Law? What Law?

In all the consideration given to the issue of drug use and abuse within our society there is surely one question that is missing. What exactly are the laws for? If they are designed to protect a simple people from themselves then any trip to a club, town centre, suburban housing estate or shopping centre will prove their failure. And yet, one would suspect that, if challenged, your local politician would cite exactly that reason - i.e. these drugs are dangerous and evil and you need protection lest you go and kill yourself. The real question is - and we ask you to consider this very carefully - what do the politicians really know about the subject?

Think first of your local councillors (usually, but not always, middle class paragons of local virtue). Their experience of drugs could be written on the back of a postage stamp in letters three feet high, unless you count the spliff that it now seems fashionable to admit to smoking - but never strangely inhaling - when they were at University and didn’t know any better. Wait a minute... Surely the very act of taking a puff on that, now legendary joint, would indicate an intent which makes the subsequent refusal to inhale seem rather stupid - or perhaps they’re just being just a little economical with the truth...

Then what about all that coke that seems so freely available among the middle class that they all inhabit. Obviously they’ve never snorted a line at a dinner party. Or could it just be that what’s good for the political goose is not quite so good for the humble working class gander. Regardless of their own hypocrisy (or otherwise - after all they may be the paragons of virtue that they would like us to think) the laws these people are responsible for seem to be utterly counter productive.
Seldom do such laws ever catch the bad guys in all this. For some reason the men at the top never seem to get caught, instead it’s the little man growing a little weed or the guy supplying his friends with a little resin who end up languishing in prisons already full beyond the point of bursting.

At the same time it’s quite legal to buy alcohol... You’ll have to forgive me here as I have a fondness for a pint but there’s one thing I know for sure - alcohol leads people to kill other people, dope does not. Alcohol comes with a unique double whammy. It kills the user and endangers everyone else. But it’s taxed and it’s legal.
So we know that some dangerous drugs - i.e. alcohol and tobacco - are legal while others such as cannabis (which has proven health benefits - just check it out if you don’t believe me) is illegal when that very illegality is itself a breach of international law which states that a government cannot deny a medicine to its people.
For many years now (since the 1920’s) we have prohibited a range of substances for reasons never adequately explained. Indeed, many of these substances were known favourites of Queen Victoria - hardly Mrs rebellion!

Since prohibition the rules have changed many, many times, nearly always in the direction of the draconian. So what has the result been? Surely 70 plus years of such laws must have brought the problem under control? Once again, check out your own locality for proof of the foolishness of that assumption.

Imagine the scene - You have a severe headache and visit the doctor. He suggests that banging your head off the wall might help. I very much doubt that you would still be doing it after seventy years when the result has been the opposite of that advertised. So why do we persist with such stupidity in relation to drugs?
At present governments have no control whatsoever over the issue of drugs. The problem (if that’s what it is) is increasing every day just like the headache. So, maybe it’s about time to stop banging our head against the wall and look at the issue sensibly.

The drug issue blights the lives of millions worldwide. It blights the users and it blights the society in which it occurs. The costs to all societies are absolutely enormous and yet the gain for society is nil. Crime follows many drugs as surely as night follows day and yet, rather than examine the problem and try imaginative solutions, we merely throw more and more money and human resources at it without even a nod to the checks and balances that would be expected in any other area of public expenditure.
And, for all that expenditure I defy a single politician to look me in the eyes and tell me that the situation has improved for anyone.

Perhaps now is the time for a little confession: I am not a fan of drugs. There, I said it. But, when I was asked by the Cannabis Man to represent his interests on the internet I thought it only appropriate to avail myself of the facts available on the subject. After all, I wouldn’t represent a point of view I knew to be wrong.... I wonder how many politicians can say that?

Initially I believed what I had been told. Drugs are evil and they need to be crushed under the jackboot of our society in order for the rest of us to live in safety.
Such an opinion is widely held in what passes for polite society... but what if it’s wrong? What if the failure to deal sensibly - even honestly - with the issue is the root of the evils we all have to live with daily? Sadly, a close examination of the facts (by which I mean studies conducted all over the world and then ignored by the governments who sponsored them rather than the rubbish spouted by too many of our leaders and ignorant news editors) proves that there are imaginative solutions to some, if not all, of the drug problems we currently experience. Unfortunately these would need the sort of leap of faith politicians seem unable to make unless they’re sending bombers somewhere.

The drug issue needs a serious and honest debate. The truth needs to be spoken and research needs to be undertaken to find out exactly what good and harm these substances may do. At present, most drug users who die do so because of contamination of their drug and the lack of clear knowledge and understanding. That is surely both a national disgrace and a criminal waste of human life. Instead of seeking ways forward to find a way out of the maze of 70 years of regressive and repressive legislation we are trapped in an ever repeating loop of catching and locking up people whose crime may be no more than ignorance or having grown and smoked a little weed in the confines of their own home. Surely the day that a society starts locking up gardeners is the day it needs to step back and take a long, hard look at itself.

Joined up thinking would be a start. What about the current opium crop in Afghanistan? It is said, with some authority, that this crop will supply somewhere in excess of 80% of the heroin on our streets. In Parliament it has been suggested (and, of course, shouted down) that we should buy this crop. The wholesale price would, in the scheme of the drug problem be miniscule, Afghan farmers would have a cash crop and we could end a world shortage of morphine at a stroke. Perhaps we could even supply a medical version to users and remove them from the crime statistics and enjoy safer, happier streets.... But, no.
The question remains... Why?