That's a pretty serious accusation, who made that then?



Ah, so no one with experience in the legal system, just some grief stricken family members.

So if I say that that Daily Mail is a laughable excuse for a newspaper, presumably they'll run a story tomorrow with the words


Or is that too much to hope for?

Well, to be fair, it's hardly news!

(Not that that usually stops them.)

Father-of-three jailed after confronting drug dealer who sold heroin to his family

Drug dealers have been dealing to this guy's family for months. It's breaking his heart so does he:
a) go to the police
b) try to find ways to get his family to stop buying
c) go round to the dealers' house, flush their stash down the loo and threaten to kill them all

(for non-readers of Fark, it's C)


Sorry buddy, but if you don't even ask the police for help, then what do you expect.

Anyway upshot is that he admits he was in the wrong, he's now serving two months in jail (which is a holiday camp obviously)
There's no word on whether the dealers are being dealt with.


And this comment is top rated:

1,222 plus alan think that vigilantism is the answer to all crime.


+917
Given the dealers' lottery money and immunity from arrest, obviously. TWAT.


+940


And the other side:

-314

Sorry, but apart from the first couple of sentences thats complete bollocks and deserves to be voted down. The guy should have just got a community service order

the sentance seems fair enough, it probably would have been a community service order where it not for the fact he did threaten to kill the guy.

I wonder if we can pick and choose which laws we can take into our own hands. For example, there was a letter in one of our local papers this a couple of weeks ago declaring that they were 'fed up' and were going to stop paying all taxes.

Now, given that I'm going to end up paying for that one way or another (either to chase him through the courts to get the money, or to keep him in gaol for a stretch, or both) would it be ok if I pre-empted the whole thing and went round his house and threatened to kill him?

I'd try to submit that as a comment, but I know I'd be wasting my time.

Why is it bollocks?

I agree about the first two sentances so lets look at the rest of it. Do you believe his brother in law was acting outside of freewill? Do you think drugs were forced upon him? This may be the case but I am yet to see proof of it.

I am well aware that drug adiction is a very serious thing and that proper help should be provided in order that people can get out of it but if your family member becomes an alcoholic do you go and threaten his bartender?

Legalisation of heroin is probably not an option because it can't be made safe and I would probably argue that better drug education is required in school but aside from the last part I see no problem with it.

As for a community service order, seriously? If someone got drunk then broke into your house and threatened to kill you you would want that person to have a community service order?

What irritates me is the way that the war on drugs is branded 'pathetic'. Drugs of all kinds (including cannibis) wreck the lives of both users, their families and the wider community. Its a war that needs to be won and saying that legalisation is the only option is a cop out in my opinion. Drug dealers are little better than murderers, in fact maybe worse, since their only excuse for slowly instigating the death of their 'customers' is making a tidy profit (and the same can be said for cig manufacturers).

As your last point; Its not really the same thing is it? The bloke was breaking the law & wrecking folks lives, he wasn't just some innocent with his feet up watching the telly (i'm not defending the actions of Peter, just pointing out that the other guy was hardly a piller of the community).

Besides, i though we were normally against wanting sentences handing out based on the heart rather than the head?

I think that last one might have a bit of an agenda, given that it's a Trainspotting character!

Have you got some evidence to back up your claims about 'drugs'? You seem to be lumping a lot of things in together. I would agree with you about Heroin and Crack, I have seen people whose lives have been wrecked by cannabis too but on the other side I have seen people who are fairly regular users and dont let it affect their lives. Should it not therefore come down to personal responsibility as peoples lives could just as easily but wrecked by Alcohol or prescription drug addiction?

I don't think we should start to judge the actions of criminals based on who their victims are. Thats as bad as saying you don't care if people are tortured if they are suspected terrorists. I am very much in favour of basing sentances on facts rather than emotions and vigilanties should therefore be punished severely to ensure that we do take that route in society. If he had thought that way and called the police we wouldn't even be discussing this.

A while ago now I did a study about the correlation between drug abuse and poverty, although there obviously is a correlation it is debatable as to whether people are in poverty due to drugs or are into drugs to escape poverty.

ACG:



Interestingly someone who seems to be local has pointed out that the judge took into account the fact that our hero had a fairly lengthy criminal record himself. Needless to say it has been voted down on the basis that the Mailites can't cope with the notion that the issues aren't as black and white as they would like to think.

The war on drugs is impossible to 'win'. It's the most futile war mankind has ever waged. You cut one head off and two more grow in it's place. The only way you could put a stop to to the drug trade is to completely devalue the product by giving it away free to whoever wanted it, which - for perfectly understandable reasons - will never happen.

Drug dealers would go bust, taxpayers would get a huge bill and everyone would be permanently baked.

Sounds fun

While I hold my hands up and admit it's not the best point of reference compared to academic studies in human or social sciences, Ben Elton's book High Society does a pretty sound job of tackling the question of legalisation of drugs. Anyone who's read can see both sides of the arguement and puts the lives of all sorts of folk in to context. There's even a sideswipe at the Mail in an obvious Lynda Lee Potter-esque character in there.

The American's probably think the same about Mandelson! Who is is shirt lifter mouthing off is the likely reaction from most red blooded American's I have met.
Click to rate Rating 16 - Kenherts, herts, 18/2/2009 11:59

From the Mandelson 'rant' story. I suppose the sad thing is not only that Kenherts uses the term 'shirt lifter' and gets it past the mods, but also that in a few short days Littlejohn will certainly expand this cretinous comment into an 'hilarious' column.