The former head of the Cabinet Office Anti-Drug Co-ordination Unit, Julian Critchley, has come out for full legalisation. Interesting, but not very interesting. What is more interesting is what he told the BBC later in the interview:
… the “overwhelming majority of professionals” he met, including those from the police, the health service, government and voluntary sectors, held the same view.
“Yet publicly, all those intelligent, knowledgeable people were forced to repeat the nonsensical mantra that the government would be ‘tough on drugs’, even though they all knew that the government’s policy was actually causing harm.”
There is something wrong with our political system, don’t you think, when policy is determined by people who know that it is wrong, and know that their colleagues also know that it is wrong, but all are compelled by personal interest to rehearse the same orthodoxies? The propaganda of received wisdom has its own momentum, and no one person changing their mind will have much effect. Critchley will be ignored. His colleagues will be silent. And next autumn we will have a new moral panic about some drug-related social phenomenon, real or imaginary, justifying some extended power.
There have of course been other systems that worked this way. But the official Marxism-Lenninism of the Soviet Communist Party or the irrelevant doctrinal minutiae of theocracies had or have at least a clear purpose in maintaining the power of institutions. In our mediated ochlocracy policy is a peacock’s tail in which random illusions of public opinion power political and bureaucratic machines, that then feedback more of the same, regardless of reason or utility.
What, if anything, can be done?
Not a great deal – there’s an organisation similar to the OECD that ‘helps’ to ensure all countries adopt similar legislation and ‘helps’ to point out violations so sanctions can be rapidly adopted.
This same organisation puts such strict controls on morphine and similar medicines that it’s basically unavailable anywhere in Africa or South America because the conditions they demand (written records for each and every dose recorded centrally) are impossible to attain.
Unfortunately I’ve forgotten this organisation’s name but I’m sure someone here knows better than me! you want a conspiracy theory, here’s a good one.
Just to be fair, this is not something unique to bureaucrats. If you are speaking in an official capacity for any organization, you deliver the message of that organization, not your own.
For example, if I were talking to media, on the record and using my official ‘hat’ within the National Space Society, I would deliver policy statements as agreed upon within the Society’s Policy Committee.
Under the same circumstance, speaking for myself, I might say very different things. What is wrong in the case of government is that their policies are enforced on those outside the organization using coercion.
Acting on behalf of an organization or company you are part of is just part of being a member of society. If you have agreed on compromise policy positions with your peers; or if you are being paid to give press briefings on your corporation, then you leave your ‘private person hat’ in the cloak room. In such circumstances you are not a private person, you are a messenger. If you do not like the message, you always have the option of the door.
What I would wonder is why there have been fewer who have spoken out on this issue as private citizens, or after retirement or job change. A few have, but not many.
Dale, I don’t think the problem is people spouting the approved “party line” when speaking in their official capacities; I agree with you that’s their job. The problem is that the perceived orthodoxy is so strong that they cannot bring themselves to express a contrary opinion even privately. The system has become so corrupt and in-bred that no one dares say that the emperor has no clothes. We need a Martin Luther to nail “95 Theses” up somewhere. Unfortunately, I don’t see anyone around with the stature and courage to fill that role (or, for that matter, a Wittenburg Cathedral upon which to nail them).
By the way, I’ve seen a lot of “-ocracies” bandied about on this site, but that’s the first I’ve seen “ochlocracy” used. I had to look it up. What a great word! I shall try to remember it.
It has all the hallmarks of religion. Nobody wants to be the heretic.
While they feel that many “respected authorities” on the subject will yell “BLASPHEMER!” at them, they will keep quiet. It might also be down to the fact that many earn their crust in the cosy QANGOcracy around “The War on Drugs”, so one word and their cushy number is up. It is not the child that will be pointing at the Emperor, it will need the stichers.
I don’t think it is any cansperacy. The legalizers are just not winning the war of ideas. While many drug wariors would concede there our problems associated with drug interdiction they don’t consider that those problems are worse than those asociated with drug abuse. It is a difficult sell for the legalizers, unfortunately
Governments like to think they have a Moral dimension as well as a legal one.
In that capacity, drugs have always been seen as a black and white subject.
Drugs are evil, full stop. Stamp them out.
Course the drugs they find evil are the relatively recent ones like coke and cannabis.
Not the long established like Booze.
These presented no trouble to our ancestors, the likes of Byron and Coleridge, who could just pop down the shops and stock up for saturday night, in their time…
Even Queen Victoria used to like a bit of Hash to see her through her period pains. She liked sex too. Hell look how many kids she had! We are not amused, my arse!
But now they are the scurge of the nation.
And alas, so they will remain until my parents generation, finally die off with the “EVIL” mantra on their breaths.
And get replaced with one that know that a quick spliff or a line of coke now and again doesn’t make you an evil person or troublesome social problem case, anymore than watching Eastenders now and again, does.
Also don’t forget a good dose of recursive non-logic especially:
“Terrorists use drug money for funding ergo drugs are bad” totally ignoring the point that if drugs weren’t contraband they’d be no more profitable than corn or sugar and thus the money would disappear.
General point here really: as a (reliable) rule of thumb, no policy which reduces government intervention (control) will ever gain traction in the proggressive (third way, technocratic, whatever you want to call it) State, even if some members of the oligarchy come out in favour of it. Such reductions in the role of the state are simply unthinkable to the oligarchy as a whole.
On a practical note, we need to remember that the cloud of interventionist policies colloquially known as the “nanny state” of which drug prohibition, alcohol, tobacco and food controls &c are a major part, are not made or driven by politicans or even by the Ruling Class in general; they are driven by a hard corps of well organised campaigners and academics who use national and international bureaucracies to further their personal agendas, which are palpably insane, but then all the most successful campaigns are. These ideas are widely supported by the Ruling Class, and thus implemented, but even most of them don’t know where the ideas come from. Ask the average cabinet minister (when they’re not too coke-addled) or Guardianista who’s pushing the idea that salt is toxic or who decided 3 pints is binge drinking and they wouldn’t be able to tell you. None of them would even be able to tell you when, or why, drugs were illegalised in the first place.
We on the side of Liberty need to learn how to pull the strings of public morality. Currently we don’t seem to have a clue, and are thus reduced to whinging from the sidelines. The enemy are much better at what they do than we are.
Try “opthalmoruchocracy” (the rule of tearing out the eyes) on for size. But you’ve got to wonder if it’s an ophiocracy (rule of the Snake).
There are dozens of parallels between the witch hunts and the drug hunts. The most amusing one is that when Louis XIV abolished the witch hunts in France, the brain-dead politicians (pleonasm alert) of the day signed a letter asking him to change his mind, since everyone knew that France would be overrun by witches if he didn”t. IMHO this deep parallelism would not be difficult to convey or understand; it’s not even metaphorical.
Like the many centuries of witch hunts, only far worse ….
The mainstream media is still generally heavily-biased in favor of drug prohibitionists.
The public image battle is the one the ‘anti-drug-prohibition’ movement is still losing.
Public majority still believes that drug prohibitionists are the good guys, and drug users/supporters are the bad guys.
However, truth and Liberty are clearly on our side.
The Controlled Substances Act says certain recreational drug use is illegal solely due to a “potential for abuse”.
“Potential for abuse” is simply risk. Our public servants via the CSA are telling us they have made a list of unacceptable risks (and it can be arbitrary — alcohol and tobacco are not on it).
This equals government-given right to liberty, not Creator-given Right to Liberty.
No good American patriot can accept our public servants defying our Creator (e.g. God) and our founding forefathers.
The good news is that more people are getting away from media bias by coming to sites like this one.
Drug prohibitionists are learning that we dominate online, and can beat them hands down debating any facet of drug prohibition.
We still need to work on the public image front though, but I’m very confident that we will succeed in eliminating drug prohibition.
That said, drug abuse is a problem worthy of addressing.
The U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse says, “Researchers have long recognized the strong correlation between substance abuse and stress.”
Society could really benefit from people learning the basics of stress (too little stress is unhealthy, too much stress is unhealthy), identifying and resolving unhealthy stress to the extent possible.
It’s not a panacea, but it likely improves society in areas like drug abuse, crime (roughly 50% of crimes are committed by drug — including alcohol — abusers), and health.
If common sense was a commodity our politicians possessed in any great quantity
The answer to Afganistan would stare them in the face.
Just buy the crop. We need opiates for genuine medical purposes not just jollies.
We buy the crop at a higher price than the Taliban can muster (Yes we can afford that considering our brave lads are dieing because of crap equipment that we cant apparently afford), without going cap in hand for subs from Saudi Arabia to fund the fuckin war against us.
Then we know the accurate source of funding and can go and kick ass accordingly.
I have always said that we invaded the wrong country when we went into Iraq.
It should have been Saudi.
Alas too many western politicians in bed with them over the years (Literally)
Drug prohibition is expanding, with government power. Liquor and tobacco are under increasingly severe pressure and even prescription painkillers are becoming more dangerous to prescribe and use. A bureaucrat who smokes dope on the weekends will quite sincerely and publicly advocate the most draconian prohibitions against smoking tobacco.
The effectiveness of these prohibitions is almost beside the point, as governments can use their power when it’s easy to do so, against political and cultural dissidents.