Drugs and the limits of liberalism

Posted by Guessedworker on Sunday, 09 January 2005 15:03.

As our cocaine maker in Peru happily told us: ‘People want our cocaine because it is good and, for a while at least, makes them happy.’

So ends an interesting account in today’s Observer by Angus Macqueen of a journey through the drug-growing badlands of South America.

There is no respectability whatever in drugs trafficking and only pathos or tragedy in drug-taking. But the intellectual argument for drug liberalisation is becoming increasingly respectable because the alternative of prohibition has so manifestly failed. Macqueen worries chiefly about the warfare and violence that drug moneys fuel in grower countries. But he then makes what has become the standard case for liberalisation:-

This journey has left me thinking the politically unthinkable. With an election looming, the Blair government has made the war on drugs a populist law-and-order priority, once again conflating the taking of drugs with the crime and violence that surrounds them. But it is the war itself that is the problem. The politicians rightly warn that demand will go up if it is legalised. Not good but not the nightmare they summon up. Neither cocaine or heroin is a cancer. In quantities it destroys your nose and is bad for your brain, but it very rarely kills - unlike that other addictive plant we can use legally: tobacco.

Let’s be honest. People try drugs, whether in the form of alcohol or pills, because they are fun. Tens of thousands of UK citizens regularly consume cocaine; hundreds of thousands more use other illegal drugs, completely discrediting the law. In his book “Cocaine” Dominic Streatfield quotes the monetarist Milton Friedman: ‘I do not think you can eradicate demand. The lesson we have failed to learn is that prohibition never works. It makes things worse not better.’

Streatfield quotes the extraordinary statistics involved in fighting cocaine and drugs. Here are a couple: over the past 15 years, the US has spent £150 billion trying to stop its people getting hold of drugs. In Britain and the US almost 20 per cent of the prison population is inside for drugs offences. So what is left? We can muddle on or we can legalise cocaine - and indeed all drugs.

I don’t have a fixed view on whether or not this should be attempted. I am reminded of that story of the traveller who, finding himself lost in the countryside, alights upon a peasant, blade of grass in mouth, astride a field gate. Upon enquiring which way to follow to reach his destination he is told, “Oh ah, if I was a-wantin’ to go there I should not start from ‘ere.” So given the society in which we live today, perhaps a public policy of drug provision would the right direction to take. It would certainly be a brave one. Whether it would be a wise one, though, only experience could tell.

I do have a fixed view on why drug-taking is so shockingly popular. We have not understood the reach and effect of, to use the Durkheimian term yet again, anomie in Western society. We have not understood its causes. We are, therefore, unable to see that we have continued adding to it. We suffer, in consequence, a wide range of deeply disturbing social pathologies and attend only to the symptoms, with no real chance of success. The personal psychological infirmities which engender drug experimentation and, possibly also dependency (though there seems to be a genetic content there) are but one such pathology, and by no means the worst. For the record, these infirmities are a lack of identity, low self-esteem and self-destructiveness.

Macqueen suggests that the success in reducing smoking in public offers a light along the way. I disagree. Smoking is rendered desirable to impressionable minds in the same way that black male sexuality (to girls) and men’s perfume products (to girls) are – by promotion. Drug addiction has an anomic root which will not wither, no matter how much the government propagandises. Liberalism itself must be discharged from our way of life. Ergo, only conservatism can counteract the appeal of drugs and then only insomuch as progress is made towards a re-stabilised society.

I have blogged, slightly tongue in cheek, about this great issue recently. The bottom line is that I do not know how, in the short-term, to heal and re-moralise our damaged society. A lengthy period of social stability appears to be the only way forward. And that is not on offer.

Tags: Oh Tempora, Oh Mores

Comments:

Posted by Pericles on Sun, 09 Jan 2005 23:30 | #

Hi GW.

“I am reminded of that story of the traveller who, finding himself lost in the countryside, alights upon a peasant, blade of grass in mouth, astride a field gate. Upon enquiring which way to follow to reach his destination he is told, “Oh ah, if I was a-wantin’ to go there I should not start from ‘ere.””

Happened to me. Monarchs Annoyed Station, a drunk accosted me for directions to Southfields. Same reply. To get there I wouldn’t start from here. Got a laugh from fellow passangers.

To serious matters. 70% of crime in the U.K. is drug related. The cost is phenomenal. Evolution should be permitted to take its role in solving the quandry. Humans are pleasure seekers. It’s in the genes. Use of mind altering substances is a huge part of human endeavour. If HMG were to supply clean, safe recreational pharmaceuticals to those who have the need, then, on a balance of probabilities, matters could be improved.

Addictive personalities abound. I have never smoked. The rest of the family did. My parents died of lung cancer, all be it, they were 78 & 82. However, in 1933 I had serious abdominal surgery and after 26 days of Omnopon (Morphine derivative) I was discharged. This stuff was wonderful. No pain, no fear.

I was addicted.

My parents nursed me for three days. Gin and tonic, yes! Nought else. Fourth evening, 8 pm, the time in hospital I would get the first of two injections to see me through the night, no shakes, no yearning for the pleasure.

I nursed both parents and administered oral morphine as prescribed and as necessary, without any desire or inclination to take the stuff myself.

The point I seek to emphasise is that we should all take personal responsibility for our own lives. There is no freedon without responsibility. I have repeated to my children ad nauseum that they are free to do whatever they want. They have to accept the consequences of their actions. Some people are too stupid to live. I hope my boys do not fall into that category. You do your best to equip them for the voyage of life and you hope they come save home.

Hell’s teeth, if living a life of value and consequence were easy, everyone would be doing so.

Pericles

Posted by Pericles on Sun, 09 Jan 2005 23:34 | #

Above post. It was 1973, not 1933.
“And you hope they come SAFE home”

It’s late. And so to bed.

Posted by Guessedworker on Mon, 10 Jan 2005 00:00 | #

Yes, I understand that the pleasure principle is very significant. But drug usage is not simply the pursuit of pleasure by knowledgeable people who look first to remain in control. No, it also confers a sense of belonging. It is also escapism. It is also the pursuit of meaning - in all three instances by people who are plainly incapable of looking either upon themselves or upon life so as to know what is right and true.

And that is the point. We have ceased to nurture those beautiful aspects of life which make us secure, make us belong, give us meaning. But we can’t just wake up one fine day and say, “OK, let’s start doing things right.” It’s gone too far.

I think legalisation would be fine if combined with the re-building of a more stable society. But there’s no prospectus available for that. It’s never been done by dint of human will. Nature tends in that direction but works extraordinarily slowly.

Meanwhile, legalisation plus the continued production of anomie is a recipe for trouble, is it not?

Posted by Mark Richardson on Mon, 10 Jan 2005 00:32 | #

I’m on the side of those who want to take a tougher line on drugs. New research shows that marijuana use by teenagers actually prevents the development of higher mental faculties. So even marijuana use can’t just be thought of as harmless pleasure seeking. I know that some libertarians don’t like the idea of funding the police to combat drugs, as it increases state power. But to me this is a proper use of the state and we can only ask they do an effective job of it. (Guessedworker is right, though, that the ideal, long-term solution is a return to the kind of social supports and sources of meaning for individuals which have been broken down by liberalism.)

Posted by Pericles on Mon, 10 Jan 2005 09:10 | #

Hi Mark,

There would be huge and I do mean huge, sums of money available for “ideal, long-term solution is a return to the kind of social supports and sources of meaning for individuals which have been broken down by liberalism”.

Marijuana does harm teenagers, but less so than alchohol. It’s a matter of which is the lesser of two evils.

Somewhere I have details of a paper suggesting that there are pharmaceutically active ingredients in both bread and milk that engender pleasure and that daily consumption aided co-operation between groups of people to become farmers. Of course, these peoples also knew about poppies and hallucinogenic plants. Stone me, did they know!!!

Pot was only banned at the beginning of the 20th century at the instigation of a self righteous USA. Single handedly, the USA created the criminal empires that grow to provide all the services and products that our tiny minds desire. In the same way that an armed society is a polite society (thanks JJR), so a society with legitimate access to stress relievers would be a nicer society. It is said that life is a vale of tears. The rich will get richer and the poor poorer. It isn’t right, but them’s the Missouri breaks.

Let those who, for whatever reason, have what they seem to need and those who dont, won’t. It’s a fine line to tread,I agree, but prohibition is not working and we should find better ways to improve our lot.

Anyway, kids experiment with drugs because it’s naughty. It’s rebellion. A rite of passage. Moderation in all things should be the call.

Fundamental religion is the real problem. To believe in a creator is piss poor mental hygiene. Breed better altruistic brains and the problem is solved, or find a gene vaccine that does the same thing and elevates IQ.

Otherwise it is the same road to perdition.

Pericles

Posted by Fred Scrooby on Sat, 15 Jan 2005 04:54 | #

“To believe in a creator is piss poor mental hygiene.” (—Pericles)

Come again?? ...

Oh, yeah! ... Right ... That’s why personages like Socrates, Plato, St. Paul, Joan of Arc, William Tyndale, Sir Isaac Newton, Voltaire, George Washington, van Beethoven, Wordsworth, Henry David Thoreau, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Vincent van Gogh, and Albert Einstein were such spiritual basket cases. I’m glad that’s finally explained!

(Or was that come kind of joke I was not getting? ...)