The real drugs question: why trust one and not another?

It probably won’t come as a surprise to readers that TRWS might have an opinion on the drugs question...

Because sometimes, one Tommy gun just isn't enough...

Now, former altar-boy that he is, the Croppy has no truck personally with this kind of degenerate behaviour but can’t help nevertheless, approaching this dilemma through the application of simple first principles.

Prompted by the news today that Labour backbencher Bob Ainsworth --  the MP for Coventry North East -- claimed that the war on drugs has been "nothing short of a disaster", TRWS can only agree. Ainsworth, who served as a drugs minister in the Home Office (and also as defence secretary), went on to suggest that ‘it was time to study other options, including decriminalising possession of drugs and legally regulating their production and supply.’

Labour leader Ed Milliband wasted no time distancing himself from his frank backbencher’s views. As of course will every person who sees themselves as right-thinking. Drugs are bad so they must be illegal runs the knee-jerk logic as far as I can see.

There are two fundamental truths that remain to be grasped and until they are, there will never be a rational drugs policy.

The first being; drugs are indeed bad, it's true. But it's equally true that their use (and abuse), in one form or another, has been a constant feature of human culture since prehistory. In our own culture, we have an irrational attachment to one particular substance which, if it came to the market now as a new drug, under current rules it would immediately be labelled a Class A controlled substance and listed as a poison. (But then we all know what happened when the US tried to outlaw alcohol.)  

Danny: "If I medicined you, you'd think

a brain tumour was a birthday present"



This senseless, almost arbitrary categorisation of mind-altering substances into degrees of legality is based on the flimsiest of rationales. (Withnail & I’s Danny critiques it much more eloquently: ‘Why trust one drug and not another?’).  

So, without going too far into primitivist anthropology, we can probably take it as a given that the use of mind-altering substances has long been with us and that doesn’t look set to change any time soon.

If that is the case, is criminalising the behaviour of millions the right way to deal with what is effectively a species trait? Ordinary people, going about their daily lives, are being labelled criminals by virtue of nothing more than the mere possession of a substance which happens, by random cultural happenstance, to be censured.


Apart from a perceived modicum of social respectability, why should alcohol be legal but marijuana or ecstasy illegal? Are drunks somehow more deserving of the law's protection than stoners or ravers? I know which I'd prefer to meet in a gang on a Friday night....

It should also perhaps be submitted that even with the deterrent of criminalisation, it is clear that significant sections of the population are prepared to take that risk in the search for kicks. This is clearly an issue in society from top to bottom; the very money in our pockets is 80-90% likely to be contaminated with cocaine...

Criminalisation simply doesn’t work. The second point to take on board is that not only does criminalisation not work, it’s actually what feeds the 'war on drugs' in the first place. By ever allowing such a hugely lucrative trade fall into the hands of criminals, the stage has been set for a 'war' that can never be won. (Unlike of course The Opium Wars which were won, but then, they were wars for drugs and the right to sell them.)

It’s like the American Prohibition era never happened. Were any lessons learned from the meteoric rise of organised crime? The American experiment only proved one thing; you ban something people want, it won’t stop the market for this product, it merely takes legitimate players out of the market and replaces them with real Darwinian capitalists for whom car-bombs and political assassinations are nothing more than business tactics.

One of the corollaries of legalisation is that the criminal monopoly of the drug trade and its revenues could be taken away from the criminal class for whom it has been an almost endless source of (tax-free) cash. Again citing the US precedent however; it would be realistic to be prepared for the emergence of a whole new class of ‘Joe Kennedys' (ie. recently-turned legitimate and cash-rich entrepreneurs of the new repeal).

There is of course the argument that legalisation would cause a massive increase in consumption but there is little real evidence to suggest that would be true. Doubtless, there would be a very brief spike of increased use but figures would normalise again in the mid to long-term, probably following a similar trajectory to that we might find with alcohol following Prohibition’s repeal.


The reality of the situation is that, irrespective of legality, some behaviour is not considered socially acceptable and most forms of drug use (legal or illegal) outside specific social circumstances are generally censured; the mere changing of a substance's legal status is very unlikely to transform that social norm. Or put another way: even if it was legal, crystal meths would not be acceptable in polite society.
 From a health and safety perspective, there are also real benefits to a more informed legalisation policy. For one thing, drugs could be sold to a strict health department standard, with no uncertainty of quality or source and therefore less risk in consumption. 

Nobody's advocating an overnight licencing of crackhouses. There should nevertheless be a more reasonable response to calls to revisit the issue. When it is raised, legalisation should, at least on available evidence, merit serious and grown-up debate about the contingencies of such an approach, not just the same old 'drugs are bad' mantra. 


Surely it's the conditions which make people seek oblivion that are bad. After all, if we really wanted to fight a war on drugs, I'm guessing we'd be a lot more serious about the war on poverty. (remember that one?) 

We already pay for the damage that drug use causes in our society through our health and welfare systems (as well we should), all I’m saying is, why don’t we try and claw some of that back through customs and excise instead of giving it all to the Escobar estate? Surely a market-led society can appreciate that?