't agree more - I've never taken an E but by all accounts it's as safe as any illicit substance, and safer than most.

 

Slightly off subject but this is a talking point in my opinion. I bet the majority of people who will stand there and tell you that Es, Weed, Coke(aine) or whatever are terrible and shouldn't be touched have never actually taken it themselves so how would they know?. Many people (myself included when growing up) have experimented with these kind of drugs and I can say from personal experience that they're far less disillusioning than alcohol - and far more enjoyable. I'm talking short term here cos I didn't do long term. From personal experience you're much less likely to do something stupid (and therefore probably illegal) whilst under the influence of these kind of drugs than when you're pissed out of your face on alcohol.

 

Governments don't use safety as a criterion for approving things, they clearly use their ability to control and tax the supply. I'd rather people smoked weed than got drunk - but the point I'm making is that (whatever the rights and wrongs) it IS illegal, especially in the quantity noted, so he/she can't expect much mercy.

 

Agreed. If alcohol wasn't taxable and an age old tradition it would also be illegal - a class A drug for sure. If it was illegal, I'd imagine the driver of a beer lorry coming off the boat would get 100+ years if caught with his haul. It is only legal now because the goverment said it is legal - because they get tax from it.

 

Just to stir things up a bit, I guess that hundreds of thousands of people have SAFELY driven home under the influence of a bit too much booze over the years - yet you WILL go to jail and (often) lose your livelihood if caught, even though you were extra careful and didn't do anyone any harm. I'm of the mind that the law should be there to penalise people who cause ACTUAL problems, not theoretical ones, but I guess I'm in a minority.

 

So if someone actually makes it home pissed behind the wheel it's OK? You'll quickly change you're tune if they kill one of your loved ones.

[gilf_uk]

If they want to fight the war on terror, they should legalise drugs and let the government take the tax, and private enterprise employ people to make them not mixed with crap and cut down to nothing, and end the funding for terror and organised crime.

 

The view of drugs in this country is so outdated especially when you look at how the use is increasing. It's a losing battle, drugs are only going to become more a part of our society, and as long as they do, there will be a sector in our society (i.e. criminal gangs, with guns etc) ready to supply.

 

If we look at the deaths involved in drugs, it's because they have been mixed with crap or people have had allergic reactions. But it's one or two people out of millions who take drugs every year. If you look at the number of victims of drug related crime (i.e. muggings to support a crack habit, shootings over 'patches' etc) you'll find that the number is a lot higher.

 

But thats my view, and I don't expect it to be well received.

[gilf_uk]

Just to stir things up a bit, I guess that hundreds of thousands of people have SAFELY driven home under the influence of a bit too much booze over the years - yet you WILL go to jail and (often) lose your livelihood if caught, even though you were extra careful and didn't do anyone any harm. I'm of the mind that the law should be there to penalise people who cause ACTUAL problems, not theoretical ones, but I guess I'm in a minority.

 

What an absolutely stupid thing to say. Every study under the sun shows that people under the influence of drink (or for the matter, drugs) have much reduced response rates, even with minimal alcohol in their system.

 

At the end of the day you've only made it home Safely as no-one else has been unfortunate enough to come into contact with you when you've dozed off or fail to stop and run across a junction.

 

There are legalise drug groups, make euthanisia legal groups, but i have never come across a pro-drink-drive group. I wonder why that is?

[Gladys]

Its a tragedy, the poor lad/girl will have to goto court and say "Sorry" - why? why do courts want people to beg forgivness, is it like some weird God trip?

It is hardly surprising that the courts, who dispense the law of the land, would expect any miscreant appearing before them to at least show a little remorse. Like it or lump it, the law is the framework under which we all operate, there may be many things about it that none of us like, but it is for breaching that framework that remorse is expected. You may not agree that ecstasy should be an illegal substance (I believe that there would be fewer problems if all but the very nasty substances were legal and not part of a sub-culture), but it is; you know it is, have decided to flout the law and that is what you are expected to be remorseful about.

[Grumble]

I'm not advocating drink driving at all - and if someone I love was killed by a drunk, the fact that it's illegal and that they went to jail would give me absolutely NO comfort anyway. Turn the other cheek my arse!

 

But what's the difference between being 5mg under or 5 mg over the limit? In terms of your performance, probably very little. In terms of the law, everything. To stoke the fire even further, I reckon there are plenty of people who could be found slightly over the limit who drive far better whilst pissed than many of the OAP's out there. I watched one (not that old either) take FIVE attempts to park nose in to the slot in an outdoor car park the other day - and there was bags of room with nothing in the way!

 

What I was actually trying to point out (maybe clumsily) is that there are hard and fast laws, so however wonderful Ecstasy might be, it's illegal. And that as a society we bang up people who have only *potentially* endangered people or caused harm, yet we seem keen to rehabilitate and give endless 'last chances' to serial offenders who ACTUALLY do bad things.