So what is there to understand?

Image by mmcrae01 via Flickr

• “The last few years have seen an extraordinary shift in thinking about this issue with increasingly mainstream figures arguing we should consider legalisation as an alternative to what they regard as the failure of the law-enforcement strategy.” – BBC’s Mark Easton
  
• “I think what was truly depressing about my time in the civil service was that the professionals I met from every sector held the same view: the illegality of drugs causes far more problems for society and the individual than it solves. Yet publicly, all those people were forced to repeat the mantra that the Government would be “tough on drugs”, even though they all knew that the policy was causing harm.” – Julian Critchley (Ex- director of the UK Anti-Drug Co-Ordination Unit)
• “The only completely effective way to ameliorate the drug problem, and especially the crime which results from it, is to bring the industry into the open by legalising the distribution and consumption of all dangerous drugs, or at the very least by decriminalising their consumption.” – Alan Duncan MP, Conservative Former Cabinet Member
  
• “If the UN is right and drugs account for 70 per cent of organised criminal activity,’ argues Glenny, ‘then the legalisation of drugs would administer by far the deadliest blow possible against transnational organised criminal networks.” – Misha Glenny
• And here we come to the vital distinction between the advocacy of temperance and the advocacy of prohibition. Temperance and self-control are convertible terms. Prohibition, or that which it implies, is the direct negation of the term self-control. In order to save the small percentage of men who are too weak to resist their animal desires, it aims to put chains on every man, the weak and the strong alike. And if this is proper in one respect, why not in all respects? Yet, what would one think of a proposition to keep all men locked up because a certain number have a propensity to steal? – Felix Mendelsohn, 1915
  
• Image via Wikipedia“The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced.” – Albert Einstein
• “As long as the government can arbitrarily decide which substances are legal and which are illegal, then those who remain behind bars for illegal substances are political prisoners.” – Paul Krassner, 1999
  Image via Wikipedia
• “There is, in my opinion, no government policy that is as immoral as drug prohibition…” – Nobel Laureate, Milton Friedman
  
• The government is good at job creation. Every arrest of a drug dealer creates a new high-paying job opening. – Peter Guither
  
• “In the end, legalization of certain substances may be the only way to bring prices down, and doing so may be the only remedy to some of the worst aspects of the drug plague: violence, corruption, and the collapse of the rule of law.” – Jorge Costaneda – Mexican Foreign Minister
  
• “No one is asking for some free-for-all for drugs. I want drugs to be controlled and regulated, but we do not want to allow what has happened over the past thirty years to continue, whereby, in an illegal market, criminals – irresponsible people – sell poisoned drugs that kill young people. We want to say to those irresponsible people that we will control them, take their market away and not allow young people to be their victims any more. I believe that the experience of Switzerland and the Netherlands, and now of other countries, is that the only way to do that effectively is to collapse the market by replacing it with one that can be regulated, licensed and controlled.” – Paul Flynn MP Labour
  
• “The fundamental problem is the collision between the dramatic rise in the use of drugs and a policy that prohibits them. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, that drug users impinge on the rights of other people only when they steal, and they have to do that only because of prohibition.” Liberal Democrat Baroness Walmsley
  
• “I joined the unit more or less agnostic on drugs policy, being personally opposed to drug use, but open-minded about the best way to deal with the problem…However, during my time in the unit, as I saw more and more evidence of ‘what works’, to quote New Labour’s mantra of the time, it became apparent to me that … enforcement and supply-side interventions were largely pointless. They have no significant, lasting impact on the availability, affordability or use of drugs.” – Julian Critchley -Former director of the UK Anti-Drug Coordination Unit in the Cabinet Office

  —
  Blair Anderson ‹(•¿•)›

  Spokesperson on Climate Change, Environment and Associate ‘Shadow’ Law And Order.
  #6 ‘on the list’ http://www.republicans.org.nz/

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‘Drug Sanity Revisited’ by Dave Currie

Drug Sanity revisited
20/9/2008

A very good afternoon to you. The programme you are listening to is ‘Drug Sanity revisited’ and is presented for the Drug Policy and Education Council, DPEC. I’m Dave Currie. Today I will present the third of six scheduled monthly programmes.

I’ll start by observing that it is hard to understand why New Zealand governments have failed to come up with any reforming legislation to ameliorate the disastrous policies of the New Zealand Misuse of Drugs Act. This came into force in 1975 as a rubberstamping exercise in parliament; that is there was no debate on the issue whatsoever. The legislation was copied from the original Misuse of Drugs Act first conceived in the USA by President Richard Nixon. And this makes one wonder how much of our government policy comes from the USA. After all we have fought in all the American inspired wars since the Vietnam war, and I have often wondered whether it is really in our interest to be sucked into wars against nations who are never likely to come across and invade New Zealand. Perhaps this is a private view but I think our biggest enemy could possibly be the very nation who we are in alliance with.

One question to ask is why have so many nations been sucked into adopting destructive American Drug Policy?

I think the answer lies in an International Treaty called the ‘Single Convention on Drugs’ formulated by a crooked drug policeman called Harry Anslinger who took on the role of preventing recreational marijuana use by introducing the Marijuana Tax Act in 1937. The Tax Act also had the effect of making medical experimentation with cannabis almost impossible because of all the paperwork that Physicians were obliged to fill in. Anslinger was the head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. Alcohol had been prohibited since 1920 but public pressure ended it in 1933. Anslinger required another drug to take alcohol’s place and justify the Bureau’s existence. Marijuana filled the bill and to prohibit marijuana more effectively, in addition to the Tax Act he introduced the Single Convention on Drugs as an international treaty. This made any drug that was illegal in the USA automatically illegal in countries that had adopted the Single Convention. However the Single Convention has an out clause, which allows countries that have denounced the treaty to be no longer bound by it.

We should ask whether it is appropriate that laws put up by a crooked American policeman should apply here in New Zealand. I think New Zealand should denounce the Single Convention and join the growing list of countries that are using common sense rather than blind allegiance to destructive American Drug Policy. Indeed there is growing recognition by people in the administration of anti-drug policy that the policy is flawed and actually causes more harm than actual drug use.

Last month the former head of the United Kingdom Anti-drug Co-ordination Unit, [UKADCU], Julian Critchley, posted to the BBC Home Affairs correspondent, Mark Easton’s blog, ‘The War on Drugs’, calling for the legalisation of drugs. Critchley said, he thought what was truly depressing about his time in the Anti-drug unit was that the overwhelming majority of professionals he met, including those from the police, the health service, government and voluntary sectors held the same view: the illegality of drugs causes far more problems for society and the individual than it solves. Yet publicly, all those intelligent people were forced to repeat the nonsensical mantra that the government would be ‘tough on drugs’ even though they all knew that the government’s policy was actually causing the harm.

Today, as the notion of legalising drugs is making its way into the mainstream political agenda for the first time in living memory, one of the most common objections to it is that it represents a high-risk experiment whose outcome cannot be accurately modelled or predicted. However Dr John Mark’s Widnes experiment clearly showed that if drugs are legalised in the proper way all the most harmful outcomes from drug use are eliminated. And it makes sense to have a controlled market in drugs. After all if there is a demand for a commodity someone will always come up with a supply. And if businessmen within the law are not allowed to be drug dealers, criminals will readily take up that role. In fact as Ethan Nadellman pointed out, the real beneficiaries of USA drug policy are criminal drug dealers.

Last month I was invited to a Harbour City Rotary Club meeting where the former Canadian Judge, Jerry Paradis was guest speaker. Judge Paradis retired as a judge for the Provincial Court of British Columbia, in 2003. During his time on the bench, he dealt with over a thousand cases involving the possession, trafficking, or production of drugs. His experiences led him to become a member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, (LEAP) for short, an organisation comprised of current and former members of law enforcement and criminal justice communities who speak out about the failures of existing drug policies. He came to New Zealand as an Executive Board member of LEAP to present to the New Zealand Law Commission’s review on Drug Policy and the Law, and to undertake speaking engagements around the country from the 20th of August to the 12th of September.

The title for the judge’s Harbour City Rotary address was ‘Prohibition is not just a failure, it’s a self perpetuating policy disaster!’ The judge dealt with the huge cost of prohibition and showed it was a failure because of the high rate of imprisonment caused by prohibition and the necessity of having to build more and more prisons.

John Marks’s experiment in Widnes showed there was a lot of extra real crime generated from prohibition as a result of drug users committing property crime in order to afford the costly drugs they bought on the illegal market. And prohibition doesn’t really cut down on the number of drug users, so the question to ask is whether the prohibition is pointless in not having any effect on the drug market. Indeed Dr John Marks’s Widnes experiment described in the first of this series of Drug Sanity programmes found that by supplying users with drugs of their choice, along with instructions for their safe use, led to the demise of the illegal drug market. This in turn reduced the number of new recruits to drug use.

It is encouraging that it is not just in the UK that professional people like Julian Critchley are sceptical of the value of prohibiting drugs. After all people should have learnt from the American experience and its disastrous historic alcohol prohibition. That prohibition clearly did not work and produced a major breakdown in law and order and an army of gangsters like Al Capone. Policy makers who do not learn from big mistakes made in history are bound to repeat them. Going back to Judge Paradis’s address, he made mention of the’ Canadian Government’s Le Dain Commission of Inquiry into the non-medical use of drugs. The Commission’s 1970 report while baulking at recommending legalisation of cannabis nevertheless came out in favour of decriminalisation. It recommended non-prosecution for minor crimes of possession or selling small amounts of cannabis and the criminal records of those who had committed such minor crimes be expurgated. President Nixon’s Commission of Inquiry led by Governor Shafer reported in 1972 and was slightly more liberal in its recommendations. While not recommending legalisation it nevertheless supported the idea of partial prohibition where for instance the law would turn a blind eye to possession by individuals in private of small amounts of marijuana. In addition it recommended that penalties for other marijuana offences be made less severe.

The NZ Blake Palmer Board of Health Committee‘s report of 1973 recommended that the prohibition of marijuana be continued so long as it was shown to be largely effective. As the present rate of cannabis offences is well over 20 times the 1973 level it is clear the marijuana prohibition is absolutely ineffective. It is becoming clear that there is quite a lot of support for a law change for marijuana amongst some members of the NZ parliament. This came over in the report of the 1998 Health Committee Inquiry into the Mental Health Effects of Cannabis. The Committee recommended that the Government review the appropriateness of existing policy on cannabis and reconsider the legal status of cannabis. The later Health committee ‘inquiry into the public health strategies related to cannabis use and the most appropriate legal status’ came out with a report in August 2003. Although the Committee did not recommend having a controlled legal market in cannabis it did come out with some softening recommendations, namely, that the government consider diverting minor cannabis offenders into compulsory health assessment for first possession and use offences, rather than a criminal conviction. The committee also recommended that the police expand the diversion scheme to all parts of NZ with the aim of reducing the number of minor cannabis offences through the courts. By and large the report was very disappointing but shows in my view that NZ has a lot in common with the USA in having a puritan religious group who want to control every aspect of life in other New Zealanders.

At this point I will ask a leading question, namely who has the right to determine what victimless activities are allowable to people. A second question I ask is why should any particular group have any more right than other group to proscribe victimless activities that does not affect anyone else. I will say more on this next time.

The time has now come for me to close with a short advertisement for my book ‘Marijuana- facts and case for legalisation’. You can get a copy by telephoning me at Wellington 5891902. That is 5891902. Listen in to another Drug Sanity programme in four weeks time. Good afternoon and have a good day.

/Dave Currie

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Critchley Deserves Whistle Blower Award [Drug prohibition – an untenable hypocrisy]

Image via Wikipedia

Former Director of UK Anti-drug Co-ordination Unit calls for legalisation
The former head of the UK Anti-drug Co-ordination Unit (UKADCU – the Home Office department in charge of drug policy), Julian Critchley, posted to BBC Home Affairs correspondent, Mark Easton’s blog last week, ‘The War on Drugs’ , calling for the legalisation of drugs [TDPF, UK]
(snip)

“I think what was truly depressing about my time in UKADCU was that the overwhelming majority of professionals I met, including those from the police, the health service, government and voluntary sectors held the same view : the illegality of drugs causes far more problems for society and the individual than it solves. Yet publicly, all those intelligent, knowledgeable people were forced to repeat the nonsensical mantra that the Government would be ‘tough on drugs’, even though they all knew that the Government’s policy was actually causing harm.”

Julian Critchley is to be congratulated for speaking out with such candour on the issue. One can only wonder how many other former civil servants are of the same opinion, but haven’t gone public.

Ex-drugs policy director calls for legalisation
Julian Critchley, the former director of the Cabinet Office’s anti-drugs unit, also said that his views were shared by the “overwhelming majority” of professionals in the field, including police officers, health workers and members of the government [Guardian, UK]

Tough-on-drugs policy ‘pointless’
Britain’s policy of being tough on drugs is “pointless”, says a former civil servant who once ran the Cabinet’s anti-drugs unit [BBC, UK]

He also said the “overwhelming majority of professionals” he met, including those from the police, the health service, government and voluntary sectors, held the same view. “Yet publicly, all those intelligent, knowledgeable people were forced to repeat the nonsensical mantra that the government would be ‘tough on drugs’, even though they all knew that the government’s policy was actually causing harm.”

Drugs Legalisation: The First One Hundred Years
Today, as the notion of legalising drugs is making its way into the mainstream political agenda for the first time in living memory, one of the most common objections to it is that it represents a high-risk experiment whose outcome cannot be accurately modelled or predicted [Canna Zine, UK]
(snip)

History offers, too, an illustration of how a society legally permeated by today’s illicit drugs used to function, and shows that high levels of overall drug prevalence can coexist with low levels of problematic use.

Finally, it offers a chance to evaluate the tools of control and regulation which might form an alternative to our present policy and which, once an outright ban has failed to prevent availability of any drug, have historically proved the most effective response. / Mike Jay Emperors of Dreams: Drugs in the Nineteenth Century (Deadalus 2001).

While the rest of the world reports on a border war disturbingly bereft of the link to drugs; see the World Media comment on this crucial peacemaking initiative.

/Blair

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