This March experts from around the world will meet in Vienna to decide upon the future of the War on Drugs.
We've looked into the primary issues here with Prohibition: The I.N.C.B., Drug War Disaster and Drug Policy Beyond 2008. Please have a scan of these posts or a listen for most of the relevant data and references. The Commission on Narcotic Drugs will debate the future of global drug policy and sign off on resolutions. It is irrefutable that the promised "drug free world by 2008" was as absurd as present promises we are "winning" the war on drugs - even if it does earn international crime more than the oil trade.
In the last four years, gradually rising to a fever pitch of moral hysteria, the argument for "compassionate" morality focused initiatives has been honed to a lethal denial of reality. Primarily this approach known either as the 'zero tolerance', 'prohibitionist', 'drug war' and more recently the intuitively benign 'drug free' movement has been cleverly marketed by the religious right and propheteers of biblical fundamentalism, much like the case for teaching 'Intelligent Design' - actually religious Creationism - in science classrooms.
This episode is the first of two parts looking at the history of cannabis prohibition and the false claims and marketed misinformation that made such out of proportion laws possible. Once again I shall remind visitors I do not support drug use. However I do respect evidence, democracies and will speak up for human rights. Indeed it is the harms stemming from drug use that demand moral bases for public health policy be dissected and exposed as the enforced conservatism they actually are. Indeed the similarities between early - mid 20th century - claims and the recent spike in cannabis related myth is striking.
One can only hope the resolutions gained at the Beyond 2008 forum and promoted by the UNODC are respected. Health Responses, Human Rights and Harm Reduction. It does already however, especially with the rank contrariness thrust forth from the provocative World Forum Against Drugs, seem most likely we will see only gradual increases in harm reduction despite the positive results accompanying virtually every initiative. The WFAD, held in Stockholm, Sweden produced an astonishing document designed to refute the humane focus of the Beyond 2008 resolutions, gained weeks earlier.
Some argue the war on drugs is lost whilst others insist the documented failures of "Just Say No" are an illusion. It should be noted drug war supporters and Just Say No devotees also believe in "virgin pledges", faith healing and the promotion of biblical doctrine over biology, psychology, sociology or indeed any evil "post Darwinism" pursuit. Refutation of prohibitions breath taking failures come with the apportionment of blame toward those who support harm reduction; condoms cause AIDS, clean needles cause injecting habits and methadone causes addiction. The second link in this paragraph commences with a claim, "because the 10 commandments have proven so successful...". Thankfully, economic reasoning seem to have a fine, durable position against murderous drug wars or the promotion of enduring ignorance.
Suffice it to say, apart from scoring even more lucrative government contracts to match the tax and religious concessions the drug free movement has naught to offer but superstitious, emotive and at times slanderous claims. Such as Drug Free Australias attempt to blame public health identities for saddling us with a "disease called sex, drugs and rock-n-roll". Or drug industry elites and their quest to profit from a global conspiracy to "normalise" illicit drug use, not accept the health problems of the inevitable challenges it brings. In truth Australia led the world in progressive policy initiatives and ever since these evidenced backed concepts have been undermined by the religious right and the bloody right. This is the age of Blood Born Viruses and no amount of promising oneself to Jesus can evoke immunity - particularly immunity from reality.
It is the fear of harm reduction initiatives and the all powerful Wrong Message of Destruction [WMOD] that conservatives fear. Despite harm reduction receiving only 15% of finances for Australias policy of Harm Minimisation - the rest going to Demand Reduction, Supply Reduction - the religious fundamentalist mind simply cannot accept the policy as a whole. It "reeks of filthy immorality" and "capitulates to the hedonistic delirium of modernity", I was once informed. What of our publics health? The "bible is clear, and we shall fall as did Sodom" one practising GP claims. But it is not so much the spectre of condoms, needles and education pamphlets.
It is the prong of "Demand Reduction" that simply by existing suggests demand for illicit drugs exist. Experience tells us harm reduction successfully manages - not encourages - drug related harms, which are often prohibition specific if we remember that many identical compounds are prescribed by the million daily. Hence harm reduction is to opponents "a covert way of normalising then legalising drug use".
Notice this is unthinkable to the conservative, despite the level of addictive behaviour and prescribed drugs rendering illicit drug use a drop in the bucket. Despite the reality that harm reduction actually manages this reality. Saving lives by the minute by accepting this "noramality" of human nature. One doesn't have to love reality, but denial is sheer superstitious folly. And it is denial that gives voice to "drug free" nonsense over understanding human nature and human rights. Little wonder harm reduction is seen by the superstitious as a cause, and not the solution it is documented by the truckload as being.
Yet ultimately it is the mere suggestion one may fail the family value test and be affronted with a community that assumes drug demand will almost always be a reality. It is the inherent suggestion of moral failure that conservatives struggle with. Surely their perfect parenting, faith, dutiful praying and virgin children need no such policy sending Wrong Messages. Open and honest discourse is to be denied and those who allude to such, slandered and labelled as conspirators. What other explanation can there be? Michael Duffy who wrote the piece linked above, was publically denounced by Drug Free Australia and ordered to retract his claims. He ignored them.
The USAs 1914 Harrison Tax Act [text] prompted the wide scale jailing of MDs for five years, as doctors refused to deny the Hippocratic Oath in favour of licencing demands [possession], ultimately finding resolution in a 1919 Supreme Court case upholding the validity of the act. Ever since the resultant prohibition has been controversial. Cannabis was criminalised in 1937. Every step of the way, the religious right - then known as The Temperance Movement - have kept a watchful eye on societies bold insistence to enjoy life and consent to safe, well understood behaviour. Corruption is a constant in every nation on the planet and will - IMHO - be a primary variable to try to manage in the post prohibition world.
Politicians are easy prey for our cunning religious cronies as witnessed by lethal claims against condoms as sensible protection, abuse under the roof of tax payer funded "churches", handouts to obscure cults and the exploitation of vulnerable in need and at risk human beings. In the UK last year, cannabis was upgraded against evidence and the advice of the governments illicit drug advisory body to appease hardliners. Immediately Australian 'drug free' groups increased their "focus" on cannabis demanding the same response and a call to banish the word "soft" in relation to cannabis. One can of course almost hear the stamping out of marijuana joints by teens now that they know cannabis is class B and no longer C.
This professionally produced audio features references to the fallacious and manipulative tricks applied by Harry Anslinger, who can be followed in this 1938 Marijuana Conference. The similarities between this piece of history and present day attempts to slow the dismantling of prohibition are compelling.
One can only hope level heads rule this March, and if not that the UNODC chief, Antonio Maria Costa sticks to his word on health and human rights.
Stay tuned for part 2.
Note: episodes may be delayed. Sincere apologies.
Other references are here.
Gags,
20 MB, 41 min, 34.
