a night at the pub? a night on drugs is cheaper.

[adzket]

this artical was taken from the metro news paper on the 18th march 2008 i ment to post it sooner but had computer problems the metro is published in london by the everning standard and given out free on the tube in the mornings this artical was writen as an exclusive by john higginson this artical mentions prices which in the past i have been told are ok to post if they are in an atual exsisting newes artical or published story.

a line of cocaine is now as cheap as a pint of beer after the latest alcohol tax rises took effect yesterday. an average pint in britain topped £3 last night following a 4p rise in the budget - making it the same price as a line of cocaine, acording to official govenment figures.
in london the average price of a pint at £4.06 is dearer than a hit of heroin. a line of speed or the cannabis resin for a spliff now costs the same as just two cigarettes, acording to separate figures released by the independent drug monitoring unit, which provides street prices for evidence in couts.
the average price of an ecstasy pill is now £2.91, with some costing as little as £1, while an average hit of heroin is just £3.50.
the charity drugscop, which has seen a sharp rise in cocaine use, warned it was now cheaper to spend an evening bingeing on cocain than to spend a night in the pub.
spokesman harry shapiro said: 'the tax on alcohol has been going up and up while the price of cocaine has been coming down. there comes a point when the lines cross and it may well be that point is now. 'i don't like comparing a line with a pint of beer because cocaine isn't sold by the line but, if you're asking me if it now costs no more to have a night on cocaine as it does on alcohol, unfortunately i'd have to say yes.'
over the past ten years, the price of cocaine has droped from £77 a gram to £45, while heroin has fallen from £74 to £53.
the campaign for real ale said: 'the latest tax increase will drive people away from community pubs, which help discourage the problem, to drink cheap supermarket alcohol at home, in streets and in parks.'
shadow home secretary david davis added: 'under labour, hard drugs have become cheaper and more easily available than at any point in history.' the home office refuted claimes that low drug prices neccessarialy meant they were more widley available. a spokesman said: 'reductions in the price of drugs may be associated with increased competition or reduced demand, not just increased availability. 'the relationship between drug prices and drug use is not straight forward. for exsample, despite historically low prices for ecstacy, the british crime survey showes its prevalence has declined.'
this month a un report condememned britain's celebrity 'endorsed' drug-related lifestyles and said cocaine use hear was among the highest in europe, along with spain and italy.
a study last year of 8,300 people under 45 showed that taking cocaine doubled the risk of a stroke, while taking speed or crystal meth increased the risk by five times.

part of the artical is the costs compared sources idmu and govt figures,
pint of beer: £3
20 cigarettes: £5.66
line of cocaine: £3
ecstasy tablet: £2.91
line of speed: 63p
hash spliff: 90p
skunk spliff: £1.70
hit of heroin: £3.50

[Senor Gribson]

Haha, I noticed they put "skunk" spliff in the prices, rather than cannabis spliff.
I guess that's why it looks like they used a small spliff for their list, any bigger would have them hacking up their grandmother with an axe!

[klaatu]

Originally Posted by adzket

pint of beer: £3
20 cigarettes: £5.66
line of cocaine: £3
ecstasy tablet: £2.91
line of speed: 63p
hash spliff: 90p
skunk spliff: £1.70
hit of heroin: £3.50

Did the Metro article say where you could buy at these prices?

I went into Tesco last night and they were all much more expensive than that....



Klaatu

[FuBai]

Some of the prices do seem out, but I would say it was the illegal drugs which per poorly priced (mostly over-priced). 20 fags and a 20 pack of lager from Sainsbury's would be quite a bit cheaper than the prices listed. I suppose they are talking about beer sold in the pub, which varies from region to region and bar to bar, in which case their estimate seems about right. If this is coming too close to price discussion please remove this post and, as a reminder to others, price discussion is not allowed so tread carefully when posting on this.

[adzket]

i think it was an estimation from the hole contry as those are govement price my guess from reading the artical is the price for a hole amount then divided by the no of hits you get though i dont know about shuch things i can only post what the artical said just thought the info may be intresting for some

[Nature Boy]

In SWIM's experience, a night on drugs is probably a bit cheaper than a night of drinks on the town. That being said, boozing it up on the cheap before going into town is a good way to cut back on those annoying bar prices.

[Expat98]

Alcohol is so expensive because they tax the hell out of it. Think about all that money that is being lost on taxes because governments cannot tax drugs...that's a big factor that may eventually help end the War on Drugs.

Originally Posted by Nature Boy

Repeated exposure to weak versions of arguments can cause people to become insensitive to a stronger version of the same argument

Nature Boy, I'm curious about your signature line. Is that your own quote, or did you get that from somewhere? I'm just wondering if there has been a psychological study done on that? Don't get me wrong - I'm not challenging the validity of the quote. I suspect it is true. I just wanted to ask because I think that would be an interesting study, if one has been done.

[Pondlife]

Another way to look at this is that, despite alcohol being heavily taxed and easy to produce, the vast majority of alcohol consumed is still commercially produced legal products.

I think this shows that there could be a lot of money to be made by regulating and taxing drugs, and a fairly low risk of illegal drugs being able to compete with legal ones, even if the illegal drugs were cheaper.

[klaatu]

Originally Posted by Pondlife

Another way to look at this is that, despite alcohol being heavily taxed and easy to produce, the vast majority of alcohol consumed is still commercially produced legal products.

I think this shows that there could be a lot of money to be made by regulating and taxing drugs, and a fairly low risk of illegal drugs being able to compete with legal ones, even if the illegal drugs were cheaper.

If drugs (some drugs anyway) were legalised I am of the opinion that price would not be a major factor in their take-up. They would most likely be more expensive than illegal (i.e. home-produced, un-licenced, un-taxed, unofficial drugs) The key factor to "official" (government-approved) drugs being preferred to alternatives would be quality. When buying/taking an illegal drug you are always taking a risk as to exactly what the purity/strength of the product is. Official drugs would be much safer because they would be "standardised".

The same thing happened during and after prohibition in the US. Illegal alcohol was easy to find, but it was often poor-quality (that's how cocktails came into being - to mask the taste of the godawful moonshine) and sometimes poisonous. Once alcohol was made legal again the trade in illegal (but cheaper) alcohol virtually disappeared.

Klaatu

[Nature Boy]

Originally Posted by Expat98

Nature Boy, I'm curious about your signature line. Is that your own quote, or did you get that from somewhere? I'm just wondering if there has been a psychological study done on that? Don't get me wrong - I'm not challenging the validity of the quote. I suspect it is true. I just wanted to ask because I think that would be an interesting study, if one has been done.

I honestly can't remember. Possibly something SWIM pulled out of his ass frustrated at anti-marijuana propagandists.

[babylashes]

I could be way off the mark with this view, but the increase of alcohol is the new way to encourage responsible drinking, however people will still want to relax and have a good night out and if some drugs are cheaper then this could encourage people to use them, no-one likes lining the pockets of the government.

[adzket]

Originally Posted by babylashes

no-one likes lining the pockets of the government.

especialy if you have seen the news the last few day's about mp's and there exspences they claim back from central govenment thats our money.

[FuBai]

Originally Posted by adzket

especialy if you have seen the news the last few day's about mp's and there exspences they claim back from central govenment thats our money.

I have to say I think MPs are simply massively underpaid (most are only on £60,000 a year which, compared to other professional salaries, is really quite small). Traditionally expenses were used to cover the gap, however this method is open to exploitation. I would support putting MP's salaries up to closer the £100,000 mark, but to remove most, if not all, of the expenses. It's not spending on actual elected representative salaries that worries me, it's more the vast spending on administrative boards, quangos, managerial overseers and centralised control of things like the NHS etc. We also have, for some reason I can not understand, decided to host the 2012 Olympic games, which is one of the most catastrophic wastes of money since the dome. I'm probably running close to going completely off topic here, so let's try and pull it back to drugs - seeing as a proportion of the money goes to funding the persecution of drug users it is understandable that people would want to avoid giving money to the government.

[klaatu]

Originally Posted by FuBai

...the 2012 Olympic games, which is one of the most catastrophic wastes of money since the dome...

That's one of the most sensible things I've ever read on DF. Which rather explains why your goddam rating's so much higher than mine !



Klaatu

[Pretend_you_dont_see_Her]

Its not just a huge waste of money, the 2012 Olympics are gonna kill East London as well, its bad enough as it is you cant get on a bus in the mornings theres traffic everywhere and.. Well lets put it one way, i plan to be far away from home when it happens.

[Masa]

Heavy Alcohol tax has not driven the use of drugs in Scandinavia up, imho UK will hit that lvl of taxation soon
Lets say that UK legalized all drugs but taxed it heavy would we not just see the illegal trade continue and ppl buying cheap “duty free” drugs
The is allrdy a lot of booze and fags coming in and ppl are quite willing to buy these
True these come in from mainland Europe and if drugs where still illegal there it would not be identical circumstances but the smuggling channels are allrdy set up so presumably they trafficking would continue

[Pondlife]

Originally Posted by Masa

Lets say that UK legalized all drugs but taxed it heavy would we not just see the illegal trade continue and ppl buying cheap “duty free” drugs
The is allrdy a lot of booze and fags coming in and ppl are quite willing to buy these.

Providing the tax was reasonable, then no I don't think this would happen.

Essentially all of the "smuggled" alcohol and tobacco that comes into the UK is legal goods from other EC countries. That's a lot different from illicit drugs because the quality is known.