Pubdate: Thu, 28 Sep 2000
Source: Manawatu Evening Standard (New Zealand)
Address: PO Box 3, Palmerston North, Manawatu, New Zealand
Fax: +64 6 350 9836

CRIME AND DRUGS

Marijuana Prohibition Doesn't Work, Argues The Manawatu Evening Standard In An Editorial

Once again the connection between drug addiction and crime has been made explicit - not, this time, by some wild-eyed, hirsute pro-marijuana campaigner, but by a top Palmerston North policeman no less.

But it seems no matter how often the link is made, or by whom, the mindless `hang 'em high' brigade opposed to any change continues to prevail.

Prohibition doesn't work - it really is that simple and it is a fact being increasingly acknowledged in other parts of the world, even Britain, which isn't known for its social radicalism.

Earlier this year the conservative London-based Daily Telegraph newspaper, for example, joined the growing ranks of those calling for drug laws to be changed because patently they're not working.

They don't deter people from taking drugs, risking addiction and sometimes wrecking their lives.

As city police manager Dave Scott told Drug Arm: How else are most people going to pay for a $1000-a-week habit other than through the proceeds of crime, and more particularly, by selling stolen property?

It thus seems paradoxical for Mr Scott to then go on and attack a country such as Holland which has long since seen the light and instead of getting hysterical over drug-taking, allows it, under certain conditions.

Mankind has always consumed drugs of one kind or another - the trick, surely, is to try to take the crime and health risk out of it.

In an ideal world, people wouldn't, and we all ought to be educated on the perils and costs of addiction.

But prohibition is a nonsense.

Worse, it kills, and it fills the pockets of the criminal fraternity which Mr Scott and his colleagues spend so much time and effort pursuing.

If parallels are to be drawn, look at what happened when they banned alcohol in the United States in the 1920s.

Would Mr Scott have fancied being a policeman there then?

It's not a matter of tolerating an evil - just facing reality, and sensibly dealing with it.
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