Re: Drugs kill daughter, parents blame unscrupulous people for taking advantage of he
I assume your opposition to criminal law as a mechanism to maintain social order would equally apply to workplace relations law, anti-discrimination law and other areas of law which prevent the causing of undue harm or exploitation?
Yes to the mentioned examples. I don't think government intervention is a good idea in workplace relations or anti-discrimination law, and would prefer them scrapped.
But that is another thread.
To throw one back at you, would you be in favor of the banning of motorcycles on public roads, to protect these users from themselves? There is no need for anyone to ride motorcycles in modern Australia, they are responsible for a hugely disproportionate number of fatalities.
What comes first, the malum in se crimes of break and enter and larceny, or the malum prohibitum crime of drug possession? Does the drug use itself cause individuals to commit the intrinsically 'evil' crimes?
Other than the crime of drug possession itself, I wasn't aware of any causative link between crime and MDMA use.
I see the impact of illicit drug use everyday.
I thought you said it was really difficult to find anyone who would even know where to get pills?
However, I've long stood by the proposition that alcohol, the legal drug, causes the greatest number of problems in society. The regulation of the market has done nothing to assist misuse or abuse.
To replicate such problems with illicit substances would be madness.
You can't just lump all drugs together like this. Alcohol is completely unique. No other drug, if legalised, would have the same sociological impact. The settings, usage, dose, frequency of consumption, user demographics etc... all vary substantially across each substance.
When looked at in respect of it's unique sociological features, MDMA has several clear advantages over alcohol:
It's not addictive.
The comedown effects, and the emotional drain of the experience, discourage extended binges over multiple days.
Unlike alcohol/pot, it's not a drug people will sit at home, alone and binge on for extended periods. It's a hyper-social drug.
There's a very specific time and space setting where users indulge.
Users are not prone to violence
Users judgment isn't substantially affected, such that they would expose themselves to danger.
All of this suggests it would have a much lighter, if any impact, when considered in comparison to alcohol, where the contrary could be said to all the above points, the contrary being potentially socially and personally destructive
You've got to analyze each substance with an informed and open perspective and assess the potential sociological impacts on it's merits. You can't just broadly state "drugs = problems", because it's not that simple and it's just not true.
The regulation of the market has done nothing to assist misuse or abuse.
Because prohibition of alcohol in the U.S circa 1920 was a much more successfull policy.
Things regulation has done-
- Generated a shitload of taxation used towards good deeds.
- The users aren't relentlessly harassed by the police for no reason.
- Booze pushers aren't wasting time and money in our jails
- Prohibition failed in every sense to do anything about abuse. Criminalizing it and making it taboo increased usage rates.
"When Prohibition was introduced, I hoped that it would be widely supported by public opinion and the day would soon come when the evil effects of alcohol would be recognized. I have slowly and reluctantly come to believe that this has not been the result. Instead, drinking has generally increased; the speakeasy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speakeasy has replaced the saloon; a vast army of lawbreakers has appeared; many of our best citizens have openly ignored Prohibition; respect for the law has been greatly lessened; and crime has increased to a level never seen before"
~J.D. Rockefeller
Rockefeller's words about the downsides of prohibition sure sounds strongly familiar today.
Prohibition never works. Never.