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Post by tannhauser42 on Nov 6, 2024 21:16:58 GMT -5
Imagine trying to apply that reasoning to something else that people are legally allowed to do...Like own firearms... Or voting. |
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Post by Haighus on Nov 7, 2024 1:42:24 GMT -5
The other thing is that a lot of fentanyl is produced within the US, by Americans. It is a synthetic drug that only small quantities are needed to produce the desired effect. You don't need a poppy farm. |
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Post by Disciple of Fate on Nov 7, 2024 3:16:52 GMT -5
The other thing is that a lot of fentanyl is produced within the US, by Americans. It is a synthetic drug that only small quantities are needed to produce the desired effect. You don't need a poppy farm. People have a very stereotypical (outdated) view on this topic. Drug smuggling has very little to do with physical border crossings by people from the outside. I'm halfway around the world and we have Mexican and Colombian cartels shipping in through the largest port in the EU (Rotterdam), because it would literally crash the economy if they checked every single container. And even if they did check every single container, we have massive domestic production of almost every synthetic drug under the sun, because we are well positioned as a transport hub to the rest of the EU and, unlike cocaine, you can get all the base materials inside the country. We literally produce enough synthetic drugs to overdose everyone if it stayed within our country. For example, Europe seized more cocaine in recent years than the US. But the drug abuse pipeline in the US is what makes the situation so messy, which has its origins in the pharmaceutical industry. The lack of regulation in the US created and absurd market for illicit drugs that isn't comparable to Europe, which only has a fraction of the overdose deaths of the US. Europe did not (yet) suffer from a runaway pharmaceutical industry creating an almost new group of drug users, with a very different type of drug abuse and demand. www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/cocaine/Global_cocaine_report_2023.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjA7rbF4smJAxXog_0HHY7qNkAQFnoECC0QAQ&usg=AOvVaw1ylH9jlVXZvbUGd0g6cEYB |
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Post by crispy78 on Nov 7, 2024 3:24:49 GMT -5
Also - I hate to be that guy, but I thought the Republicans were the party of personal responsibility? He fucked around with drugs and found out. Soz.
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Post by Disciple of Fate on Nov 7, 2024 3:30:00 GMT -5
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Post by Peregrine on Nov 7, 2024 3:35:12 GMT -5
Also - I hate to be that guy, but I thought the Republicans were the party of personal responsibility? He fucked around with drugs and found out. Soz. Yep. It's remarkable how republicans finally discover a sense of empathy when "tough on crime" would apply to someone they care about. |
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Post by herzlos on Nov 7, 2024 3:58:39 GMT -5
Now, any migrants could cross the border illegally and simply claim asylum, knowing that it'd take years for the claims to be adjudicated.
I may be mistaken, but asylum* claimants are essentially kept in a detention center until approved or deported, and to claim asylum you're supposed to hand yourself in to the first available opportunity.
So people aren't just shouting asylum when caught miles from the border.
Most drug smuggling is also done with people who have US passports, because it's much easier.
*I'm convinced that's what Trump means when he talks about people being shipped to the US from mental institutions. He doesn't know that claiming an asylum and housing people in a mental asylum (a completely outdated term) are different things.
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Post by herzlos on Nov 7, 2024 3:59:11 GMT -5
Also - I hate to be that guy, but I thought the Republicans were the party of personal responsibility? He fucked around with drugs and found out. Soz. Yep. It's remarkable how republicans finally discover a sense of empathy when "tough on crime" would apply to someone they care about. The same applies to anything. The accounts of anti-abortion protestors getting abortions are *wild*. |
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mdgv2
Ye Olde King of OT
Posts: 917
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Post by mdgv2 on Nov 7, 2024 4:18:46 GMT -5
Assuming it happened, I’m genuinely sorry to hear of Whembly’s loss.
But, when it comes to drugs? You need to consider why the victim was involved in those. And guess what, Republicans? That can be a complex issue, with lots of factors.
Some folk use weed medically for pain or anxiety management. Some people use it alongside or instead of alcohol as a way to relax. Some sad bastards make it their entire personality.
Drugs can be an escape from life’s stresses, even if your life isn’t all that stressful. Sometimes it’s peer pressure/social conventions, which can be hazardous if the person being influenced has low self esteem as they may fear rejection and loneliness if they don’t partake.
I’ve dabbled here and there. Weed makes me throw up (very low tolerance for it) and everyone around me a drooling moron. Coke gives you a mild upper, but frankly isn’t worth the cost (financially or socially). And so I’ve long since knocked all that on the head. Hell, I’m not really drinking anymore, when just a few years ago I was capable of 10 pints a night every night. How did I manage this? Recognised the root cause of the problem (long commute five days a week reducing social activities, friends having moved away leaving me the last one in our town, further compounding the socialisation, so I moved my myself down the road, closer to friends who’d wound up in the same town. Now, the pub isn’t my only social outlet, so I’m in there less, and have reduced my alcohol intake massively. I do still drink like, but maybe once a week, and rarely to particular excess)
But if this is true and not just a “quick, think of a way to own the Libs”? If he was smoking fentanyl laced weed (excessive fentanyl laced, sorry)? He’s been smoking weed for a while, I’d venture. And when you’re buying it on the street? You’ve really only the cost to judge it by. When I was a kid an 8th of cannabis resin was £15. If someone was selling the same for a higher price? You’d expect higher strength. Because drug dealers are in it for the profit. They don’t tend to soup it up with additives and not increase the cost.
And before you say it? Yes, the UK also has a drug problem. Yes it is killing people and ruining lives. We don’t have fentanyl as such, at least it’s not popping up in the news as a significant concern. But even synthetic cannabis replacements are fucking people right up, turning them into drooling zombies staggering around the streets - although thankfully only metaphorically, I don’t think they’re eating people.
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Post by Peregrine on Nov 7, 2024 4:21:23 GMT -5
Now, any migrants could cross the border illegally and simply claim asylum, knowing that it'd take years for the claims to be adjudicated.
I may be mistaken, but asylum* claimants are essentially kept in a detention center until approved or deported, and to claim asylum you're supposed to hand yourself in to the first available opportunity.
So people aren't just shouting asylum when caught miles from the border.
Most drug smuggling is also done with people who have US passports, because it's much easier.
You are correct. Whembly is, as usual, parroting racist garbage that argues against legal asylum seekers based on entirely unrelated criminal activity. Note his claim that they "cross the border illegally and simply claim asylum" when crossing the border to claim asylum is in fact legal immigration following well established laws for doing so. |
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Post by Peregrine on Nov 7, 2024 4:32:08 GMT -5
But if this is true and not just a “quick, think of a way to own the Libs”? If he was smoking fentanyl laced weed (excessive fentanyl laced, sorry)? He’s been smoking weed for a while, I’d venture. And when you’re buying it on the street? You’ve really only the cost to judge it by. When I was a kid an 8th of cannabis resin was £15. If someone was selling the same for a higher price? You’d expect higher strength. Because drug dealers are in it for the profit. They don’t tend to soup it up with additives and not increase the cost. To add some context to this: in the US several states, mostly with democrats in charge, have legalized weed. You don't buy it on the streets anymore, you go to your local weed store and buy your choice of products just like any other store. It's grown legally, distributed legally, and sold legally. And it's all regulated by the same kind of product safety laws that apply to the rest of the agricultural industry, no different from the tomato you buy at your local grocery store. It would be profoundly stupid for these stores to add fentanyl to their product as they'd be turning their nicely profitable legal business into serious felony charges. And so fentanyl-laced weed is about as likely as a fentanyl-laced cheeseburger from your local McDonalds: theoretically possible, but a nonsensical tragedy not caused by any partisan political issue.
The ONLY reason weed is still bought on the street or involved with the cartels is republican opposition to nationwide legalization, take away that opposition and his tragedy never happens. Whembly isn't following any coherent chain of cause and effect, he's just using this as his excuse to go full mask-off MAGA and stop pretending otherwise.
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Post by crispy78 on Nov 7, 2024 4:38:43 GMT -5
I may be mistaken, but asylum* claimants are essentially kept in a detention center until approved or deported, and to claim asylum you're supposed to hand yourself in to the first available opportunity.
So people aren't just shouting asylum when caught miles from the border.
Most drug smuggling is also done with people who have US passports, because it's much easier.
You are correct. Whembly is, as usual, parroting racist garbage that argues against legal asylum seekers based on entirely unrelated criminal activity. Note his claim that they "cross the border illegally and simply claim asylum" when crossing the border to claim asylum is in fact legal immigration following well established laws for doing so. The same thing fucks me off about a lot of the UK's attitude to asylum seekers. They aren't illegally entering the country. The legal process is to show up at the border and request asylum. |
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Post by Haighus on Nov 7, 2024 4:43:12 GMT -5
Assuming it happened, I’m genuinely sorry to hear of Whembly’s loss. But, when it comes to drugs? You need to consider why the victim was involved in those. And guess what, Republicans? That can be a complex issue, with lots of factors. Some folk use weed medically for pain or anxiety management. Some people use it alongside or instead of alcohol as a way to relax. Some sad bastards make it their entire personality. Drugs can be an escape from life’s stresses, even if your life isn’t all that stressful. Sometimes it’s peer pressure/social conventions, which can be hazardous if the person being influenced has low self esteem as they may fear rejection and loneliness if they don’t partake. I’ve dabbled here and there. Weed makes me throw up (very low tolerance for it) and everyone around me a drooling moron. Coke gives you a mild upper, but frankly isn’t worth the cost (financially or socially). And so I’ve long since knocked all that on the head. Hell, I’m not really drinking anymore, when just a few years ago I was capable of 10 pints a night every night. How did I manage this? Recognised the root cause of the problem (long commute five days a week reducing social activities, friends having moved away leaving me the last one in our town, further compounding the socialisation, so I moved my myself down the road, closer to friends who’d wound up in the same town. Now, the pub isn’t my only social outlet, so I’m in there less, and have reduced my alcohol intake massively. I do still drink like, but maybe once a week, and rarely to particular excess) But if this is true and not just a “quick, think of a way to own the Libs”? If he was smoking fentanyl laced weed (excessive fentanyl laced, sorry)? He’s been smoking weed for a while, I’d venture. And when you’re buying it on the street? You’ve really only the cost to judge it by. When I was a kid an 8th of cannabis resin was £15. If someone was selling the same for a higher price? You’d expect higher strength. Because drug dealers are in it for the profit. They don’t tend to soup it up with additives and not increase the cost. And before you say it? Yes, the UK also has a drug problem. Yes it is killing people and ruining lives. We don’t have fentanyl as such, at least it’s not popping up in the news as a significant concern. But even synthetic cannabis replacements are fucking people right up, turning them into drooling zombies staggering around the streets - although thankfully only metaphorically, I don’t think they’re eating people. Actually the fentanyl crisis is so bad because it is the cheap option for illicit drugs. Other, less potent drugs like heroin or cocaine are being cut with fentanyl to reduce costs because fentanyl is cheaper than all of them, but the consumer has zero way of telling how much fentanyl is in a product and it is far, far more potent than the same quantity of heroin (roughly 30 times stronger than injected heroin, although opioid conversions are a bit fuzzy). So a lot of people buy what they thought was something else then accidentally OD on fentanyl. It isn't so big an issue in most countries because fentanyl is cleared by the body very quickly* (compared to most opioids) and naloxone is fairly widely available. Nowadays, a lot of addiction services will provide naloxone packs to their service users to use in OD emergencies. However, large parts of the US restrict access to naloxone for... reasons. *This is why it is actually a fairly unusual drug in a medical setting, wears off too quickly. It is mainly used as part of anaesthetic induction or in transdermal patches that constantly release a small quantity. |
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Post by herzlos on Nov 7, 2024 4:54:29 GMT -5
What I'm more concerned about is the validation of hate. I'm fairly sure Trump won't be able to carry out his most unhinged stuff at a national level, but his riled up militias will feel that they can. Especially in counties with MAGA sheriffs.
I saw a TikTok earlier of a girl crying because her immigrant mother asked her if she needs to carry a passport now to prevent getting deported, and the comments were possibly the most vile I've ever seen. The mask is right off, and we've got a lot of angry people who suddenly feel like they have a duty to carry out what Trump has been calling for. Hate crimes must be going through the roof, though we don't even know how much won't even get reported.
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mdgv2
Ye Olde King of OT
Posts: 917
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Post by mdgv2 on Nov 7, 2024 5:02:05 GMT -5
Haighus spraying it on cannabis, as in the claim made, would increase the cost as it’s a clear additive.
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