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Monday 21 May 2012

Drug Dealers in Favour of Prohibition

Monday, 29th March 2010

What does left mean these days? And what, for that matter, about right? Increasingly the divide that really matters is between the liberal and the authoritarian. When it comes to drugs, for instance, Melanie Phillips is an authoritarian. Well-intentioned, I'm sure, but an authoritarian nonetheless. This means that, whether she or the other Drug Warriors like it or not, they have more in common with drug-producers than consumers. Indeed, the Drug Warriors might be said, objectively speaking, to be furthering producer interests at the expense of the consumer.

This might help explain why marijuana producers in California are appalled that the state might, by referendum, legalise pot this year. Theyre right to be: if entry barriers are lowered it stands to reason that established producers will lose out and that their healthy profits may fall even though they'll no longer have to write off a proportion of their crop that's lost to raids, blundering, robbery or whatever. Current laws amount to a kind of rent-seeking that protects organised crime and discriminates against both the consumer and the small producer.

This is obviously offensive for any number of philosophical, moral and economic reasons. If Drug Warriors were really motivated by health concerns - witness the rush to ban mephedrone - then they'd favour legalisation since nothing would do more to spur innovation and the development of high-buzz, low-risk narcotics. But they don't really care about that because what they really object to is the buzz itself. Hence their determination to prosecute a pointless, expensive, futile, counter-productive, grubby, shameful war that won't be won. It's about scolding people and controlling their choices and never mind anything else.

In this instance the battlefield is drugs* but that's just one front in the struggle between Liberals and Authoritarians.

*Like most people I've hardly touched an illegal drug since I was at university. I have, then, no pressing or personal interest in the matter.

Filed under: California (12 more articles) , Drugs (86 more articles) , Libertarians (143 more articles)

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Kevyn Bodman

March 29th, 2010 5:08pm Report this comment

I've never,anywhere in the world,used a drug that is illegal in the UK.

I fully support the complete legalisation of drugs.

Legal drugs would be purer,(good) the dosage would be controlled (good) and the effects more predictable than now (good)so they would be less dangerous(good).

Legal drugs would allow users to buy without coming into contact with criminals(good).

People could continue to enjoy the buzz (good).

And there's much more that can be said.

THX1138

March 29th, 2010 5:10pm Report this comment

Well the dealers are going to happy, Alan Johnson just proscribed Mephedrone!

Rhoda Klapp

March 29th, 2010 5:13pm Report this comment

Always with the drugs and libertarian issue. I consider myself libertarian, but that's easy to say. Not so easy to work out how it would go in practice. There are just too many irresponsible people who'd get themselves into trouble, and so many softies who would help them when they need to be left alone. In my drug-law-free world addicts would not be helped. However, it is not easy to imagine a society evolving from our own in which no drug was proscribed in some way. After all, thousands of drugs are regulated. Would we consider freeing them all? For anyone regardless of age? These are the questions you must face in the libertarian/nanny debate. Not just the easy ones of low-risk buzz.

Incidentally, as a libertarian, there are a thousand laws I'd be repealing first before looking at drugs. And when I DID look, I'm pretty sure I'd still have to put a line somewhere, rather than free them all.

Steve Rolles

March 29th, 2010 11:57pm Report this comment

You and Melanie Phillips need to have long afternoon down the pub to thrash this one out.

William

March 30th, 2010 4:04am Report this comment

But Alex - the convention in the UK, which Melianie is paid to uphold, is that we do not ever think rationally about this issue. How did you slip through the net?

fifer

March 30th, 2010 9:32am Report this comment

Aha, another bolstering of my useful rule of thumb that, when it comes to complex issues, one can usually simplify matters by finding out what Melanie Philips thinks, as the rational and prudent answer will be the opposite. Splendid.

Beer Moth

March 30th, 2010 6:24pm Report this comment

THX 1138 et al

Here, as before, the clique claim that nothing can be done which will rid us of drug dealers (and so we must allow them to operate freely)

You might be right in that we will never be entirely free of such people. But you are wrong in your belief that we cannot alleviate the problem. All we need do is bring back the death penalty for drug dealers.

This would soon thin them out to a more agreeable level. I'm surprised none of you have thought of this.

Avudale

March 31st, 2010 1:05am Report this comment

Criminalizing people does far more damage than drugs. Rhoda Klapp, do you really believe there'd be no help available for people seeking help with drugs if drugs were legalized?

All the media attention devoted to Meow Meow will undoubtedly have made it appealing to many more people, and in all likelihood increased demand for it.

Beer Moth wants to kill all drug dealers. Place him in the Melanie Philips camp.

Beer Moth

March 31st, 2010 4:40pm Report this comment

Avudale

It was my camp before Melanie Phillips showed up

Richie Rich

April 1st, 2010 6:00pm Report this comment

Beer Moth above says that we should kill drug users and dealers, and that would help the situation. Unreal. Words fail to describe the appalling notion that murder, by the state or anyone else, is a remedy to substance use.

I assume that since no one dies from cannabis, and millions die from alcohol, he will also kill all drinkers.That would no doubt lower crime statistics dramtatically, and many lives would be improved. but at that cost? Never.

Nations that already put small time druggies to death still have drug users. For the profits made due to prohibition, poor people will sometimes in desperation violate the law, and putting them to death will not stop another similarly situated person from doing the same.

Also, believe this: in the USA at least, where most people are armed, people would shoot it out and kill cops by the score to avoid a death sentence for drugs. Can you imagine what would happen to the police if they stopped a car that had people unwilling to die for their pleasures...at elast without a fight. police funerals would be so frequent that traffic would come to s standstill.

Also, when the laws get racheted up to that degree, the cartels and really bad guys would go terrorist....why not? Asassinations, bombings and shootings would be brought to a new level if penalties were so severe that one might as well try and get away...at any cost. facing a death sentence means nothing left to lose...and society has a LOT to lose, thank you.

Keep your pie in the sky death nonsense stowed away...it cannot work and the last people who would want it would be the cops.

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