By which I mean, the voices or reason get drowned out in an ocean of verbal diarrhea.
Start at 45 minuites in, and listen until about 58 minutes in. This is between Steve Rolles from Transform, and a Pastor. So, he’s totally in tune with rational, scientific thought, then.
From the second he comes in, the pastor more or less does not shut up. He falls for every basic logical and factual fallacy prohibitionists use. In 30 seconds, he’s managed to claim not only that legalisation will help the criminal gangs (as opposed to prohibition being the cause of criminal gangs) and that “We have the best regulation- they’re banned!” No, this is, in some ways, no regulation, but in other ways, it’s the worst regulation. No regulation as there’s no control at all, but the worst regulation because you know for sure that the people supplying the drugs will be those of scrupulous morals and low integrity (there are exceptions). Either way, he’s utterly wrong on both counts.
Being a pastor, he unsurprisingly calls drug issues a problem of “morality”. Quite frankly, this is bollocks. Besides, what’s his solution? Use the state to coerce people into being “moral” by his standards?
He rants on about the health issues and addictive nature of drugs; forgetting that under the status quo there are no “recommended doses” or standardized qualities. It’s not uncommon for drugs to be cut with other substances. One being anthrax.
And why not? If you’re going to risk jail merely possessing a substance, may as well go for broke, eh? Cheers, prohibitionists.
He brings out the old cliche that legalising drugs will send the wrong message and tell people that doing drugs are ok. By which he means drugs that aren’t whisky, tobacco or choir boys. Well, for starters, I don’t actually think that doing drugs is immoral or wrong per se. I do believe, as a matter of principle, that people own their lives, and thus their bodies. On a more practical point, he’s fucking wrong. Portugal shows similar results in their decriminalisation. I can see no reason to believe that there would be any kind of massive increase in usage following a move away from prohibition, and why would there be? The fact that these drugs are illegal aren’t the only concern many people have about them, but also the fact that they are, by and large, bad for your health. Even given the free choice, many people would turn them down. I myself don’t drink alcohol by personal choice, for example. In fact, I took this screenshot from the Talk To Frank website:
Oddly, he admits that the status quo isn’t working. So his solution is to continue it. Hmm. No, there’s no reasonable person who could claim the status quo is the perfect system. So why do so many continue to advocate it?
He gets angry at this point, as the Righteous have a tendency to do. At one point, the debate falls into such chaos I can barely make out what any one’s saying.
He comes very close to advocating the banning of booze, which, despite being the logical conclusion of the prohibitionist mindset, somehow seems undesirable to many people. Oh, I wonder why….
Pic somewhat related. May contain hypocrisy. It’s a photo I took on a sign of a nearby building. A pub.
The next thing to come out of this guy’s mouth is probably my favourite logical fallacy spewed forth by prohibitionists. It goes like this:
“We have laws against burglary, but people continue to burgle, so why don’t we just get rid of those laws too?”
Ok, but there’s the thing. There are burglars despite the fact that their actions are both legally and morally wrong. There always will be. But, they don’t burgle because burglary is illegal.They may burgle for a wide variety of reasons (including, under the status quo, drug addiction), but the fact that s9 of the Theft Act 1968 exists at all is highly unlikely to be one of them.
It’s different with drug dealing. There are criminal gangs that have arisen to profit out of the wants and needs of drug users because there is no alternative method to do so. Any and all safe, legal methods have been ruled out. What this does is push the trade into (largely) the hands of those with little or no regard to safety or ethics. To repeat what I already said, if you’re going to risk prison anyway, you may as well cut corners elsewhere. Prohibition is the reason such criminal gangs are created, just as Al Capone got rich off the back of alcohol prohibition.The increased profits, lack of tax or oversight, and large number of customers all act as incentives to the dealers. And here’s the kicker: The harsher the drug war gets, the more drug supplies and competitors jailed, the greater these incentives get to the rest of the suppliers- higher prices. Smaller supply.
It’s entirely different from the burglary example (feel free to replace it with rape/murder/your favourite Saturday night activity), as where as the burglar commits crimes despite the laws against it, the drug pusher commits his crimes because of the law against it.
I’m quite convinced that, even if there’s a case for regulation, that even an unregulated market would be better than the status quo. The details, though, at this point in time, are less important that winning the public over the basic point that prohibition fucks things up.
The details, though, at this point in time, are less important that winning the public over the basic point that prohibition fucks things up.
Because an unregulated, free market drug trade would be too much bullshit for the public.
Start of with the basic priciple, then maybe later on, the public will reach the rational conclusion that a completely unregulated drugs market would be the most efficient and cost reducing measure to introduce.
Fat chance eh?
I’ve always been willing to accept a regulating market may well be the best of all solutions.
And let’s face it, if they’ll accept prohibition, they’ll accept anything.
[...] the supporters of prohibition are limited to a hysterical clergyman (not exactly a fountain of rational thought), and Peter fucking Hitchens, you know the jig is up. [...]