Articles RSSDrugs: A New Faith Based Politics
Daniel Knowles puts down a blunt challenge to anti-drug campaigners
In Britain, we like to think of ourselves as fairly rational. However bad we are, at least we accept overwhelming scientific evidence. We might fly more than anyone in the world, but we feel slightly guilty because we know that we’re burning the atmosphere up. Our education system is a shambles, but at least some of our children have heard of Darwin. With regard to the war on drugs however, this week our government abandoned such principles by sacking David Nutt - previously their chief scientific advisor - for criticizing the government approach to drugs classification. No longer is drug policy based on science. Instead, it has become an article of faith that drugs are bad, and policy works from there. Anyone who says otherwise is a heretic, even our most respected scientists.
Mr Nutt’s sin in this case was simply stating was has been obvious to most young people for years anyway. Outside of crack cocaine and heroin, most illegal drugs are much less harmful than our legal drugs of choice; alcohol and tobacco. People don’t vomit in clubs or pick fights outside kebab vans because they’ve smoked one spliff too many. As even Mike Skinner of The Streets has proclaimed, stoned people are nicer than drunk people. If our government really wanted to reduce ‘anti-social behavior’ amongst the thugs of Britain, they could do much worse than to swap every can of supermarket Stella for a couple of ecstasy pills or an Amsterdam style hash-cookie. Indeed, they do much worse, by liberalizing drinking laws even as they encourage new crackdowns on cannabis factories and cocaine importers. My mother, a sergeant in the West Midlands police, seems to spend most of her time planning raids on Vietnamese cannabis factories. Meanwhile, her custody officers spend most of their time dealing with drunks. It hardly seems an efficient use of police time.
Even Will Self managed to get through his degree, much of his time addicted to heroin.
Unfortunately for us, however, our government and a significant section of society have become so wrapped up in the idea of drugs being ‘evil’ that they simply refuses to see any other possible truth. Cannabis use is particularly indicative of this blindness.
Since the summer of 2007, when cannabis was ‘upgraded’ back to being a class B drug, right wing commentators have developed a sort of skunky hysteria, putting the blame for everything from knife crime through to the tragic death of Stephen Gately on the drug. Julie Myerson, a mother who evicted her cannabis-addicted son from her house and then wrote a book about it, has become a spokeswoman for this movement but one wonders how many parents there with alcoholic children in similar circumstances who haven’t written books. In my year at Oxford, I know three people who have been rusticated for alcohol abuse but not a single one forced out by drug abuse. Even Will Self managed to get through his degree and he spent much of his time at Exeter addicted to heroin. Cannabis abuse is far from being our biggest social problem.
Of course, my point is not that we should ban alcohol instead. Every right minded person knows that alcohol prohibition doesn’t work. Even the Daily Telegraph staunchly stands up for the right of middle class people to a glass (or bottle) of wine. Whilst the levels of alcohol use in this country can be quite startling, a degree of drunkenness is part of the price we pay for freedom. Perhaps we should accept that with drugs too. Few people think we should lock up every junkie or start shooting importers and dealers. In a sense, the war on drugs is already lost.
Unavoidable?
This is supposed to be a liberal society in which individuals are responsible for their own choices. If we are going to outlaw things simply for being dangerous - an approach which the Labour Party seems surprisingly keen on - then why not also ban skydiving or freestyle skiing? If we really are liberals then we should surely stand up for the right to snort a line of something or to suck on a spliff whilst working our way through a bottle of Jacob’s Creek. Our chief scientist after all says they’re all about equally harmful.
In any other case, we would welcome being told that something enjoyable is less deadly to our health than we thought. Instead, our leaders have decided to shoot the messenger for bringing good news. Apparently drugs are bad because they’re illegal, rather than illegal because they’re bad for us. That’s a tough Nutt to crack.
Comments in chronological order
Total: 2
Thu 19 Nov 2009 7:35pm
I have to say I'm not convinced. I am a 'liberal' and I agree that attitudes like mine lead to alcohol abuse - it's part of the cost that our society pays for the freedom to drink and one that we need to deal with by adequately taxing alcohol and informing people of it's negative consequences - without banning it that is.
I'd say with regard to illegal drugs, the issue is exactly the same. Lowering the classification of cannabis from B to C actually reduced consumption. Making drugs legally available, taxed and controlled and with regard to heroin and crack cocaine, possibly only through a doctor, we might see an increase in use but the benefits would massively outweigh those costs. Instead of junkies being reliant on criminal dealers, they'd get their kick from people daily trying to convince them to stop. Drugs would be clean, instead of cut with crystal meth or rat poison or whatever else it is now and doses would be reliable - so fewer overdoses. And that's just the benefits for users - the social benefits would be huge. You say that the chief source of income for the Taliban is drugs - surely that's because heroin is illegal? If we bought up the heroin opium crop directly from farmers, we'd wipe out half the Talibans income and benefit Afghan farmers whilst we were at it. Win Win. Same for drugs cartels in Columbia. You know more Mexican policemen have died in the last decade fighting the 'war on drugs' than have soldiers in the Iraq war? It's obscene, and the most ridiculous thing is - it doesn't stop drugs getting through, it just forces up the prices, giving more money to criminals and turning more addicts to crime.
And I don't do any 'enjoyable' drugs really - I took a lot of pot on my gap year in Canada but I tend not to here because well, the quality is crap - designed to get you ridiculously high instead of mildly mellow. Other drugs I've never really had the opportunity to try out, but I'd consider them. And if you'd still like a harmless pint, I'd be happy to oblige.
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Thomas Morris
Tue 10 Nov 2009 6:34pm
This has got to be the least informed article ever posted to this website. Having personally witnessed and spoken to people affected by drugs, and their families, you clearly have no idea of just how badly they can ruin a person's life. All this article has done is take the offhand meanderings of a scientist, who was then fired for the stupidity of his remark, and transformed it into a pompous excuse for drug abuse.
Clearly alcohol abuse is a bad thing, but the grand majority of us can control and level it. It's mindless, supposedly "liberal" attitudes like yours which LEAD to alcohol abuse. Furthermore, alcohol as a substance is much more likely to affect people in a standard way, such that the difference between a glass of wine on one person and another, is probably going to be minimal. A "couple of ecstasy pills or an Amsterdam style hash-cookie" however, could go a variety of different ways, ranging from a jolly good time to stone cold dead. Similarly, if you're so concerned by the issues that alcohol abuse is raising, then why on earth would you want to encourage the widespread use of drugs? As further argument, the profits from alcohol use are legitimate, pumped back into public expenses and support normal, everyday families, earning decent wages. The drugs trade however, funds illegal arms deals, terrorism and human-slavery across the globe. Even the most culturally backward human being knows the chief source of income for the Taliban in Afghanistan was (and in all likelihood still is) their drugs trade.
If you had any cultural awareness on this matter whatsoever, you may have watched Louis Theroux's documentary, 'The City Addicted to Crystal Meth'. If you didn't (and it wouldn't surprise me) go find it and watch it. Tell me then that drugs are "bad because they’re illegal, rather than illegal because they’re bad for us". Reduced to a toothless, homeless wreck, in and out of jail all the time with paranoid schizophrenia is not something commonly associated with the odd beer. Crystal Meth however, will quite happily let you ride that train. Equally, your example of Will Self is completely moronic, for lack of any better word. Before resolutely quitting, the man also self-harmed, cutting himself with knives and burning himself with cigarettes. Should we encourage this too? Basically Daniel Knowles, do you research.
Finally, a quick question. How many "enjoyable" drugs do you like to do? Don't feel you have to answer, but if it's anything except legal, maybe you'd like to talk about it over a harmless pint.