I’m someone who, as part of my political thinking, likes to maintain a set of “policies” which I will seriously propose implementing as part of my “Political Game” thought exercise simulation government. I have these “policies” for a great number of topics, and can usually rattle them off on demand. Of course, some are harder, and much bigger, than others.
Anyway, I was recently challenged by Rache Nehemiah to outline, concisely and in policy form, my proposed method for dealing with government control of drugs and drug use. Now, I must confess, I have no idea what to do about this. I’ve got a lot of “gut feelings” about this and that, but nothing concrete. So, over the last few days, I’ve been reading more opinion about it, trying to get a hook, a frame of reference that I can start from. Seems that all anyone else has is “gut feeling”, though, as well – either hardline anti-drug or permissive-at-any-cost total liberalisation and decriminalisation of everything.
So, I would like to start formulating such a policy, and would appreciate any insights ventured by the elite band of technocrats who frequent this cultured mecca of thought and science.
Right now my policy goes like this:
Drug Policy
I have divided the policy into three sections, according to the classes of drugs as I see them:
Hard drugs (opiates/concentrated derivatives eg heroin, crack) – “Addictives”
A total ban on all opiates + concentrated derivatives, harsh penalties on distributors and sellers, mandatory medical detention* and detoxification for users (but no criminal penalty).
The intention here is to totally stamp out these drugs, which I consider to be harmful to society as a whole in a degree surpassing any argument for civil liberties or tolerance.
This would combine with new, much harsher penalties for personal property crime/aggravated robbery in an effort to decimate this kind of offence.
* a new class of punishment – medical detention, involving the forced medical treatment of convicted users
Medium drugs (cocaine, LSD, speed(?), any others I don’t know) – “Psychotropics/Stimulants”
This is the segment I am unsure how to deal with. I don’t want to encourage it, but I don’t want to create an organised-crime distribution system around it. If possible I want government control over quality. Perhaps a prescription system with a new class of health care worker, “substance counsellor”, who has the power to write monthly prescriptions for users, at all times offering advice, information and guidance, and only on passing of some sort of psychiatric/medical test, and the subject exceeding 21 years of age.
What do you think? The main thing here is stamping out criminal involvement and controlling quality, without encouraging use in any way.
Light/Recreational Drugs (ecstasy, marijuana, GHB, et al) – “Recreationals”
There is no point trying to criminalise these common drugs – all it does is breed contempt for the law, fund organised crime, and endanger everyday people with low-grade backyard manufacturing. I propose government control and manufacturing of these drugs, which will be renamed recreational pharamaceuticals, available at registered chemists for $12/dose at the discretion of the pharmacist and only to adults of 18 years or over and in good health.
Further research would be undertaken into the long-term health risks of this class of drug and improvements made where necessary. Educational campaigns would be run to inform people of the risks and dangers of use and overuse, and pro-purchase advertising would be banned.
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Summary of actions taken/new infrastructure needed
- CREATION of govt manufacturing facility for all light/medium class drugs
- CREATION of new infrastructure for counselling, prescribing and testing users
- CREATION of new medical infrastructure to handle mandatory testing AND the handling of new detention class, “medical detention”
Right – that’s my best effort so far. Feedback?
September 27th, 2005 at 1:00 pm
lol “Medical Detention”. I guess it sounds like a good idea, but it sounds like it would violate some human-rights treaty somewhere. I also feel as though your stratification system is based more on your preference of drug than on rationality – heroin and cocaine (crack) are seen as bad simply because they are the drugs of choice of the poor and weak. Added to that is the severe physical addiction that accompanies heroin use.
I read an article recently, which I can’t find at the moment, that claimed that a good percentage of heroin users are able to maintain their habit whilst not letting it get out of control, hold stable jobs and basically not let it interfere overly with their lives.
The problem arises when poor people get a taste for it and are forced into crime to pay for its exorbitancy of price.
Physiologically, however, the same pleasure centres of the mind are stimulated in a similar way with most drugs. A recent “finding” but intuitively obvious was that nicotine affects the brain like heroin.
Amphetamine use might be said to be worse, given the oft-documented gradual deterioration of the body in such series of photographs.
How common this is, I don’t know.
As for my suggestion as to a workable drug policy, I feel that it is impossible to know the effects on society of any change as drastic as the legal availability of recreational drugs. Therefore, my recommendation is to firstly legalise all recreational drugs for sale to non-minors, with the same quality controls as are applied to the normal-pharmaceutical industry, with herbal preparations controled by the relevant food authorities.
They should just do it and see what happens. Problems will arise that were totally unforseen, and they can be dealt with as they present themselves. Trying to come up with a fool-proof, watertight system of regulation that includes the increased availabilty of drugs is impossible, and is probably subject to the failings of central government.
So just like Pandora, we should just open the box, then spend the rest of eternity trying to stuff everything back in (without ever really hoping to succeed).
September 27th, 2005 at 1:12 pm
Oh, and further – I feel that in a drug-prohibition free world, your “concentrated derivatives” will cease to be popular. One can buy extremely concentrated alcohol, but most people prefer wine and beer – only the desperate demand high alcohol concentrations. One might imagine that everyone would be smoking White Ox tobacco, given it’s ludicrous strength, but outside of prison, most people prefer light-cigarettes.
Why fuck your veins with intravenous heroin when high-quality opium can be bought from the local health-food shop? Why sit on the toilet with a crack pipe when there’s a jar of cocaine, or a bag of coca-leaves in the pantry?
Interestingly, I read somewhere recently that snorted concentrated cocaine became popular over the leaves being chewed or made into tea because the use of the crude leaves was seen to be somehow barbaric, and on the same level of classiness as the natives of south america.
Anyhow, I’m sure you see my point.