Independent UK: Ban pot? Then you must ban tobacco, too

[marmar]

Joan Smith: Ban pot? Then you must ban tobacco, too
Change the law and we could focus on those with problems

Published: 11 March 2007
On Thursday afternoon I found myself on a panel at the British Library in central London, sitting next to a well-known dramatist. We were talking about copyright, a subject dear to every writer's heart, so I was startled when he suddenly launched an attack on the Government's ban on smoking in public places, which comes into effect on 1 July. It's not clear to me why any sensible person could possibly object to the Goverment's policy, which consists of regulation rather than an outright ban; for everyone except smoking extremists, such as my dramatist neighbour or the painter David Hockney, this clearly strikes the right balance between public protection and individual freedom.

If only government ministers were as intelligent when it comes to other, currently illegal, substances. In theory, drugs such as heroin, cocaine, cannabis and ecstasy are banned; in reality, they're as widely available as they've ever been. That's a policy that isn't working, in my book, yet when the Royal Society of Arts published the findings last week of a thoughtful, two-year review of drugs policy, the Home Office reacted with predictable froideur. The RSA pointed out that drugs are a matter of health as well as crime, estimated the number of "problematic" drug users at 350,000 and argued - without calling for legalisation - for a focus on harm reduction rather than crime reduction.

The Government is stuck in a prohibitionist mindset when it comes to drugs, failing to distinguish between the effects of different substances and behaving as though they're all destructive of the nation's moral fibre. This is absurd, given that hundreds of thousands of people have used cannabis without ill-effects (except, of course, from the tobacco with which they combine it).

It is a position which can't be sustained intellectually unless prohibition is extended to tobacco - which has killed millions of people, including my father - and alcohol, which leads people to commit all sorts of anti-social acts, from vomiting on pavements to public brawls and rape. If you think that wine, beer and spirits should be legally available, even though they have disastrous effects on a substantial minority, it's difficult to make a case for an outright ban on any but the hardest of drugs, such as heroin. ....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://comment.independent.co.uk/columnists_m_z/joan_smith/article2347443.ece

[MLFerrell]

1. How about just legalizing both?

And be done with it!

[kenny blankenship]

2. The drug war serves a vital social and economic function, which the writer has overlooked:

that of keeping the poorest classes at the end of a police revolver, and in turn, keeping the middle classes utterly terrified of slipping into the lower classes. Keeps everyone moving along towards the great goal of making money for banks and credit card companies.

In theory, it could be exchanged for almost any other pretext that could serve as an excuse for a state of neverending internal warfare of the state's power against the least powerful, but one must admit that the Drug War has been so successful in this role of providing a throbbing backbeat of coercion and terror that a better excuse is inconceivable and an equally valuable substitute to the Drug War can't be easily imagined.

[Prophet 451]

4. The drug war is a class war

It's rarely the banker snorting coke that gets busted, it's the working class kid with a blunt in his pocket.

[Prophet 451]

3. Hear, hear

Walk into any Casualty unit on a Saturday night and ask a nurse whether booze or pot causes more social problems. Dunk young men (and increasingly, women) fight. Stoned young men sit around eating Mars bars and watching re-runs. Maybe it's me but I'm not seeing a threat to society there.

I actually haven't smoked pot in years, just never much cared for it but it should be completely legal, subject to the same conditions as booze (age limits, prohibition on driving under influence and sold only from licensed vendors (although if someone wishes to grow their own for consumption by themselves or a few friends, it's not our business)). Although cannabis isn't entirely harmless, it is a great deal less harmful than many other things we habitually put in our bodies like tobacco (I'm smoking as I write this), booze and many prescription drugs. Legalising it could all go wrong and lead to a generation of unmotivated youths but experiments in other parts of the world (such as Holland and parts of Germany) suggest it probably won't. What's been done there suggests that the majority of people will trat pot much the same way most people treat alcohol: They'll have a joint or two in the company of friends or to unwind after a hard day and be no harm to anyone.

Add in the fact that we have socialised healthcare here which we need funds to sustain and the solution is obvious: Legalise pot under sensible restrictions, license off-licenses or pharmacies to sell it, tax the sales (NOT at exhorbitant rates or people will just stick to the black market) and pour the proceeds into the health service and treatment for addictions. Bingo, we no longer have a generation criminalised, we no longer force those whose only vice is a spliff to mingle with real criminals and the state gets a nice little revenue stream.

Legalisation for other drugs on a case-by-case basis.