Pubdate: Fri, 02 Aug 2013
Source: Coquitlam Now, The (CN BC)
Copyright: 2013Lower Mainland Publishing Group, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.thenownews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1340
Author: Ian MacLeod

WE'RE ASKING THE WRONG QUESTION

On marijuana criminalization, we are still asking the wrong question.
It should not be "Is marijuana harmful?" (it may well be) but rather
"Is prohibition causing more harm that it cures?" (certainly, yes).

I am in no way advocating for the use of drugs (I am an aging baby
boomer; I don't use drugs, don't smoke and only occasionally even
drink alcohol).

However, the so-called "war on drugs" is a massive fraud on taxpayers,
parents and the addicted. It causes much more harm than it cures. The
"war" funds organized crime, funds terrorists and uses our taxes to
pay thousands of police, lawyers and prison guards (financially, all
on the same side as the criminals - ironic, huh!) and builds massive
disrespect for the law amongst our young people and, for all that,
does little to curb drug use.

Cynicism also grows, because our youth well know that perhaps half of
the baby boomers - today's lawmakers - according to polls,
experimented with marijuana or other drugs in their youth (even if
they didn't inhale!). Under our so-called "justice," the only reason
those lawmakers are not rotting in jail is blind luck or money.

As to the war on drugs, it is tough to think of any rational basis for
the war, on at least four levels:

1. Cost/benefit: the perfect outcome would probably be that people
didn't use drugs. But that is not going to happen. Voltaire said,
almost 250 years ago, "The perfect is the enemy of the good." Well,
that is what is happening here. Just saying "drugs are harmful" is
really myopic. Of course they are - some more so than others, and some
based on the individual and on the dosages and frequencies of use. But
if the "remedy" is more harmful than the harm, then only a moron or a
blind ideologue will persist in pursuing that failing remedy.

2. Principal: maybe we should step back and ask why we even have the 
prohibition on drugs. Admittedly, they can be harmful (although, with 
some, probably not to the level of political hype). But so are 
cigarettes and alcohol harmful (each killing thousands every year), and 
junk foods and cars that can drive at over 110 km/h (the maximum in Canada).

So why do we ban marijuana and not the others? Why does the government
feel it must police the private activities of adults? It is really
only ideology or the power of the vested interests, not any rational
principal.

3. Supply/demand: the whole war on drugs is driven by the premise that
if you control supply, you will beat the problem. But it is not
supply-side driven - it is demand-side driven. And the war is not even
working on supply - high school kids that I talk to tell me that it is
easier to get all kinds of drugs in school than it is to get beer. As
long as the demand exists, someone will supply it. As the "war"
escalates, the illegal profits skyrocket, further increasing the
motive to supply. Prohibition didn't work with alcohol; why would it
now? 4. Harm reduction: the theory seems to be that by trying to
reduce supply, we are protecting the users or possible users. All that
means is that there is no quality control. And the ideologues aren't
willing to fund adequate rehab services. So, in fact, the war is
increasing the harm.

I think that any complete analysis would show that if we diverted the
massive funds now spent on police, courts and prisons to education and
rehab services, we would be both financially and socially much better
off. The education approach has certainly worked with tobacco.

The perverse and unintended consequence of the war against marijuana
was to make everything much, much worse. And it is very clear to all
who have any interest at all in the facts or evidence that this war
cannot be won. Even the death penalty wouldn't stop it - the gangs
already live under a much more immediate threat of being shot - and
drug prohibition doesn't stop them.

One can only hope that someday, our politicians will let research and
reason prevail - but I'm not holding my breath, and certainly not with
the ideologues in the Harper Conservatives.

Ian MacLeod Richmond
- ---
MAP posted-by: Matt