Pubdate: Sun, 16 Apr 2006
Source: Sunday Herald, The (UK)
Copyright: 2006 Sunday Herald
Contact:  http://www.sundayherald.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/873
Author: Iain Macwhirter
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)

PUBLIC POLICING: THE WAY FORWARD FOR ALL ADDICTIONS

Holyrood Commentary: Iain Macwhirter

And then nothing happened. It's three weeks since the smoking ban hit  
Scotland's pubs, clubs and cafes. We were warned of mass  
disobedience. Critics claimed it was an offence against civil  
liberties and said that Scots would defend their freedoms against the  
nanny state. The result, they said, would be chaos.

Well, surprise surprise, the majority of Scots have abided by the  
ban. There has been not a hint of violence and bars are reporting  
soaring sales . Suddenly, pubs are pleasant places to meet, and eat -  
and your clothes don't have to be drycleaned the next morning.

But I have to admit, as a supporter of the ban, that even I am amazed  
it has gone so smoothly. When you think how deeply ingrained is  
Scotland's drink culture, and how belligerently those loud-mouthed  
defenders of personal liberty threatened defiance, it is scarcely  
believable that there was no trouble. Not a single arrest.

It's a tribute to the Scottish Executive for having had the bottle to  
promote this legislation - although they'll get little credit for  
that. By definition, everything Jack McConnell does is either sleazy  
or dumb, so expect no plaudits for the First Minister. People are  
already saying: "What was all the fuss about?" But fuss there  
certainly was. It took guts for McConnell to put his name to  
legislation which could easily have gone wrong.

For some, however, the smoking ban will simply be confirmation that  
the people have become powerless before an all-controlling nanny  
state. But for me it is confirmation that Scotland remains a law- 
abiding country in the best sense of the word. We accept and support  
restrictions on our freedom provided they are the result of evidence,  
debate and proper democratic process.

In this way, the smoking ban is also a reminder of the fragility of  
the law. You realise that laws don't work on their own - they only  
work when the people accept them and effectively enforce them  
themselves. The reason the smoking ban works is because hundreds of  
thousands of people in pubs and clubs quietly made sure that those  
minded to break the law did not do so.

But what of the other poisonous and addictive substances that are so  
much a part of modern social intercourse? The laws on drugs are not  
being enforced by the same public who make the smoking ban a success.  
Quite the reverse. For people under the age of 40, there is almost  
universal transgression of the laws on drugs. Everyone either breaks  
the law themselves by taking illegal drugs, such as cannabis or  
ecstacy, or knows someone who is breaking the law and does nothing  
about it. We are talking, quite literally, of millions of acts of  
illegality. How do we square that?

OFFICERS in the Strathclyde Police Federation caused a massive row  
last week by suggesting there should be a debate on the legalisation  
of drugs - and not just soft drugs, but class-A substances such as  
heroin too. They were accused of defeatism, of irresponsibility, of  
being soft on drug barons, but we are asking the police to enforce  
laws which we, the public, reject. It is our hypocrisy, and the  
Strathclyde officers are right to call time.

The war cannot be won. The only way to deal with this problem is to  
cut it off at source. Either people agree to stop abusing drugs, or  
else, after a proper national debate, we will have to look at the  
alternatives.

I have argued for legalisation of cannabis in the past. I have always  
hated the drug, because it turns me into a zombie, but I could never  
see any reason for it being illegal. As for hard drugs, it would be  
irresponsible for any newspaper column to argue that crack cocaine  
and heroin - two of the most addictive substances ever synthesised -  
should be freely available. However, something must be done. Scotland  
now has 51,000 addicts - there were only a handful in the 1960s,  
before the prescription of heroin to addicts was outlawed. Methadone  
is no solution.

The reality is that the present regime is only benefiting the  
criminals. The pushers exploit public tolerance of drug taking to  
promote a vicious and predatory expansion of their trade. Just as  
prohibition in America benefited organised crime in the 1920s, so  
prohibition is creating a global criminal infrastructure which is  
becoming a political force. The drugs industry is worth ?300 billion  
a year worldwide - equivalent to the GDP of sub-Saharan Africa. The  
British and American armies defeated the Taliban in Afghanistan in a  
matter of days, but they haven't been able to defeat the poppy growers.

Perhaps the smoking ban shows a way forward. It accepted the right of  
individuals to take a dangerous drug - nicotine is just as addictive  
as heroin - but only within a responsible social context and with  
strict rules which protect the health of others. Perhaps we should  
start exploring ways to modernise drugs laws, allowing people to use  
drugs in the privacy of their own homes provided there is state  
regulation to protect vulnerable young people and those who become  
addicted.

The state licensing of the sale of drugs such as cannabis, ecstacy  
and cocaine is a scary thought, but at the moment we have the worst  
of both worlds: we have uncontrolled mass consumption of narcotics  
and we have laws that are openly flouted by a criminal industry which  
is free to develop its trade in the most pernicious way. The Scottish  
parliament made history with the smoking ban; perhaps it should turn  
its attention now to Scotland's second biggest drugs problem.
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MAP posted-by: Jackl