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Title: Legalise it! Author: Joe Black Date: 1994 Language: en Topics: drugs, marijuana, legalization, Workers Solidarity, Ireland Source: Retrieved on 18th November 2021 from http://struggle.ws/ws94/legalise43.html Notes: Published in Workers Solidarity No. 43 â Autumn 1994.
THE LEGALISATION OF CANNABIS is now being debated openly by sections of
the European ruling class. In localised areas like Amsterdam they have
been conducting a 20 year experiment into the effects of legalisation.
In Switzerland they are experimenting with the de-criminalisation of
small quantities of heroin. According to the British Guardian one
well-known brewery, Carlsberg-Tetley, has been investigating the hash
cafes of Amsterdam with a view to running similar establishments in
Britain. In Italy a referendum in March of 1993 ended the obligatory
penal sentence for cannabis possession and in Germany earlier this year
the Supreme Court suggested personal possession of drugs should not be
prosecuted.
Even senior police are getting in on the act, Raymond Kendall (head of
Interpol) and Commander John Grieve of Scotland Yard have both recently
suggested itâs time to legalise at least some drugs. Best of all perhaps
was Keith Hellawellâs (Chief Constable of West Yorkshire) appearance on
Panorama when he said âpeople are not being honest about the positive
side of drugs, that drugs do give people a good feeling. A âbuzzâ they
call itâ
By contrast in the US the administration has created a âWar on Drugsâ
that echos the Prohibition (alcohol ban) of the 1920âs. Instead of
moonshine and speakeasyâs this time itâs cocaine and crack houses. The
jails have been filled with âdrug offendersâ and repressive laws
introduced
Some US states give longer mandatory sentences for the possession of
marijuana than for rape or even murder. Forfeiture laws allow the
confiscation of property that is in any way related to drugs and last
year more property was seized by this method than was stolen in burglary
in the whole of the US. Recently a law was being introduced that would
mean possession of huge quantities of marijuana (60,000 Kg) would carry
the death penalty!
In the US, the War on Drugs (WoD) plays a considerable number of other
functions. It is used as a pretext for invasions and interference in
other countries, most notably the invasion of Panama. It is used to
explain away inner city poverty, unemployment and homelessness as being
the fault of those effected.
Itâs a mechanism for official racism, such laws are enforced
disproportionately against Blacks. Drugs with a higher ratio of Black
users receive mandatory sentences for far smaller amounts. The
Crack/Cocaine ratio, for instance, is 1:100. It has seen the
introduction of some of the most draconian police powers and many deaths
due to police raids, sometimes of âinnocentâ people in cases of mistaken
identity.
Drugs are a leisure activity, nothing more and nothing less. Some people
like football, some drinking, some smoking hash and many a combination.
If a newspaper ran an article discussing whether football made you a
worse person weâd all get a good laugh. But itâs not funny, huge numbers
of mostly young, mostly working class people are criminalised and even
jailed every year for engaging in this leisure time activity. Many more
are harassed by the police on the same pretext, drugs are on par with
âterrorismâ when it comes to giving the police extra powers to stop,
search and question you.
But drugs are bad for you, donât they kill people and lead to crime? The
accompanying table shows Marijuana which is very illegal was not
credited with causing one death in the U.S. in 1990. Of course the fact
that it is illegal makes it more difficult to measure indirect deaths
due to cancers than for tobacco but most medical research seems to
indicate that the health effects of hash smoking come well behind
alcohol or tobacco. Hash is the soft end of the argument, other drugs do
kill people.
MDMA (Ecstasy) has recently been the source of many scare stories.
People have died in Britain and Ireland from heat exhaustion or
hypoallergenic responses to MDMA. But again let us consider that we are
talking about a leisure activity. Rock climbing which involves far
smaller numbers of people, thousands rather than millions, has killed a
comparable amount in the same time period.
Yet as far as I know no-one has called for the police to arrest rock
climbers and raid sporting shops. Indeed the emphasis is on making this
leisure activity safer, making sure people are prepared and improving
the equipment. One of the major problems with MDMA is one of quality
control, because itâs illegal you donât know what exactly you are
buying. There is a list of similar drugs which have led directly or
indirectly to deaths or other serious medical problems including LSD and
speed. Our attitude to them should be shaped in a similar way.
Finally there are those drugs that at the moment are the cause of
enormous amounts of suffering and deaths. In Ireland heroin is the only
significant one of these and it is dealt with elsewhere in this issue.
Heroin is different not just because of the suffering junkies inflict on
themselves but also because of the suffering they inflict on their local
community as they rob and mug to obtain money.
We are not going to call for the de-criminalisation of heroin dealing
any more than other anti-social crimes like arson or rape. But donât
think the police are the answer, their main role is controlling rather
than protecting ordinary people and in Dublin, at least, they have
worked with big dealers in the past. There was almost no police response
to the heroin epidemic of the early 1980âs until the formation of
Concerned Parents Against Drugs. This despite the fact that the main
dealers, the Dunnes, were referred to in the evening papers. When CPAD
evicted one of the big dealers, âMa Bakerâ it was claimed that they
found an address book with home phone numbers of Drug Squad detectives
in it.
On top of this, even when the police are (selectively) serious it has
disastrous consequences. In the U.S. the attempt by the state to ban all
drugs has pushed profits up for criminals to the point where vicious
wars are being fought over controlling the supply. In Washington which
has the highest murder rate itâs estimated that 80% of murders are
related to drugs.
Possession of small amounts of all drugs should be de-criminalised.
Anti- social drugs like heroin should be available on prescription from
doctors at low cost to prevent junkies turning to crime to finance their
habit. What is needed is a real debate on the control of the other
drugs. It seems reasonable to say that the maximum of restrictions
should be similar to those applying in relation to drink or tobacco and
this should be medically based and enforced rather than state
controlled.
We need to wake up to the fact that the current state ban on certain
drugs in unacceptable. Even in relation to truly dangerous drugs it is
counter- productive. There is no room for moralism on this as the drug
bans are serious attacks on people and destroy many lives, either
directly through criminalisation or indirectly through drug ban related
crime. The future society we are seeking to create will, I hope, have a
bit more to offer than an evangelical heaven of socialist hymn singing
and hard work.
---
This is a list of deaths by substance for 1990
Tobacco................360,000 [legal]
Alcohol................130,000 [legal]
Prescribed drugs......18,675 [legal]
Caffeine.................5,800 [legal]
Cocaine..................2,390 [illegal]
Heroin...................2,147 [illegal]
Aspirin....................986 [legal]
Marijuana..................0 [illegal]