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Ban it or Make it Compulsory: Isn't There Any Middle Way?

Libertarians: Why They Have it All Wrong

Why are Americans such assholes?

The Civilized States of America and Jesusland

Unilateral Armament

9/11 Inside Job?

Give Peace a Chance

How to Win the Lottery without buying a ticket

Stand clear of the doors!

Meatheads, Slobs and Pencil Necked Geeks

Is Equality Possible?

A very large proportion of people in western societies have smoked cannabis and taken other illegal drugs. This has caused them no great problems. But it has made them criminals. When large numbers of people break the law respect for the law and legality breaks down, this is always bad for the society in question.

My position on drugs is fairly clear. I do not see that making drugs illegal reduces their consumption significantly. And if it does not, which is more or less self-evident, what other justification is there? Cannabis use today is thousands of times more common than it was 100 years ago when it was legal. In Victorian London there were opium dens and morphine addicts. Legality or illegality makes little difference to use patterns although it does change the supply chain and the profitability of the trade.

I have always thought it quite absurd that users are seen as dupes and victims while dealers are seen as evil monsters. In any other trade this is reversed. Dealers supply the demand that is there and good luck to them. If manufacturers can make a 1000% profit on a designer perfume because of the stupidity of the public they are applauded for it. The real world is not a free market. People do not always do things for rational self interest, even businesses, that is why there are so many unprofitable little cafés and bookshops and so few unprofitable scrap metal dealerships. If you care to look at drug dealers with unbiased eyes you will see that many only sell the drugs they are comfortable to use themselves and do not use their dealings to do anything other than finance their own drug use. Others are not dealers of drugs and therefore criminals, but decidedly the other way around, drug dealing being simply the most lucrative form of illegal activity, their crime of choice. The problem of violence associated with drug dealing is not caused by the drugs, it is gang warfare between criminal gangs and could just as easily be seen to be caused by any other criminal industry.

The war on drugs has had an unexpected effect a long way from the front-line. Those people who have smoked cannabis and found that it is pleasurable and relatively harmless have been made into outlaws. This changes their perspective on many things including politics. Libertarianism is fuelled strongly by outlaw chic. The line of thinking is rather similar as that which makes teenage girls into animal rights activists because they want to be mothers.

All too often our "fundamental beliefs" are actually side-effects. Teenage girls want to be sexually attractive so they diet, this often involves going vegetarian in order to justify extreme changes in their eating patterns, which then leads them to take up animal rights to hide their logical tracks from everybody, especially themselves. Do not for one moment think that I am claiming that this is a long process, taken step by conscious step. It can happen as quickly as any human decision, such as my hand is hot, it is burning, I will remove it from where it is because almost anywhere else is likely to be a better place.

Libertarians also follow a similar convoluted path of reverse engineering their basic beliefs. Drugs are fun, some more so than others. If you become a regular, non-addicted user of some soft illegal drug you are putting yourself outside the law. This becomes difficult to justify to yourself. How can you be in favour of the police catching rapists, thieves and murderers but against them catching you? Hypocrisy is always wrong in any belief system There are several ways to solve this problem.

Option One is to become criminal, take on board the whole criminal persona and value system. For many people this is not an option.

Secondly you can become an anarchist, believing that you believe society can run without rules. The effect of this is that the police now become your legitimate enemy. (All the time comfortable in the sound assurance that this will never actually come to pass, but hey it's better than option 4)

Thirdly you can become a libertarian, seeking to remove the power of the government and police, abolishing the prohibitions on drugs and giving you more freedoms to bend whatever laws you don't like (All the time comfortable in the sound assurance that this will never actually come to pass, but hey it's better than option 4)

Option 4, remain a hypocrite.

I think it is time somebody gave these pseudo anarchists and pseudo libertarians a wake-up call. Stand up for what you believe in. Cannabis! Yes, that is what you believe in. Be happy to proclaim it. Don't let it become the basis of your entire system of political beliefs and morality. It's just a little habit. If the wider society can wake up as well and slay this dragon we can then get on with the important things in life with a lot more unity of purpose. There are currently millions of people who have to watch any film or television series with the police in it very carefully before deciding which side they are on. That cannot be healthy for any society. Perhaps because my father was a police officer I have never had much of a problem with it. There is us and them, and they belong behind bars, after a fair trial.

By making drugs legal we can restore millions of people back to a mainstream position within society again. Make them one of us, the decent law-abiding people. In order to do this we need to sell it right to the conservatives and reactionaries. They will not be happy about giving in to lawlessness. We need to re-educate them. We need to speak their language. They do not respond to calls to increase civil liberties, they think too many people are taking liberties as it is.

It is important that people can distinguish clearly the difference between something being legal and being approved. Adultery is the perfect example. There are few countries in which adultery is illegal and no countries in which adultery is approved of. Drugs should be legal exactly as adultery is legal.

ALL drugs, including tobacco, should be made legally available on the same basis as unapproved fringe medicines and herbal remedies. That is they should be taxed as any other traded item, but no more, and they should be covered by the same laws on labelling, quality control and misrepresentation as any other product. The government and the public would not be endorsing their use or profiteering from it either. Warnings labels and so on are perfectly reasonable measures for such products, showing that they are potentially harmful products, especially when used to excess.

Problem drug use should be tackled at source. Public use of drugs should be banned. Many towns and cities ban public drinking and public drunkenness, extending this to other drugs should present even fewer policing problems than alcohol does.

The current problems with drug use can be broken down into three types:-

1] Problems of prohibition

Prohibiting any item that is in demand will cause prohibition problems. These can be severe and significantly more damaging to the community at large than the trade that is prohibited. Violent turf wars and the huge numbers of crimes used by addicts to finance their overpriced drugs are problems of prohibition. Remove prohibition and it will be physically impossible for an addict to develop a $300 a day coke habit, as the price will fall massively when nobody requires obscene amounts of money to compensate for the dangers involved in producing or importing the product. Cocaine, heroin, amphetamines, LSD and cannabis are all intrinsically cheap products, only prohibition makes them expensive. Commercial competition would make them cheap. Drugs could be shipped in regular commercial trucks and containers not in condoms inside poor people.

Making drugs legal will remove a large proportion of the money currently within organized crime. The criminal world would shrink back significantly if drugs were made legal. Far fewer people would feel any affinity with the criminals, they would lose lots of allies whose only crime is currently purchasing and using drugs.

2] Problems of use

Discarded needles are partly a problem of use and partly a problem of prohibition. If drugs can be legally used at home and needles can be bought there would be less of a problem with such use. However problems of litter and so on are not generally tackled well in our societies as a whole, the legality or otherwise of the product is a smokescreen. Producers of hypodermic equipment should be tasked with avoiding these problems just as the manufacturers of chewing gum should for their products, the polluter pays principle.

Inappropriate behaviour when under the influence of drugs is a social problem. But we should be clear that it is the behaviour that is wrong, not the drug. Driving or controlling machinery or caring for children while impaired by drugs should remain a criminal offence. This is not a reason to maintain an absolute ban on use, just as it is not a good reason to prohibit alcohol.

3] Intrinsic harm

Drugs are damaging. It does not matter whether they are legal or not. People have always used one form of drug or another and they probably always will. Alcohol is probably the most damaging drug in use today. It causes huge problems for millions of people around the world. Cigarettes also have enormous potential for damage. The use of intrinsically damaging drugs should be actively discouraged. Some drugs like alcohol and cannabis are relatively safe when used normally as casual, if regular, leisure drugs, often under the pretence of “social” use, although both are easily consumed to excess and can be damaging. Other drugs are more dangerous either in terms of direct harm or in terms of addiction.

The important point to get clear in our minds is that drugs will be with us legal or illegal, approved or disapproved. The best thing we can do, as society and government, is to come up with a framework that minimizes the harm done to individuals and society. My contention is that this is best done through legal toleration of drug use which will allow the government to implement legal safeguards and protocols. You can do more to protect your children from drugs when you know who is selling them, what is in them and what they do, that situation requires legal and open trading.

Do you really fundamentally believe that the best a government can do is get out of the way? I don't. Government is our tool, our most powerful tool for doing good. We just have to learn to use it wisely. If you are one of the dopehead libertarians I hope this page has given you a reason to question your principles. Allowing the legal trade in drugs does not contradict basic mainstream values. It is perfectly possible to have a valid and consistent political viewpoint that allows you to be against crime and lawlessness and yet tolerate drug use. You do not have to go over to the lunatic fringe to enjoy a toke of weed without excessive guilt.

© 1999 - 2008 by Martin Willett.

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