The trade in counterfeit cigarettes and alcohol in the UK is still significant, I believe.  That's counterfeit, as opposed to illegally imported, which is also still a huge problem.

Huge how? I mean I think we need some hard figgaz if we're going to address this coherently.

Meanwhile, I'm wondering how costs are working out for affording current levels of drugs offence inmates, or whether there are any appreciable cash incentives for minimum levels of imprisonment. If there are, that'd be another clear impediment to reform.

Kow wrote:

I would imagine counterfeit alcohol is illegal because it breaks copyright and licensing laws more than anything else. After all, it's not illegal to brew your own beer etc.

Try telling that to the people who were buying bottles of some lethal concoction that was pretending to be Smirnoff or whatever.
It is illegal to distil spirits without the proper licence because it's potentially lethal if you don't know what you're doing.  Mind you, the people that are doing so illegally and who then pass it off as something else probably don't give a shit whether it kills a few people or not.

Kow wrote:

I think we could also solve unemployment by, well, bombing unemployed people.

Bombing solves loads of things. This much we can be sure of.

Bombing does solve some things.

Occasionally, but not often. Makes problems go away for a while without actually addressing the root of the problem. You bomb poppy fields, dealers, etc. in Afghanistan or wherever, all you'll do is move production somewhere else, or change people's drug of choice. The issue is the demand, not the supply.

Now that might work.

Kow wrote:

Occasionally, but not often. Makes problems go away for a while without actually addressing the root of the problem. You bomb poppy fields, dealers, etc. in Afghanistan or wherever, all you'll do is move production somewhere else, or change people's drug of choice. The issue is the demand, not the supply.

We don't bomb poppy fields, all the anti-narcotics stuff is Afghan led.  We bomb nasty men involved with the Taliban and such things.  The analogy's mostly true though; in terms of "winning a war on drugs," if people were of a mind to stomach extremely harsh penalties for anyone involved in it, then eventually the supply of willing servants dries up.

Sure, some people will always be there who'll do anything, but the smarter ones a few rungs up the ladder eventually stop doing stuff when they realise that the risk/reward meter has swung massively towards the former.

Now, there's a critical difference between an insurgency in a country involving lots of people dying and the drugs trade, so we'll never get to a position where people are able to stomach it, but if the penalty for anything remotely drugs-related was instant painful death, then I'm sure it'd all dry up pretty rapidly.

Reminds me of a show I saw once where convicted paedophiles over here, who were able to demonstrate through a few hundred hours of therapy when in jail that it was a physiological attraction that they couldn't shake, were offered chemical castration to remove any feeling of desire, hence removing the risk.

To Kickstarter!

Kow wrote:

The anti-narcotic stuff in Afghanistan is US led. The Afghanis may be carrying it out but it's under pressure from the US.

Because an unelected drug funded feudal warlord system of governing has worked out great for the Afgahni's

No, Afghanistan is in shit, it's true. But the root of the problem is demand from the developed world.

Nah, legalise the lot and roll in the cash in taxes. Could be a quick way out of recession. Probably more people than ever artificially enhancing their mood right now.

We should become Muslims then. But without the weed.

No way I'm missing lunch 30 days in a row.