One of my favourite commentators, the American writer P.J. O'Rourke, has inspired me to this post. PJ is one of the most conservative writers you might find today (in the modern sense of the word, not as someone who wants to keep things exactly the same forever, which is a much more realistic definition), being all for small government, low taxes, relaxed gun laws and minimal interference in the free market.
These are basically libertarian ideals, which holds that an individual needs to be responsible for themselves and their families where possible and that government should have as small a role as possible, because of the crippling impact on a person's psyche of having a big government controlling all our actions (the nanny state). Ironically, my little brother at times fancies anarchism and libertarianism as well, but he fancies it more from a big government, high taxes, free health care kind of view, which really doesn't make any sense, except from a specifically selfish point of view (he doesn't actually pay any taxes!).
Anyway, amongst all these views, Mr O'Rourke has clearly stated that we should legalise all drugs and let the whole shebang play out on its own, a view that I strongly agree with.
Now there are certainly lots of pros and cons for this position, but right from the start, I'm going to say that i think society would be better and safer if all drugs were decriminalised.
We'll start with the pros first. The biggest fan of criminalisation are the criminals, more specifically those criminals who control access to those substances that are now contraband. If something is illegal access to it is automatically heavily restricted which means that the price will automatically go up. This means much more money for the criminals.
To protect their new source of wealth they will then revert to violence, intimidation and stand over tactics to protect their turf and acquire new markets (re. "The Wire"). Moreover, they will bribe public officials to allow importation and distribution, a system that weakens the integrity of our criminal justice system. The police themselves become ever more focussed on fighting the drug trade and lose sight of the real criminals, or are kept busy locking up low level dealers while the higher echelons take their profits and stay out of the game (again, see "The Wire"). Lastly, drug dealers will cut their products will all kinds of things (battery acid, powdered glass, soap etc) to make it go further, posing an obvious and serious health risk to the end user.
By legalising drugs we can remove all of these problems.
The drugs themselves generally come from overseas and more often than not are used to prop up illegitimate or illegal regimes, or organisations that are dedicated to the overthrow of governments. The reason the Syrians kept their Army in Lebanon for so long was to control the Heroin trade of the Beqaa Valley. The Taliban in Afghanistan were and continue to be supported from the sale of heroin. The FARC in Colombia have been trying to overthrow the government there for many years, aided and abetted by the sale of cocaine. In Panama, Manuel Noriega provided a safe haven and easy transport for drug traffickers from South America. I'm sure I could find many more examples, these are all off the top of my head.
By removing the profits for these drugs from these countries and organisations, people who are our explicitly our enemies, whether we are in combat with them now or not, will find a massive hole in their funding, without the flow of monies overseas to pay for their drugs.
Now the cons.
For me, the biggest con is the moral issue. If substances such as crack cocaine or crystal meth are so incredibly harmful (which it appears they are), then how can the government (the representative of the people) be associated with it in any way? If we tax a legalised crack trade are we not complicit in the damage such a drug causes? Even if we decriminalise and look the other way, the moral issue remains.
Furthermore, by removing criminal sanctions, do we risk seeing a vast increase in the usage of such drugs, drugs that we KNOW are harmful?
We also have problems with public health, access to health services and impacts on our community if a vast army of junkies arises from the ashes of our drug laws to inhabit our streets, feeding their addiction by begging for change, washing windows and breaking into houses to steal TVs.
So how could we implement such changes to the drug laws? While we continue to have problems with drugs such as ice, crack, heroin and ectstacy, the reality is that in Australia right now the most addictive substances with the highest usage rates, biggest health problems and the most fatalities are tobacco and alcohol.
I suggest that initially such substances become decriminalised. Such a process will immediately see a massive drop in prices and a massive associated decrease in organised crime, due to the lack of money from drugs. The criminals maybe able to hold onto some market share, but removing criminal sanctions for importing or dealing would immediately see much more competition in the market place.
After finding our feet on this, I would then move to full legalisation, with associated taxation and regulation. Wouldn't you rather smoke some crystal meth that was made in a factory rather than some that was made in the kitchen of a bikie with HIV, a sink full of battery acid and a problem with personal hygiene?
Now, such moves would seem to guarantee increased usage, as availability increases and consequences for use decrease.
To combat this I have two suggestions. Firstly, I would ban public intoxication, of any kind. If you're drunk, stone, high, wasted etc in public (especially during daylight hours) the police should grab you and chuck you in the tank until you're dry. If you're on crack and you get the DT's while you're in there, that's all for the best. After all, what doesn't kill you will make you stronger (read point number 7) and it's a lot better than what might have happened to you before. This public intoxication includes alcohol. We shouldn't as a society accept someone walking around or lying around during the day who's drunk. Living in a place where such a sight is commonplace, I would suggest that while this may seemingly infringe on the individual's human rights, the community as a whole will be a much better place.
Secondly, i give you a quote from the inimitable PJ O'Rourke (paraphrased I'm afraid). When talking about drug laws, he asked, "Why isn't crack cocaine an issue anymore? Because all those kids who grew up with it around saw the consequences and stayed the hell away. And all those users either cleaned up or else they're now dead"
We live in a world without danger, without risk, withou consequences for our stupid actions. How can we clean out the gene pool and when all the retards and troglodytes continue to breed? Drugs can be the answer! Those people who fail to realise how dumb it is to take a substance that permanently affects your brain chemistry are probably good candidates for a little bit of evolutionary pressure. Those junkies are just doing their bit for the survival of the species :)
So, lets legalise drugs, get the criminals out of the way and then deal with the consequences. We need to tighten up on alcohol anyway, lets treat all drugs the same and try and make society a better place.
cheers
Dr Harry
No comments:
Post a Comment