> "The first thing that has to change is the idea that the world needs one
> universal model: prohibition. Every country has its own regulatory system
> for alcohol and for tobacco and there is no need for more uniformity. The
> best models of regulation will only come into existence when individual
> countries regain the right to develop their own drug policies, tailored to
> their culture and to local and regional conditions." - fp
I agree completely, except that I would say roughly the same thing just a bit differently. The first thing that has to change is the perception that prohibition is preferrable to ANY other system, including complete legalization.
If the question is "how to do things in a post-prohibition system" then, again, I agree with fp that ultimately, diversification will be the end result, eventually producing a model suited to each culture and region.
But, as in fairytales, where the wicked witch tells the hero, "You can only save the princess (i.e. "end prohibition") after you answer the riddle (come up with ONE universal "model of regulation")..." The witch is confident because she knows there is no possible answer. The hero wastes vaulable time trying to figure out the answer to a riddle that has no solution.
The story ends happily when the clever protagonist figures out that there is no damned answer, and there never was, & the whole game was only ever meant to be a stupid distraction, to buy more time (the limiting factor) for the witch. He finally realizes that he doesn't need to play the game anymore, he simply needs to quit legitimizing the witch's point of view. She's a witch, after all, her motivation has never been in anyone's interest but her own.
In the storybooks, that's typically when the swords come out and the witch fares rather badly. I trust we can all just agree that the effects of prohibition are of greater threat to society than drug use, and judge the riddle an obsolete question (as was done with alcohol prohibition). The sons-of-witches will benefit as much as anyone, after The End of prohibition is finally achieved.
The absurd prerequisite of having to come up with a "post-prohibition system" that's better than the current system, creating most of the problems it is supposed to be solving (that's the definition of counter-productive), is the kind of idiotic riddle that you'd expect from people who refuse to acknowledge the harm in perpetuating prohibition, for whatever reason. Some in fact profit immensely from it.
It is obvious, and has been obvious for a long time that prohibition doesn't work, right? Then what is this absurd notion about having to come up with something better? If a car is filling up with exhaust fumes, you don't keep driving it until your dead, just because you don't have another car. You park it and walk until your head clears and you can figure out other ways to get to where you need to go.
There is no valid argument for perpetuating counter-productive policy. Even in the absence of an alternative. I think it is at least as important to identify the fallacy of this objection as it is to acknowledge the need to eventually find our way to what works.
If prohibitionists could say, "yes, okay, well our way doesn't work very well, but at least it's working a little, and it's not that expensive, and it's not making the situation worse than if there were no prohibition..." then that might justify continuing prohibition until models could be designed and constructed.
But the obvious fact is, prohibitionists can't make any of those claims. It's a counter-productive policy, and everyone seriously involved with the sciences which are supposed to guide our social and political evolution understands how damaging prohibition is. It's an unaffordably expensive waste of lives, money and resources, and finally, after years of analysis, everyone knows the truth. Prohibition invariably breeds political corruption, a violent black market, environmental degradation, economic upheaval, increasing illness, social imbalance and death.
A post-prohibition model? Obviously we'd all be better off if hard drugs just hung off of every tree. At least there wouldn't be a black market. At least there wouldn't be shoot-outs over artificially scarce commodities. At least there wouldn't be the "forbidden fruit" effect which predictably attracts rebellious youth.
What would result from such an extreme is that people would learn individual responsibility, self-discipline, selectivity, individual tolerances, relative safety. Education, alternatives, healthy role models and treatment would take the place of eradication, forced abstinence, arrest and incarceration.
Whatever "model" is put into place is going to be weighted toward individual choice and people learning to take responsibility for credibly informed choices. Any alternative to this is just a lesser degree of prohibition, and will engender watered-down versions of the problems that exist now. Certainly standardized manufacture and distribution of hard drugs can be done, it is for alcohol cigarettes, and other manufactured products.
For Cannabis, coca, mushrooms, opium poppies and other naturally occurring organisms, that can easily be grown at home, the only realistic approach is to let people grow what can never be regulated, without the loss of basic human rights. Any proposed regulation of Cannabis is indefensible, considering the ease of cultivation, the breadth of distribution, the relative safety and widespread therapeutic value, the universal popularity, the thousands of industrial uses, and the increasing awareness of legitimate need for an increasing number of people for an increasing number of reasons.
To identify prohibition itself as the greatest contributing factor to the problems we face, eliminates at least 50% of the need to come up with solutions. As a global society, we first need to admit to ourselves that what has been done all of our lives, was a bad idea from the start. We were born into a system doomed to fail. Just because it is all we know, doesn't mean it is the best we can do for ourselves. This admission is not so easy for an arrogant, fearful society to do. Besides the various economic and social dynamics favoring prohibition, there is the inertia of vested corporate earnings and political egoism to overcome.
To stop doing something so destructive is the first good reason to stop doing something so destructive. Post-prohibition models will be shaped largely by cultural diversity and regional consensus. As industry and people discover the advantages of one way over another, there will be progression toward what works for us as "humans" regardless of nationality.
Cannabis over hard drugs, Cannabis over alcohol, Cannabis diesel seed oil and ethanol over petroleum, Cannabis cellulose over timber, Cannabis protein over soya beans, Cannabis fiber over cotton, Cannabis plastics over petrochemical polymers...the naturally balancing free market will shift to accomodate changing values, elevating environmental concerns as conditions become more extreme, and weighing functionality more heavily against the increasingly disfunctional deadweight of the status quo.
Eventually, prohibiton of Cannabis for any reason will be seen for what it is, a manipulative smokescreen which has created imbalances in the human system of values and economics, that we'll all be very lucky to recover from. We may even have enough time left. It may still be possible to stabilize the Earth's ecosystem, if we act effiicently, and quit wasting time, trying to answer rediculous riddles, before we stop wasting time, doing what we already know is counter-productive for many people, and destroying the planet we live on.
for peace, health, justice, enlightenment,
Paul J. von Hartmann
Project P.E.A.C.E.
Planet Ecology Advancing Conscious Economics
http://www.webspawner.com/users/projectpeace/
--- fp
wrote:
> Dear All,
> Joeps report from Dublin gave me the same reactions as I read from Peter
> Webster: great! A few minutes of rational and restrained comment by Joep on
> UN/US drug prohibition succeeds in driving some of the responsible persons
> to frenzy.
>
> In this unusually long message I want to comment on one part of the
> Dublin-report: the no-concrete-plan-argument, which Ferre van Beveren /
> admin@thc-ministry.net mentioned. Quote from the Dublin report:
>
> "In personal conversations, one could feel however that even repressive
> governments (like Denmark and Sweden) do not have a real response to the
> argument that more law enforcement on drugs means more money to organised
> crime. They typically respond by saying that we do not have a proposal of
> how to do things in a post-prohibition system, and as long as we do not have
> answers to many questions on how such a system could function they will
> never take us serious…"
>
> My point is the following:
> I think we face a paradoxical situation and we have to make up our minds on
> this. I am not sure whether we should do more to attract attention to the
> models of regulation that exist, and to devise and distribute new and better
> plans and models of regulation. I wrote a text on this subject, because I
> agree that we must be able to show that models of regulation are thinkable
> and do indeed exist (see attachment: Models of Regulation, 2002) - and I am
> interested in Sandy Madar's proposal.
> The paradox is this:
> On the one hand, we hear from politicians who are receptive to our ideas
> that "legalization" is too frightening to most people, and that we should
> concentrate on an incremental approach, with small steps in the right
> direction, AND NOT USE THE L-WORD.
> Many people have doubts about the wisdom of drug prohibition but
> unfortunately, many of them panic when they hear the word legalization. Not
> all drug law reformers are legalizers. And many drug law reform activists
> see incremental change as the only viable option, even when they are
> convinced that full legalization is the only solution.
> On the other hand, our opponents reproach us that we do not have a concrete
> plan.
> This makes me suspicious: they may want to use this, to frighten their
> populations even more but also to accuse more moderate drug law reformers
> that they really are legalizers.
>
> I think that the answer to this question for a concrete plan should be that
> there already exists a small number of more or less concrete plans - which,
> by the way, will all be better than the present situation. But more
> important than one concrete plan is to put this in perspective: what we
> definitively don' t need after the repeal of prohibition is a new universal
> model of regulation. There is a need for diversification. And the difficult
> part is not to devise a model of regulation. Let a hundred models of
> regulation blossom!
> The first thing that has to change is the idea that the world needs one
> universal model: prohibition. Every country has its own regulatory system
> for alcohol and for tobacco and there is no need for more uniformity. The
> best models of regulation will only come into existence when individual
> countries regain the right to develop their own drug policies, tailored to
> their culture and to local and regional conditions.
>
> Fredrick Polak
> --
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: admin@thc-ministry.net
> To: eurodrug@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Saturday, May 15, 2004 9:29 PM
> Subject: [eurodrug] Plan!
>
> Dear All,
> Today I have met, and spoken to Sandy W. Madar. She is in the Netherlands
> right now and has been talking to politicians about reform. She told me
> about experiments in Rotterdam that might take place, if everything can be
> solved out with local and other politicians. I didn't get the details, but
> it was about making cannabis legal to grow as well, to stop the 'backdoor
> policy' that we have in the Netherlands at present times, and make it legal
> to supply (coffee)shops.
> She also told me about a plan she, and others, are formulating right now as
> an answer to this "as long you don't come up with a good plan" question that
> was used as an excuse to defend and preserve the present system last week in
> Dublin again.
> She told me she wanted to get in contact with EMCOD as soon as possible and
> have the plan reviewed by encod before the evaluation of the current EU
> Action Plan (to be published in October 2004) and this plan will be brought
> under the attention of the Dutch Presidency for the evaluation of the
> current EU Action Plan.
>
> I just came back from town and send you this email, it's all I know and I
> have her card.
>
> Sandy W. Madar is from Denmark and in harm reduction:
>
> Sandy W. Madar
> Dopemanager
> Tel +45 - 51 34 13 70
>
> Dopemanager Foreninger
> Postboxs 4032
> DK - 8260 Viby
>
> Sandy@dopemanager.dk
> http://www.dopemanager.dk
>
> I sure hope it's a good plan, there isn't much time before October.
>
> Have a happy day,
>
> Ferre van Beveren
> admin@thc-ministry.net
>
>
