Mainlining subversion

Thursday, 6th March 2008

Sometimes an article appears of such stupendous and brazen irresponsibility that one can scarcely believe one’s eyes. In the Times, Camilla Cavendish writes that cocaine should be legalised. She thinks that the reason its use is so ubiquitous is because its illegality makes it glamorous. This argument is somewhat undercut by her observation that

Most of my generation thinks of cocaine much as our parents thought of single malt

but then intellectual coherence seems not to be her strongest suit. She thinks that buying cocaine legally from Boots or Superdrug would destroy the drug barons’ trade. This is risible. Legal drugs would be undercut by bootleg drugs that were cheaper. She thinks that ending alcohol prohibition in the US ended the black market in alcohol. But there is still a black market in alcohol as there is in cigarettes. The only way to prevent such a black market would be to make drugs totally free and available at all times.

In addition, far from ending drug use legalisation would massively increase it. Cavendish dimly grasps this but doesn’t seem to care:

Yes, legalisation would make drugs cheaper, in order to undercut the dealers. Yes, usage might increase. But perhaps not much, because it is already widespread.

Oh, so that’s ok then. What’s a few more destroyed lives to a Times columnist? She notes:

Annual deaths from drug use (about 2,000) are still minuscule compared with those related to alcohol and tobacco (about 160,000).

But deaths associated with drug use are only ‘miniscule’ compared with alcohol and tobacco because alcohol and tobacco are legal. Legalisation=greater use=greater harm and misery. Duh!

She brings up yet again the old chestnut of alcohol prohibition. But the availability of alcohol has created vast amounts of crime and destruction, as she herself acknowledges. The long-standing social acceptability of alcohol makes prohibition impossible; but given the harm that it causes, why should anyone in their right mind want to multiply such mayhem through legalising drug use?

Cavendish — who appears to have merely reproduced the propaganda pumped out by drug legalisation campaigners — parrots their line that it’s not drugs that are bad for us but the law. Indeed, she doesn’t seem to grasp why drugs are illegal at all:

… it is arguable that the violence associated with the illegal drugs trade does more harm than the drugs themselves.

She seems to think the only crime associated with drugs is caused by the drug trade. It doesn’t occur to her that people on drugs commit crime because the drugs destroy the moral sense that inhibits criminal activity in the first place. She sees the children killed through being caught up in the middle of a drugs turf war — but she doesn’t see the frenzied and psychotic killings by people off their heads with crack or cannabis.

She thinks that celebrity junkies such as Kate Moss or Amy Winehouse are not role models for drug use. What planet is she living on? Seeing celebrities using drugs and paying no price for doing so but continuing to be lionised and feted sends out the message to the young that drugs are cool, normal, fun and that the law is an ass. As a result they are more likely to take them. Cavendish’s article is likely to have exactly the same effect. What on earth was the Times doing running such a piece?