Date: Fri, 7 Apr 2000 10:06:38 -0700
From: apfanning@psn.net ("Alan Fanning")
Subject: [lpaz-repost] London Telegraph on Drug Legalization
To: lpaz-repost@onelist.com ("lpaz-repost")
http://www.nationalreview.com/document/documentprint040600.html
4/06/00 2:40 p.m.
Legalize It
The Daily Telegraph (London), March 30, 2000
he Government proposes to ignore the recommendations of Lady Runciman's
report, Drugs and the Law. The report suggests that the penalties for
the possession of illegal drugs should be redced, even though supplying
them would remain a serious offence. This probably is mistaken. After
all, it is the power of the criminal suppliers that is the worst thing
about the present situation. Lady Runciman's idea would be likely to
have the unintended effect of giving them an even bigger market.
Nevertheless, we are moving reluctantly to the view that Lady Runciman
is asking the right questions. The "war against drugs" of which
politicians and police officers like to speakresembles those permanent
wars between superpowers that are a feature of George Orwell's 1984: it
is never won, though its "victories" are constantly trumpeted. There is
a very big demand for drugs that cannot be curtailed by law, and there
are possibilities for supply so great that the law can do no more than
push the price up.
There are several grim results of this:
The dealers, often violent gangsters, make fortunes and take over whole
urban neighbourhoods.
They also control prostitution, carry out robberies and assaults, and,
let the Chancellor note, pay no tax.
Because the suppliers are criminals, there is no quality control. The
health risks of the drugs, in some cases great, are increased because
they are produced by bootleggers.
Vast amounts of police time are consumed fighting the unwinnable war.
Sometimes, the police are corrupted by drug dealers.
Respect for the law and the police is diminished because people can see
that the policy does not work.
More and more people, despite prohibition, use drugs. Young people do
not find it hard to obtain drugs, but they do associate the drug habit
with illegality. They therefore enter a culture in which illegality is
regarded asa good, or at least a necessary thing. It is sad that
hundreds of thousands of otherwise reasonable young people are tempted
into committing a crime.
The case against the status quo is therefore strong. The counter-case
goes as follows:
Drugs do terrible harm, and sometimes kill. If they were legal, more
people would use them: perhaps more people would die.
Parents need legal support for their efforts to prevent their children
from taking drugs. Without that support, they would feel powerless.
The drug "culture" is an unpleasant, stupid, amoral one against which
society should set its face. It is an attack on decency and should be
repudiated.
Anyone of a conservative cast of mind is bound to take these objections
to reform seriously. Few can positively like the idea of drugs becoming
accepted, and it should surely be admitted that legalisation, in the
short though not in the long term, would lead to wider consumption.
Respectable prejudice must be in favour of a society where these
substances are generally rejected.
And yet, and yet. We increasingly incline to the view that the banning
of all drugs causes more harm than good. People like substances that
alter their mood, and only strict puritans believe that they should
never use any of them. A cup of coffee, a glass of wine or beer, even
the odd cigarette are among the legitimate pleasures of life. The reason
that they do not do much harm is that they have been socialised they
are surrounded by customs and manners and jokes and friendship and all
the things which make life tolerable. Alcohol and tobacco remain lethal,
and alcohol, unlike tobacco, has the power to destroy the character of
the person who uses it: it does so for tens of thousands of people in
this country every year.
Are drugs fundamentally different? It is difficult to see why they
should be, although some, taken in certain ways, are more toxic than any
legal form of drink (heroin, for example, is a very long way indeed from
half a pint of bitter). Given that we live in an age in which the drugs
of the world have found their way to our shores, surely the truly
conservative answer to the problem is to find ways of acclimatising
drugs to bourgeois society rather than yelling vainly into the wind.
Any politician will be only too conscious how tricky this process could
be and how electorally vulnerable it could make him. The total
legalisation, licensing, medical inspection and commercial sale of all
drugs to grown-ups which in a way is the most logical reform carries
far too much political risk, and could cause enormous alarm. The first
thing to do is to have a proper public debate. This is why Lady Runciman
should not be getting the brush-off from the Government.
The second thing to do, we tentatively suggest, is to experiment with
legalisation. As with the abolition of capital punishment, the thing
should be tried out for a period, so that Parliament could easily vote
to restore the penalties if the experiment failed. But on that basis, we
would argue that the Government should draw up plans to legalise
cannabis generally accepted as the least dangerous of the drugs that
are widely used both for its consumption and for its supply. We do not
pretend that this would lead to an end, or even a diminution, of the
horrors of addiction. These, after all, are appallingly present with
legal alcohol. But we do think that it would start to take power away
from criminals, restore a respect for the law, and encourage the
drug-affected generations to grow up.
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