You’re Still a Dealer if…
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A U.K. judge recently ordered a 23-year-old man, Mark Bentham, to stop supplying drugs to his friends. According to an article from the Wigan Evening Post, Bentham said in his defense that he was only supplying drugs to a close group of associates and was by no means a large scale “professional” drug dealer. Judge Brian Lewis accepted Bentham’s statement that the narcotics he sold were only to close relations, but nonetheless sentenced the man to 8 months in prison.
When handing down his decision Lewis said:
“Whatever misguided comments about the use of cannabis that might appear in the media there is an accumulating body of evidence about the damage cannabis does to its consumers in the long term, particularly to mental health.”
Bentham’s home had been raided earlier resulting in police finding marijuana, of which Lewis was speaking, as well as amphetamines, and cash.
Lewis’ statement is clearly aimed at people who do not view marijuana as a “gateway” drug, or as being harmless in use. It could be argued by the fact Bentham was in possession of amphetamines, along with the marijuana, that the two were being sold in tandem. As mentioned earlier, Bentham indeed admitted that he was only selling to a select group of people.
On a personal note, I have always viewed marijuana as a gateway drug. I have had several friends progress from marijuana usage into a spiral of abuse of numerous elicit substances. Thankfully, some sought help and recovered, while others have been less fortunate. Whether you agree with the Judge’s decision or not, it is hard deny that drug use begets more drug use. I think it was with this in mind that Lewis rendered his decision.
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It’s not that marijuana,is harmless; anyone who pretends it is, is just dishonest or a moron; but its simply not any more harmful than alcohol, which doesn’t receive the same scourge of public reprehensibility from the holier-than-thous who through down a whisky every night, though it easily causes more death, public assault, and domestic violence than weed does by a long shot.
I think both people who pretend that weed has no bad effects and the ones that try to act like its on par with heroine or meth or crack; are both dishonest extremist who do a grave disservice to the public discourse on drugs, and hence public policy and the public health response to drug use.
Thanks for the comment. I don’t think marijuana is on par with crack, but it’s not a good thing, like you said. I think the worst aspect is that I have seen it lead many people into those harder drugs. Maybe they were going to go there anyway, but it always seemed to be through marijuana. It may be a “what comes first” question. Also, I have been checking out your blog, I tried to leave a comment but my internet crashed.
Anyway, don’t get me wrong; I’m not promoting any kind of drug use. I’d advise anyone not to get started with any of it; including alcohol and tobacco.
Nonetheless, the exaggerations about marijuana have been utterly detrimental in fighting drug abuse. When growing up in the 80s I bought into the whole “brain on drugs” thing, and was of the mine state to never use any of it. But when I got to high school and knew many people who smoked weed; and the effects were nothing like what was popularly claimed, I realized I had been systematically lied to.
I’m quite sensible though, so I never took the fact that I was lied to about the extent of marijuana’s effects as evidence that there were no harmful affects, so I kept my uses at a minimum during the years I did smoke a little. But that’s me.
Many who realized it was b.s., now don’t believe hardly any messages about its harmfulness, and don’t listen to public health messages about the dangers of drugs; because they know they’re exaggerated and dishonest.
I think we should be forthright about drugs. There are good reasons why people use this stuff, and why even generally very responsible and productive people smoke weed regularly, or semi-regularly. We should acknowledge this and then talk about the reasons why usage isn’t so good (the drawbacks to the euphoria); rather than use unabated scare tactics that have been used for every new drug for 100 years and clearly have not worked.
My bottom line is I’d just like to see a change in the way we go about addressing drugs; and I think forthrightness is better.
I don’t know if it was your site or not, all I know is that it wouldn’t connect to the net when I tried to send…I left for a few hours and it worked! Self healing.
I don’t think marijuana is bad in terms of how it effects people’s minds. I think the commercial with the guys running over the girl at the fast food place are a bit over the top. I think it is socially about 1000xs less dangerous then alcohol, but it’s still not a good thing. Maybe you are right, if drugs in general had less of a stigma, people would find them less appealing or interesting in the first place.