The grown up conversation about drugs won't happen as to make it work it needs to be a government issue and it could not be further away from being a vote winner.
No one will touch it.

That's because alcohol is legal - you don't need to go meet a dodgy guy in a back alley for a 8 pack of Fosters that's been smuggled over the Columbian border. If drugs were legalized (don't agree that all drugs should be legalized by the way) and sold from proper licensed places you wouldn't get all this gang related crime over drugs, as they wouldn't be the suppliers anymore. People are going to do it either way, may aswell do it safely

I take your point jizzer, I was just trying to illustrate what kind of people are peddling the drugs.
Legalisation of drugs is a whole different ball game, needing much cleverer people than me to decide the implications.
Even if all drugs were legalised I would doubt the mentality of anyone taking them.

2 points from here
1) Players are role models and we need to set an example - we have done a similar thing (albeit alcohol) with Tim smith etc. so he is gone for me.

2) i arrange for random drug tests at work (i work in construction) we have tested over 200 people in Yorks/lancs and have a failure rate of around 10%. interestingly we have not had one failure for alcohol.

Making it legal is the brain dead and 'ok we give up, you win' approach. The problem starts with lack of education and the 90's era of teenagers producing children (which is still happening) when they can't even look after themselves. I am 32, when i left high school in 2001 i was just about seeing the complete lack of common sense creeping in. Now it is wide spread. You go to any pub in the country and you will see empty cocaine bags behind the u-bends of toilets. Absolute diving headers. And where girls/women used to be sensible regarding this type of thing, they are now doing it in abundance. I cannot believe how in the last 20 years or so how thick the country has become. We don't make anything, trade anything or educate anywhere near enough anymore. This cesspit, especially in the northern working class towns breeds turds who will buy, sell and take drugs because the lack of education and common sense is turning folk into zombies. There is no future for most. Not surprised they turn to drugs, although that doesn't excuse it. Just listen to the music coming out of car windows these days. Trance and that black Harlem crap who sing (talk) about drugs, stabbing and shooting folk. You need LSD to make sense of it. Society is screwed but you can't just give up and say 'ok let's legalize it' Imagine how bad it would be then? Having a pint why someone is sniffing coke at the side of you. Yeah good idea!! To be honest i think we are too far gone with this sort of thing anyway, immigration, radicalization. Our children and their children are all screwed BUT....... i revert back to the point. I don't care how thick you are, if you are picking up thousands a week in an industry where children look up to you and you abuse that position then you should be dropped like a stone and i hope Wakey do exactly that. The sort of thing we try and keep our children away from being shoved into their faces by their role models. Despicable.

I go into schools to try hopefully to educate year 5s, 10 year olds, as that is when you can get arrested, about the affect of drugs and drink, to tell them about prison life and real stories from real people affected by it. Hopefully they take it on board, only time will tell. Again these so called role models know better. They have the choice, no one makes them. Too much time, money on their hands I don't know, but it's their choice so no sympathy here for the consequences they will face.

Correct sir and you are to be commended in trying to make a difference in what seems like an already lost battle.

Legalising drugs is not giving in its looking at the problem in a different way, the current way simply does not work, has never worked and will never work no matter how tough you get on the sentences.

It depends on what you mean by work.

At the moment I don't often see a group of drugged up teens or for that matter adults on the Street when I'm out with my family.
If it was all legal it would be similar to seeing people when drunk.

I think the mistake some people are making is that people of all colours, races, creeds, and most importantly class take drugs -not just working class people who have nothing better to do. The same as alcohol, which lets not forget is also a drug which kills and causes people to do ridiculous things. To me the route of the problem is deaper than people just want to get drugged up because they like it (even though some people will do it for that reason), there's a problem in society as to why people would seek to escape reality this way. But treating addiction as a crime instead of an illness is just going to see more people in prison that just need help and more education on the subject. However in the case of Adam Walker, I don't think any professional sports man should take drugs (including alcohol) full stop.

Jesus h Christ - that's such a mish-mosh of ill-informed, offensive, racist, moralistic Daily Mail nonsense, I don't know where to begin; it sounds to me like you've been watching so much dystopic, dark future sci-fi, such that you now see the world as an episode of The Walking Dead. Either that, or you're so disconnected from and frightened by youth culture, that you've retreated to the moral high ground and dug yourself in.

I agree that in a professional environment where drugs, and certain behaviours, are prohibited, the employer has and should exercise an absolute right to deal with people who transgress - but to dismiss drug use in the way you've described it is just ignorant.

To the other poster's point about not seeing marauding gangs fighting over supplies of alcohol - that happens instead in the boardrooms of multinational booze manufacturers, because for some perverse reason, we have legalised and accepted some mind-altering substances, but not others; if we had a more sensible approach to this stuff, the criminal activity that you've identified would reduce significantly - plenty of countries have done it, with positive effects. In the UK, there's too much moralising for it to be a sensible conversation - but one would hope that as the influence of old duffers and the Daily Mail diminish, some politicians might be brave enough to tackle it.

Smoking cigarettes is a big killer, because of personal family issues, I think smoking cigarettes should be illegal , especially in public. Government has tried to put off people smoking especially the Young by putting more and more restrictions on cigarettes. But I also I'm a bit of a libertarian and believe anything you do in your own home and doesn't affect anyone else should be ok.