"A Spoonful of Heroin"
First this, now this. It occurs to me, perhaps mistakenly, that I haven't seen a good discussion on the drugs issue on this page. Considering the health, safety, moral, economic and libertarian facets of the issue, just to name a few, what does everyone think the best approach to policy is on this matter?
posted by Pascals Bookie @ 11:15 AM
4 Comments:
Care to give us a few more details? "Drugs" is a sort of broad topic...
I'm with Soc. "Drugs" includes pretty much everything.
Eh, I don’t need such specifics to add in my thoughts… You want to know our thoughts on the decriminalization, or legalization, of narcotics that are now considered illegal. I am all for it, provided it is done correctly. I would cite The Netherlands as a society to aspire to as far as having a healthy attitude about drugs. And I mean healthy - All that legalization and permissive society has led to one of the lowest drug addiction rates in the world. I would also point out the UK and Canada, both of which have decriminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana in recent years, and, shocker of shockers, neither have become a den of sin.
HOWEVER, I think this ideal is not something that could be attained by the current state of affairs that is Mexico. Drug sales in The Netherlands are legal but highly regulated (especially heroin – users must register with the government). To be able to attain the level of safe regulation that countries like The Netherlands have achieved, you need to have local governments and law enforcements that are not nearly as corrupt as many Mexican officials are.
As far as US is concerned, I think legalizing certain drugs (marijuana, certain psychedelics), would probably be a bonus to the economy. The government would get tax revenue from the (highly taxed and highly regulated) sales, and people who are casual to moderate users, with no violent tendencies, wouldn’t be considered part of the criminal element and treated thus. I want to expand upon this more later – I just saw a documentary at the Tribeca Film Fest the other night on why it’s so difficult to repeal the Rockefeller Drug Laws in New York, and it was fascinating to learn about how much of a business the prison industry is.
Exactly like Kelly was saying. I didn't want to make the matter any more specific, because any one facet of it will affect how all others are treated. Nonetheless, here are a few less vague querries of mine.
Fox claims that his main reason for "vetoing" the bill - sorry if I'm using American terminology - was not because of the recreational drug users, but because of the violence and gang warfare among the traffickers. Fair enough, but wouldn't legalization take the traffickers out of the black market and into the free market (with regulations, of course) thus taking away much of the violent aspect?
Secondly, wouldn't regulated legalization also allow health and safety risks to be better monitored from several levels? For example, if instead of a crack house, let's say you had a crack "bar," where the proprietor was having to maintain his license and his insurance policy, with the bouncer equivilent keeping control. If things got out of hand, the proprietor would be able to call the cops in, with those two parties being on the same side, instead of the crack house owner obstructing justice and, as is often the worst-case-scenario, burning the place down to destroy all evidence? In this manner, many if not most violent repurcussions could be averted before they begin, and true Addiction with a capital A could be treated rather than sentenced. Not to mention that with free market economy driving the prices down, the rate of drug-related theft would all but disappear, becomming akin to stealing someone's stereo to buy a beer or a pack of cigarettes. Also, of course, regulated legalization would give rise to quality control in the product, which would likely erradicate most overdoses.
Thirdly, if legalization seems like a good option, should it apply accross the board, or just to certain drugs? PCP, for example, makes people ridiculously prone to violence, while methamphetamines are widely considered to blame for the recent explosion of AIDS and HIV in the gay community, which had been relatively careful about such matters through the late eighties and nineties. But any drug legalization could have negative repurcusions as widespread availability seeps into the schools and makes addacits out of people who otherwise might not have ever tried them. Obviously we can't ignore these effects. However, centering national drug control policy on the incarceration of drug users is neither effective nor is it justice. It's akin to if the cops in the twenties thought that arresting flappers would bring down the mob, and that bringing down the mob would mean that nobody wanted a drink. We need a new, comprehensive drug conrtol policy, which understands that each aspect of this issue affects all others.
That's why I wasn't more specific.
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