Going to pot? Californian campaigners won the battle to allow medical use of marijuana; now they want to legalise it for everyone
The Prospect debate: Should we decriminalise marijuana?
Alexander Linklater debates the pros and cons of decriminalising marijuana with Amanda Feilding of the Beckley Foundation
[audio: http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/Should_we _decriminalise _marijuana.mp3]
Consider the following scenario. A pharmaceutical giant spends millions developing and bringing to market a new antidepressant. It is popular among doctors and their patients. However, reports begin to emerge that for a few patients—particularly younger ones—the drug produces side-effects that include addiction, delusions and chronic mental illness.
Papers begin to appear in medical journals. The resulting headlines are dramatic. Moreover, it turns out the company covered up evidence of the side-effects. It claims this is of no great significance because the victims belong to a minority—an acceptable price to pay for the benefit of a majority. There is outrage, the families of victims sue and the company is forced to withdraw the drug. A victory for truth and justice in the fight against big pharma.
That’s a fiction, of course. For one thing, drug companies never talk publicly about acute illness among a minority being an acceptable cost. Yet when it comes to debate over the legalisation of recreational drugs, those who argue in favour of a “regulated market” expect governments to do precisely that.
Almost nobody disputes that the use of heroin, cocaine or cannabis can result, to varying degrees, in addiction, family breakdown or madness. Yet it’s the campaigners for decriminalisation who argue that these “side-effects” may be an acceptable price to pay for what they believe would be the benefit of a majority.
There are many variations of the legalisation argument expressed by, among others, scientists like ex-government adviser David Nutt, private research organisations, lobby groups, libertarian commentators, former Latin American presidents and newspapers such as the Observer. And this November, California goes to the polls to decide whether to make cannabis legal for retail sale in the state. Is some version of the legalisation argument about to become reality?
It depends which one. The California vote is not concerned with any of the pro-legalisation arguments being aired in Latin America and Europe. With marijuana already available for medical use in the state, advocates for Proposition 19 argue that taxing and regulating more widespread legal use might raise as much as $1.4bn for the cash-strapped state. There is little talk about scientific measurement of harm, nor much about personal freedom, and certainly none about the drugs war in Latin America. Meanwhile, at the federal level, there is no similar move of any kind.
So what are British campaigners advocating? They are a broad group with disparate aims, but their arguments tend to fall into three main categories.
The first and most thrillingly radical is the libertarian and free-market proposal. In the Guardian, Simon Jenkins has enthusiastically endorsed Brazilian ex-president Fernando Cardoso’s view that “the only way to reduce violence in Mexico, Brazil or anywhere else is to legalise the production, supply and consumption of all drugs.” This approach is aimed chiefly at reducing the power of the Latin American cartels and other traffickers by attacking their profit margins. In no sense is it a public health argument. While it seeks to tackle problems of criminality, it wouldn’t reduce consumption. There are three things that determine how much a drug is used: fashion, availability and price. You can’t predict the first, but in an open market availability would increase and prices fall.
Jenkins has an unlikely ally in the political philosopher John Gray, though Gray concedes that with the legalisation of all drugs, the overall harms caused to individual users would increase. This, however, may be a price worth paying if it could indeed reduce bloodletting in South America.
But Britain is not South America. Some of us may be consumers of cocaine (though only 7.6 per cent of the population have tried it), but our most commonly used illegal drug, cannabis, is largely home-grown, and plays scarcely any part in global trade.
What the libertarians require for the implementation of their proposals is American support, and a rewriting of the UN’s drug conventions. For that they would need to win over of a majority of the world’s states—quite a big ask, since according to the UN only 5 per cent of the global population has ever taken recreational drugs and only 0.6 per cent are addicts. Their argument is bold, big-picture, and stupendously unrealistic.
It’s also not palatable to those who argue for more limited decriminalisation in Britain. This, the second broad line of argument, is liberal-yet-statist, and advocates some kind of regulated market. It has a public health rationale, though its main emotive thrust is that legal “prohibition” doesn’t work.
The first candidate proposed for a regulated market tends to be cannabis. Advocates of legalisation correctly observe that smoking and drinking cause more deaths than cannabis. Why, though, do they conclude that restrictions on cannabis must be loosened, rather than those on cigarettes and alcohol increased? By contrast, if you oppose relaxing the law on cannabis on the grounds that it can cause psychiatric harm among a significant minority (as is now widely accepted) you may find yourself labelled a “reactionary,” or in favour of “prohibition.” The language is telling. It reveals that many in this “controlled liberalisation” camp view themselves as belonging to some kind of emancipatory movement.
Yet proposals for a regulated market seem far from liberating. Are they about state control or personal choice? Nobody seriously advocates making cannabis more easily available to children. A regulated market would still have to criminalise selling it to teenagers—the group most at risk of long-term mental health problems from cannabis use. Some argue that government-controlled retailing would price teenagers out of the market. But that would merely encourage competition from the illicit indoor farming of cheap skunk. The government would then be in the peculiar position of competing with private cannabis growers.
It is now common to hear the mantra that “the war on drugs” isn’t working. But by every measure—crime, health, death—the “war on drink” is working even less well, and for that there is a regulated market. Accordingly, most chief constables favour increasing restrictions on drink. Why should the logic work in the opposite direction for drugs? When people argue that our “war on drugs” (a daft comparison with Latin America’s real war) is not only failing to resolve the problem, but is the cause of it, they are guilty of a huge non-sequitur.
This leaves the third “legalisation” argument, which is not a legalisation argument at all. It does not seek to rewrite the UN conventions, but merely to reconsider our system of classification, rethink policing methods, and perhaps tweak the law. It’s a rather dull technocratic discussion. Perhaps we should be a bit more like the liberal Netherlands (good at keeping down rates of teenage cannabis use), or more like prohibitive Sweden (also good at it). Maybe more sophisticated research into the harm caused by illegal drugs is needed.
That’s as good as the “legalisation” arguments currently get. A civil rights movement this ain’t.
Ellmore Disco
Your opening point is exceptionally badly made. There are many legal, and medically used drugs that are bad for certain people. Does that mean they are not used? No. They are just not given to people who are found to react badly.
A minority of people will die if they eat a peanut, but that does not mean it should be banned at the expense of those who are not allergic.
Furthermore, as an adult, what say does the state have if I want to take drugs? Why should it be any concern of anyone else? You may well argue that the cost I would inflict upon society. In that case let us ban smoking and drinking, which put more strain on the NHS, and cause me far more trouble when I am out and about.
Finally, from whatever perspective you take, the prohibition of drugs has failed. There is nothing stopping anyone who wants to buy drugs from doing so. Everyone in this country knows someone, or has a friend of a friend, from who they could acquire such things.
cd
finally a coherent anti-legalization argument. thank you!!!
Goreth
That’s an amazing collection of incredibly lousy arguments.
Seriously, any prescription drug I’ve ever seen, came with a long list of possible adverse side effects.
That some medicine might harm or kill you is no news to anyone with the slightest understanding of medicine.
And addiction is a risk with many a medicine, including some really profane stuff like nasal spray.
So that argument simply fails even the most casual reality check.
Concerning the “but think of the kids”-thing. Yeah, sure, legalisation cannot completely prevent youth to get their hands on the stuff.
But with illegal drugs, the only youth protection we have is the morals of criminals (further impaired by the fact that young people can pressure people to give them drugs by threatening to rat them out).
If you legalized it, sellers would actually have an economic reason to not sell to youth.
(Risk of loosing their license and business)
Right now, it doesn’t make much of a difference to them, being a crime wether they sell to youth or to adults.
And the casual dismissal of the obvious fact that the drug war gives criminals of all stripes an exclusive access to the huge profits of the drugs trade is the real “huge non-sequitur”.
Sure, legalizing would not outright destroy organised crime, but it would seriously reduce their profits, which would make them less dangerous.
And if you think they could make similar profits by evading drug taxes or entering the legal market, you simply have no idea.
The profit margins for producing and smuggling illegal drugs are the wet dream of any businessman.
And the argument itself isn’t any better. Ramped up to the absurd level illegal drugs are at, the “war on drink” has been tried out and recognised as a brutal failure. The american alcohol prohibition is a shining example of just how wrong the war on drugs is.
Making harsher alcohol laws and relaxing pot laws is not contradictory as they are on so vastly different levels that this is just making drug laws more consistent.
And finally yes, a civil rights movement this definately is.
If you can’t see that forcing people to only use specific recreational drugs, with no eye on how dangerous they actually are (alcohol is more harmful and addictive than about half of all illlegal drugs), is injust, you either have no sense of justice or you haven’t done your homework.
Of course, the legalisation crowd has some more arguments than the ones this article attempted and failed to shoot down.
Like that the drug harm studies the prohibition crowd so consistently wants more of would be a lot easier to do if the drugs in questions weren’t illegal.
Or that actual addicts would be more likely to seek treatment if they wouldn’t have to fear prosecution…
Or that legal drugs would be subject to quality control which would reduce the health risk that illegal drugs have due to unpredictable purity and sometimes toxic cutting agents.
Or that we know for a fact that education and treatment are several times more cost effective than enforcing the prohibition.
Or that drug crime is an entry crime, by getting the offender in prison and/or giving them a criminal record which makes a regular career more difficult and consequently a career in crime more likely.
I could go on…
Bottom line, in my opinion the drug war is an horrible policy, it drives crime up, punishes people who did noone any wrong, ruins lives, kills people and does not begin to achieve its stated aim.
I do simply not understand how so many people can fail to realise this.
dave B
Have you ever looked at the side effects of any over the counter or prescription drug? The possibilities are endless and people do suffer from the side effects and in many cases dangerous side effects are considered acceptable.
However at the moment the prohibition of cannabis directly feeds and funds criminality. Billions are spent on combating people wanting to get high. As was shown in a recent channel 4 documentary the police stop a very small percentage of drugs getting onto the market. Little effect on stopping people being able to get hold of them. What ever the speaker was saying about canibis use here not funding crime in other countries, one way or another its a vicious circle and the money from sale of canibis will end up in the pockets of murderers. Why make millionaires out of criminals? I would much rather the police were tackling real crimes that bring real misery to peoples lives like rape, paedophilia, child prostitution etc. Not over what a free human being decides to put into their bodies to help them get through their day. Also its the malign effect that the millions and billions of drug dollars has in terms of corruption. In order to get the vast amounts of drugs into this and other countries you need to pay off a lot of people from the top to the bottom.
Once you legalize the drugs you can treat it as a public health problem. Then you can better judge how many people use them and how to treat those people. The you can use that money to help alleviate the reasons for why people take drugs in the first place.
Take the money out of the hands of criminals. Set levels of purity etc. and reduce harm that way. Take a whole section of society out of the criminal justice system and put them into the health system where their needs can be met properly.
cd
Ellmore,
“Finally, from whatever perspective you take, the prohibition of drugs has failed. There is nothing stopping anyone who wants to buy drugs from doing so. Everyone in this country knows someone, or has a friend of a friend, from who they could acquire such things.”
Most people would rather not buy drugs through a drug dealer, and when given the option to simply walk into a store and purchase the drugs legally many, many more people will start to smoke.
“A minority of people will die if they eat a peanut, but that does not mean it should be banned at the expense of those who are not allergic.”
Silly comparison. Peanuts don’t affect the brain in ways that Marijuana does. As a smoker myself I couldn’t imagine what the workday would look like if half the employees got high before coming into the office. It would be a nightmare. If everyone ate peanuts before work they wouldn’t be stoned. See my logic?
ad
As a smoker myself I couldn’t imagine what the workday would look like if half the employees got high before coming into the office. It would be a nightmare.
Can you imagine what the workday would look like if half the employees got drunk before coming into the office?
Michael_Tomlinson
Surely the whole point in the comparison of illegal drugs and legal drugs is that our strategies on them all should converge on a consistent approach. The article doesn’t address the various options at all, and doesn’t advance any argument for continuing to criminalise individuals using drugs themselves, which is utterly inconsistent with all first principles of criminal law.
For reasons of public health we need to discourage drug use, but we don’t normally put people in jail for ruining their health.
Harry
You argue that fashion, price and availability impact on consumption. If we accept that availability is linked enforcement measures (successful enforcement measures aim to lower availability), there is statistical evidence demonstrating that consumption and availability do not correlate in a logical way. For example, despite marijuana being legal in Holland and, up until the last few years, America has had harsh prohibition-style laws, Americans consume more marijuana than the Dutch. You might argue that there are too many differences between the two countries to make any such meaningful comparison. However, if we compare Sweden and Norway, two countries that clearly have a lot in common, despite one possessing a much more liberal drug enforcement regime, consumption levels remain the same.
Furthermore, you say that cannabis is largely ‘homegrown’ in Britain. What evidence do you have of this? I was under the impression that in London there is an epidemic of cannabis factories run by gangs. Moreover, the Mexican cartels’ cumulative profits deriving from cocaine and cannabis are comparable.
You have an interesting argument but I believe you have oversimplified the matter.
Rob Slack
“There are three things that determine how much a drug is used: fashion, availability and price. ”
AND marketing. Drug dealers may engage in that.
Clearly drugs cause much harm; in a world in which they are prohibited. Would the problems persist if drug use was not prohibited? Perhaps some of the problems arise because addicts are forced to live in a murky world of illegal dealing, shoplifting and prostitution.
“This approach is aimed chiefly at reducing the power of the Latin American cartels and other traffickers by attacking their profit margins. In no sense is it a public health argument”
Isn’t the need to fund a habit a public health issue? (e.g. Aids transmission, living in squalor).
“It is now common to hear the mantra that “the war on drugs” isn’t working. But by every measure—crime, health, death—the “war on drink” is working even less well, and for that there is a regulated market. Accordingly, most chief constables favour increasing restrictions on drink. Why should the logic work in the opposite direction for drugs? ”
Chief Constables are not suggesting prohibition of alcohol…which would push itb into an unregulated black market…like drugs.
Is alcohol really *the* cause of problems? Perhaps the alcohol associated problems we clearly observe arise when alcohol is consumed by certain kinds of people. I sometimes drank to excess in my youth, as did many of my friends. We did not cause trouble. Maybe we should focus on the troublemakers, not the alcohol.
Iftikhar Ahmad
Salaam
Alcohal is legal because it is a western product and drugs are illegal because they are the product of third world.
Rob Slack
You know Ifti, it bothers me you just might believe that.
Charlesdominique_Lenaers
The ban on drugs is harming most of the population through the petty crimes of drug users having to feed their habit. In some countries of Europe estimates are that about 1/2 of the crimes are drug-related.
Legalizing drugs makes them more affordable hence reduces crime figures overall and could make life in some suburbs come back to some normality. I have in mind the real ghettos situation in some French banlieues. Drugs fund gangs that terrorizes entire populations.
On the other side, increases in the price of cigarettes make people turn to the black market. A situation not seen for over 60years. Now we got fake brand cigarettes manufactured in China , with evident risks for their users.
Down at Heel
Alex Linklater, in the interview with Amanda Feilding, says that we shouldn’t legalise cannabis because only 5% of the population use it and there are some of those users who suffer psychotic breakdown.
Firstly, is 5% not enough? Why not? What proportion of the population would be enough for Alex? 10%? 20%?
Secondly, there are risks with cannabis use, just as there are risks with mountain climbing. Did you hear the story of the man who was mountain climbing and a rock fell on his arm, and he had to cut his own arm off in order to free himself and survive. That is some kind of hell. Does Alex Linklater propose we ban mountain climbing, since it has some dangers and less than 5% of the population engage in it?
Clifford Speechly
A population which is educated might be able to discern, without the assistance of your legions of nannies, the risks attached to their choices.
They might also know the difference between something natural like marijuana and something made by a pharmaceutical company.
Of course, it’s stupendously unrealistic to expect decent education when you’ve only just got most of them dumb enough to believe that they’d lost without their Big Government.
So you and cd wring those hands and fight those wars and I’ll stay liberally incensed at your arguments.
Susanna Mann
The crime in Britain that results from the drugs trade is not only the ‘petty crime’ done by addicts to fund their addictions. Their is also serious, violent crime done by or made use of by the dealers.
I do not understand the mass cultural naivety there is about this, about the crime and violence resulting from and enabling the drugs trade (all the way from production to consumption) in Britain as well as in the country of origin – how does any one think that the bit of cocaine they are aware of has got to them? Do people not mind the slight encouraging connection they have with more harm than they can imagine. How dare they boycott Nike (say) and not think about this.
…
But the victim of what is called the ‘Petty Crime’ is mostly the ‘innocent bystander’, is more likely to be a member of middle class intelligentsia, and the victim of the serious crime is often another criminal, more likely to be poor and less well educated. Perhaps this snobbery is what lies behind the willful ignorance about involvement in so ugly a trade. A behind-the-conscious-brain thought that the shooting of one person in a criminal community by another doesn’t really matter.
Stefan
Susanna Mann,
You are correct that serious crimes are committed when criminal organizations get involved in the drug trade. I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make though, since you don’t tie your statements to a stance on legalization. I’ll fill that part in by reiterating, as have a number of commentators, that this type of crime would be reduced if legalization took the trade out of the hands of these gangs.
As for the other arguments in favour of legalization, I couldn’t possibly do better than Goreth has done above. All the well-thought-out arguments are in favour of legalization.
B.A. Shay
There are two ways to fix the “drug problem” legalize everything or illegal-ize everything, including alcohol. I would prefer not to go the totalitarian route of everything being made illegal. In a free country people are supposed to be able to make their own decisions, Americans have largely forgotten that though.
Patrick Carrigan
The policy of criminalising recreational drug use has not worked. Furthermore, it costs enormous amounts of money to implement this policy, money that could be far better spent. But perhaps the worst aspect of current policy is that it has created a massive global network of drug supply, that because it operates outside the law, is the domain of ruthless criminals, who use all the traditional criminal tools to maintain and regulate thier business.
Current drugs policy is so obviously a failure and imposes such terrible costs on society that I cannot understand anyone why anyone would wish to defend it.
TheLibertyLion
This article fails on so many levels.
The issue of utmost importance regarding the issue of the legalisation, if you want to put all the (albeit highly important and persuasive) pragmatic arguments aside (as have already been very well presented by Goreth in this comment secion), is a moral one.
That is, an individual should have the right to put whatever they want into their own body. Even if you can convince that more people will die if all drugs were legalised (although I believe the opposite is true), I would still be in favour of it. There is a right and a wrong beyond just safety.
Bruce
I must say that I disagree with you, as this article makes clear: http://www.bruceonpolitics.com/2011/02/05/recreational-drugs-are-great/
Cherry picking which recreational drugs we are allowed and criminalising the rest is totally absurd on many levels. Already countries are moving towards decriminalisation and when it happens drug usage actually goes down. Look at Portugal.
Davidoff
Legalization will allow ANYONE to grow their own, which means there will be NO criminals selling it. Anyone with a brain can figure this out on their own. When it is illegal or “decriminalized”, criminals will still be involved because it has massive value. Once everything is legal, the value drops dramatically, which means everyone can grow it in their backyards if they so choose. Wakeup people, these things will be used whether they are illegal or not. So why waste money putting people in jail over things they will use anyways. So dumb.