A crack-brained strategy

Peter

What the government does not tell us,is that those on Methadone are refused a prescription if they miss an appointment.Users are therefore pushed back into the hands of the dealers until they qualify for another prescription.
Doubtless the new free drugs system will operate the same way perpetuating the cycle of dependency.

Kevyn Bodman

This is one of Melanie's ideas where I think she is consistently wrong. It seems to be based on moral revulsion. Why else should one want drug users to be punished just for using drugs? I recognise the damage that drug abuse can cause, I don't use drugs myself and indeed have never used a drug that is illegal in the UK. But plenty of others do want to use drugs, and they always will. The desire to use drugs cannot be eradicated, so to stifle or cut off demand it would be necessary to remove the purchasing power of potential drug purchasers. Short of removing the notion of freely-spent money from all consumers in society, so that all purchases are tracked, approved and recorded by the authorities then it can't be done. Even that would only cause the medium of exchange to become physical goods: MP3 players, DVDs or anything else portable and exchangeable.That would lead to more crime. The way forward is to legalise all drugs. License and tax the drugs trade as a legitimate business. The sale and use of drugs would not be a crime, but theft, robbery etc. still would be. Some people will ruin their lives through drug abuse. That will always happen; there is nothing to be done about it. But I contend that removing drugs from the criminal sphere would reduce the harm done to non drug-using individuals and the community. And I haven't even yet mentioned the freedom-loving argument that people should be able to do what they want with their own bodies. Part of Melanie's argument seems to be based on the idea of sin rather than damage to individuals or society;'no drug use will be tolerated' she says. Why not? Private drug use, at a private party or dinner, in someone's home? No harm, no foul. But some harm must come from the fact that harmless users have to deal with criminals in order to pursue their own private pleasure. Singapore and China have little or no drug problem? Maybe so, but at what cost? I don't know about Sweden. To those who are still ambitious to eradicate drug use, for your next trick you might like to eliminate prostitution? Another impossible task.

Roy

It has always been my view that the law enforcement procedures of western countries just play with the problem. For example, the moment a new technology appears on the scene that would help the police in their search, detect, and apprehend, the human rightists appear and declare foul. These weird human rights laws that have been installed willy nilly do nothing but complicate law enforcement and are more beneficial to criminals and their lawyers than they are to the general public.

david skinner

Will the government shortly bring out a law that criminalizes those who discriminate against those who take drugs. Will we have an addict phobic hatred bill that is based upon the claim that like black people, addicts are born and have no choice but to be what they are? Will we have a drug history month, whereby children, for one month in the school calendar, are taught of great people in history who were drug addicts and that consequently taking drugs is right and normal? Will we shortly have glossy booklets being given to our children in school, that give the message that taking drugs is a normal and inevitable rite of passage but that the smart and responsible thing is to take them safely and within a controlled environment and that if things go wrong they can always refer to a menu of government sponsored agencies who funded by tax payers will clear away the mess? As we see more and more children descending into barbarism by murdering one another and members of the public whilst high on drugs, will the government, whilst claiming success in making Britain a progressive country, claim that the solution lies in yet more government intervention, more initiatives like citizenship lessons, smaller class sizes, cookery lessons, more nursery care, compulsory and state directed parenting lessons, better housing, increased welfare, recreational facilities, the redistribution of wealth and even greater tolerance and inclusion? Will we soon find parents, teachers, doctors or bed and breakfast operators who refuse to accept that drug taking is a natural expression of one’s personhood, publicly humiliated, fined, loose their jobs, and maybe even end up in prison? Will we find lords and baronesses in the House of lords arguing for the use of drugs by invoking the name of William Wilberforce, claiming that he fought for the emancipation from all restraints and constraints ?

A.R.

Kevin Bodman: "I don't use drugs myself and indeed have never used a drug that is illegal in the UK." No, Melanie is consistently right on this issue. Drugs wreck the lives of addicts and their families. You may never use drugs but will you still be able to maintain the air of a smug liberal if or when someone you care about is harmed?

THX1138

Who are you to tell me what I can & can't do with my own body. If I want to smoke a spliff tonight after a hard weeks work, I bloody well will. All your sanctimonius moralinsng isn't going to make a blind bit of difference to me or anyone else. I thought you were a libertarian- member of The Stasi more like.

Kevyn Bodman

A.R. 'You may never use drugs but will you still be able to maintain the air of a smug liberal if or when someone you care about is harmed?' The only true answer I can give to that is that I don't know. Would ,or should, one negative personal experience affect a thought-out postion? If so, to what extent? I oppose capital punishment too, would I maintain that view if someone close to me was murdered? Policy should be made dispassionately, not emotively.

Dollar

"All your sanctimonius moralinsng isn't going to make a blind bit of difference to me or anyone else" says THX1138. Erm, Melanie's sort of moralising on drugs is often the last bit of hope for parents who are losing their children to schizophrenia and other "side-effects" of drug abuse. When the boundaries have been shattered in the home of a teenager, many desperate parents wish that the state would hold the line and send out the signal that they won't get away with drug abuse. With that gone, some parents are reduced to looking on in despair not knowing where their children's problems will end. We have hardly scratched the surface of the harm cannabis can do to people until it was recently downgraded and more and more it becomes linked to schizophrenia - especially in young brains. It's OK if some cynical old codger wants to do themselves in with drugs, but why must parents and friends have to stand back and see some people waste away as their addictions spiral downwards - and at such a young age. You no more win a war on drugs than you win a war on mugging, it doesn't then follow that you just do nothing. What you don't do is run up the white flag saying "OK, chums, do what you want". Even my heroes, The Rolling Stones, admitted as much recently. I think even they know that you have to make a stand somewhere. The free for all is not working.

Bemused

To THX1138: I'm curious as to the numbers in your "name". Is 11 your mental age and 38 your chronological one?

James Strong

I think 'Bemused' might be a politician. What he/she thinks is biting wit has made a zero contribution to what was showing signs of being a good discussion. Maybe he/she's even a frontbencher. There's certainly a place for him/her at PMQs with that sort of policy-void 'humour.'

Ian C

The first thing to do about drugs is to control the supply. To do that the financial incentive for suppiers must be removed. This means buying the produce as source e.g in Afghanistan and Columbia. International coop is needed for this. Then step one is to temporarily legalise provided it is supplied by the state. Anything outside that gets massively penalised through prison with enforced rehab. & fines. Next you give users a timescale to get off the habit. At the end of that all drugs are unacceptable and punished remorselessly. They need to become as unaccepatable as drinking and driving (why they are not is beyond me, they cause many more deaths and turmoil). International action is needed - all singing from the same hymn sheet so it becomes a standard. A huge initial investment in cash and political will is required. Turning a blind eye to even a spliff on a Friday night must become a non-option. That's where it starts to go wrong. This government's strategy is to repeat the blind eye mistakes of the past. Leadership and money - huge quantities of both, funded by the IMF/World Bank would be good for the world as the economic & social benefits would be vast.

A.R.

Kevyn Bodman: "Would ,or should, one negative personal experience affect a thought-out postion?" Please can you tell me how many real life "negative personal experiences" of the suffering of others it would take for you to reconsider your personally unaffected "thought out" philosophical position?

stanley Jerusalem

To both THX1138 and 'James Strong' I say a pox on both your houses. Firstly, 11 is his mental age and 38 his IQ.[ or maybe the other way round] Secondly, humour allows us to take a well-earned break before setting forth once more into battle. I would sooner defend someone's right to have an opinion than to prevent that opinion, no matter how pathetic, being aired. Yesterday it was illegal, today tolerated. I'm getting out of here before it becomes compulsory tomorrow. The late and great Bernard Levin often discussed the problem of the shifting fallacy. The decline in moral and ethical standards in the last 50 years in the UK have given us what we have today. Why are we so surprised? Acres have been written and forests obliterated in protesting the existence of Speed cameras. Who in hell asked you to speed? Do you think it's a God-given right? It's the same with all the other delicate boundaries to good and civilised behaviour. If you don't like the civilisation you live in and grew up in and despair of its improvement, put your money where your mouth is and emigrate. I did.

john doe

If you wish to criminalise 'drugs', then you have to do the same with alcohol and tobacco, which kill millions of people worldwide every year.The social, psychological and physical damage caused by alcohol alone far surpasses the harm done by 'drugs'. Disregarding this blatantly obvious reality is most disturbing.

Bemused, still

Ha, ha, I think James Strong might be THX1138!

Ellien

I wish to add another perspective to the debate here, that is the perspective of children growing up in households where a parent or parents are habitual drug users. Just ask the scores of children who are in the care of local authorities and on the Child Protection Registers, for neglect, abuse (emotional, physical, etc.) etc., whose parents were unable to give them anything resembling a secure and loving home, what they think and feel about drugs. They will tell you, if they are not too troubled, confused and disturbed by it, that it is utterly unfair on them and that it has messed up their lives. They will, if they can get it and make use of it, require highly specialist professional help, for many years, if they are to gain a feeling of security and self worth that can enable them to make something of their lives that can feel rewarding. But what of those who are born to drug addicted mothers? The mental and emotional consequences for these children are immeasurable. Chronic emotional confusion, leading to chronic behavioural problems, learning problems, social adjustment problems, and mental health illnesses, and...further drug addiction...and so on... and on...and on...

david skinner

THX1138, the claim that your body ( and I suppose your life) is your own is a bold claim indeed; it can be taken away from you at any moment: “ Come in number THX1138 your time is up.” Having landed your vessel you will be asked why the rigging, sails and hull are in such a state. The owner gave you a perfect ship; why is it ruined? As for the implied assumption that we are at liberty to live however we wish is not only a terrible conceit but a catastrophic delusion. We all conform and march in step. The reality is that we are under bondage to own compulsive natures and the standards around us. We are all creatures of our time; we cannot help but absorb and adopt the attitudes and pre- suppositions that happen to be in fashion at the time. Behind them all is this same message: stimulate yourselves now with whatever strong experience will give you a sense of being alive because this is all there is to a pointless and inconsequential existence. Twenty- first century, technological and post- modern society is manipulated and brainwashed on a massive scale, thanks to the power of the mass-media, by the quasi religion of evolutionary humanism which over a period of several hundred years but particularly during the last decades have trickled and permeated down through art, literature, film and finally into every recess of life- even to the man digging a ditch and the shop assistant . The terrible thing is neither the man digging the ditch or the shop assistant are liable to be able to articulate the fundament presuppositions that govern them or tell who wrote them. But maybe we could make a start with one of the high priests of evolutionary humanism, Aldous Huxley who incants in religious tones: "If we could sniff or swallow something that would, for five or six hours each day, abolish our solitude as individuals, atone us with our fellows in a glowing exaltation of affection and make life in all its aspects seem not only worth living, but divinely beautiful and significant, and if this heavenly, world-transfiguring drug were of such a kind that we could wake up next morning with a clear head and an undamaged constitution-then, it seems to me, all our problems (and not merely the one small problem of discovering a novel pleasure) would be wholly solved and earth would become paradise."

EyeSee

Kevyn: Nice moral tone, but I think you will find that Melanie is referring to right and wrong. Most drug use is choice, in that they also choose to push it as far as addiction. Weakness is not a disease any more than indulgence is. Self-discipline is based on self-respect, rather than bleating at mug liberals that you are a 'victim'. Both are pathetic leeches on our society.

John Doe

'I wish to add another perspective to the debate here, that is the perspective of children growing up in households where a parent or parents are habitual drug users. Just ask the scores of children who are in the care of local authorities and on the Child Protection Registers, for neglect, abuse (emotional, physical, etc.) etc., whose parents were unable to give them anything resembling a secure and loving home, what they think and feel about drugs. They will tell you, if they are not too troubled, confused and disturbed by it, that it is utterly unfair on them and that it has messed up their lives. They will, if they can get it and make use of it, require highly specialist professional help, for many years, if they are to gain a feeling of security and self worth that can enable them to make something of their lives that can feel rewarding. But what of those who are born to drug addicted mothers? The mental and emotional consequences for these children are immeasurable. Chronic emotional confusion, leading to chronic behavioural problems, learning problems, social adjustment problems, and mental health illnesses, and...further drug addiction...and so on... and on...and on...' Elliane: All the above can be said concerning families scourged by alcoholism....violence being a prominent ingredient Why are you ignoring this?

James Strong

I am not THX1138.

THX1138

Dave Skinner- The owner gave you a perfect ship; why is it ruined? I Dave I'm the owner of this body no one else & this body ran a 1hr 40 min half marathon last weekend & I'm 45 what's your half marathon time? I have the occasional hash cookie & I leave the really hard drugs of tobacco & alcohol totally alone. I will not lectured too by you or a newspaper columnists about what I can & can't do with my own body I will & can do what I like want with it & this weekend it will be hash cookie tonight while watching the directors cut of Blade Runner & a 10K on Sunday morning followed by Mothers Day Sunday lunch & I'm sure it will be a better weekend than yours.

THX1138

Dollar- Please tell me how society is to make the distinction between "some cynical old codger wants to do themselves in with drugs"for whom you say that's OK, & "some people" who is going to decide who is a "cynical old codger" & who is" some people" ? Are "some peoples" lives more important than "cynical old codgers"? I suppose in your tortured bitter logic they must be. How many people abuse perfectly legal prescription drugs & alcohol? Far more than illegal drugs I would wager. You can legislate against some drugs all you like but as we all know you cannot legislate against human nature & some people will always need a chemical prop to help them through the ups & downs of life. The obvious answer is to legalize the lot & help the people who go too far.

Nathan

The trouble with absolutist arguments like the above is that they depend absolutely on the depravity of the practice they wish to stamp out. Hence the insistence on the dangers of cannabis, the move to class private actions as a danger to society, and the implicit abhorrence and contempt of drug users. The medical and sociological evidence is much more subtle and nuanced than any such position can admit. As a historical observation, it is also worth pointing out that 'sodomy' and 'sodomites', so called, were attacked in precisely this manner for many centuries, to great ill effect.

John Doe

THX1138....You are making a lot of sense here. The mere suggestion of criminalising you for partaking of a relatively harmless, and even beneficial hash cookie,inasmuch as it enhances and deepens your enjoyment and appreciation of Blade Runner, facilitating a relaxing weekend, is nothing short of rampant Calvinism and fascism.Keep up the battle against intolerance,control and bigotry.

Tom

I sympathise with those who want to keep drugs illegal because they believe that drug use causes immoral behaviour. However, they are mistaken. Drugs merely alter a brains's internal environment. They can't convey complex ideas like theories of what to do next. Each user will act differently according to his character and inclination. Some people use drugs to achieve violent or semi-conscious states of mind. But they'd find ways to do this even without drugs. They remain responsible for their actions, whether they like it or not. Since only the potential user knows his motives, only he can determine whether further use would be good or bad. Some bad uses might be: because it's Saturday night, because I'm shy, because my friends are doing it, because I can't stand being with my family. Some good uses of drugs might be: attaining personal insight, soothing a troubled mind, relieving pain.

john doe

Nobody has the right to tell me what I can and can't put in my body. This is totalitarianism. All plants generated by Mother nature are God's gift and free for all to ingest if they wish. I am tired of this blanket term 'drugs'. There are spirits, nicotine, narcotics, pharmaceuticals/synthetics, and entheogens( otherwise known as psychedelics). Uppers and downers. All these are very different from each other with their own set of challenges. Some are beneficial and some destructive.It is absurd to group them together and demonise them all. The Swiss government has recently authorised two studies...one using LSD as a therapeutic tool to reduce death anxiety in patients suffering from terminal illnesses and the other utilising MDMA to treat Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. These are important studies which will rehabilitate unfairly demonised substances that can positively transform our consciousness in the right setting with the right mind-set. The arguments presented here by Melanie and others are way too simplistic and are in dire need of further education in this subject.

David Lindsay

There is one fact about the drugs debate which is never, ever mentioned. Nor will it be while public life is still dominated, inevitably but by definition temporarily, either by old pot-heads or by those who came after them, the Eighties types who believe that cocaine-snorting is an integral part of, as someone once put it, "a normal university experience". That fact is that drug abuse is now abnormal and in decline among the young. It was a distinct minority pursuit even when I was an undergraduate. Now that I work with undergraduates, I have repeatedly heard them drop hints that, while they themselves don't "do" drugs, they feel that they are somehow missing out by not "doing" them because so to "do" is an integral part of, as someone once put it, "a normal university experience". No, it is not. Not any more, anyway. Our day will come. And not a moment too soon.

john doe

David Lindsay:....but getting plastered in the Student Union bar regularly and acting like a neanderthal IS standard university student behaviour. But that's ok isn't it?

THX1138

John Doe- Thanks for the support. A bit of spliff really does help that fantastic Vangelis score. Never have music & image been in more perfect harmony than in Balde Runner & the kids are on a sleep over. Bliss

Dame DeVille

How ghastly, what a scary prospect all that state-enforced stamping out! Like China!

Why would that be better? England Policed like China but no 'drugs' sounds far far worse to me than what we've got.

There is no such thing as 'drugs' there are all sorts of substances, some synthetic and some entirely natural that alter us human beings moods and we seem to like them, all societies, all cultures, all ages, now and in the past.

Skunk has got be the most natural intoxicant around. You grow it, you cut it, you smoke it! It is Hemp, you can't eradicate something like that it's like trying to Outlaw garden weeds!!

To imagine that you can eradicate all this, utterly, completely, by force of Law, at this time and in this place is a stupid notion - we are not competent to stamp out crime as it is and if we were I would not want to live in the Police State that would have to arise to make it happen!

It is this sort of simplistic tough-stance rubbish that always prevents us from getting anywhere near to having a sensible and workable policy on 'drugs'.

Nathan

David, you have some statistical support - drug use has indeed fallen off from its 60's peak. However, it is no longer falling very quickly, if at all. In 1997, almost at the peak of Ecstacy usage, 8.5% of young adults were using Class A drugs. In 2007, that figure was 8%. I can also take you up on a personal level. The difference between drug users who are undergraduates now, and one's who were undergraduates in the 80's, is that while the latter are now Opposition Leaders, executives and other such, and hardly likely to lose status or anything else by admitting past drug use, the former are looking for their first jobs in an environment where their personal data can be accessed far more readily than ever before. Young people aren't stupid - if they see a risk in revealing drug use, they won't. But if you do happen to be a drug using undergraduate, the experience of meeting someone you never suspected in a club like Fabric is surely not unfamiliar to you.

Joe Strummer

I couldn't care less if despite the millions of pounds spent on anti- drugs campaigns, idiots want to destroy both their minds and bodies by the hardest drugs they can find. What I don't want to hear, however, is the self-pitying whining of the " horrors of addiction" by these very same morons.

field

My previous post didn't make the cut - not sure why. I'll try again with a summarised version., Drugs and humanity go together since time immemorial - Shamanism. Always closely associated with the arts - jazz, rock, most artists, writers. Can't have one without the other. Get rid of illegal drugs - still have the scourge of prescription drugs people going round like Zombies. Also dangerous. Don't want to live in China, Sweden or Singapore. Want to live in UK, with bingeing

David Lindsay

Thanks, Nathan. And John Doe, even that's not as bad as it used to be. Mind you, that could be because these days they all got it out of their systems when they were about 15.

Tony Allwright

The basic issue is not one of morality per se, but of the law. If the law decides drugs are to be outlawed then it should be implemented - or rescinded. And the ONLY ONLY ONLY way to stop the drugs business is to relentlessly pursue and punish drug USERS. Forget about pushers and growers. They're incidental. Lock as many of them up as you like and they'll be instantly replaced. Not so with users. Every user locked up or forced though punishment to give up injecting means less drugs trading. It is users who provide all the demand and all the cash in the supply chain. No-one else. So stop the users and you stop the trade dead in its tracks. But that entails watching large numbers of your friends and relations being carted off by the law, so it won't be popular. But failing this, you might as well legalise the wretched chemicals. The taxes on cigarettes and booze, combined with early deaths, more than pay for the harm they do. Doubtless the same would be true for drugs.

zelda harris

when we were being rocketed by the Nazis in WW2 the RAF went into France and bombed the daylights out of them until it ceased. As a child at the time I will never forget what we went through.There were no people sitting on the morale high ground telling the UK not to do it.Wake up world what happens in the ME today can soon be happening at your local.Only this time it will be through terrorism which you wont know how to deal with.Stand up for Israel while you still have a chance Zelda Harris Tel Aviv western world was not breathing down britains neck not to kill innocent citizens.The western world was occuppied by the Nazis.