A leading British police officer has argued that heroin should be legalised, according to this report.
To which I can only say – wow! Of course, the usual suspects in the political world and media will throw up their arms in horror, demand this officer’s resignation and so forth. But to those of us ‘loony libbos’ who have been arguing about the utter futility of the war on drugs for years and pointed out how it has massively boosted organised crime will be pleased that someone from the Boys in Blue has had the moral courage to make this point.
Let me say straight off that I recognise that this is not a straightforward issue. Some who are sympathetic to the legalisation argument will nevertheless argue that our society has been so infantilised by the modern welfare state that it would be dangerous in the extreme to legalise what are seen as the most harmful drugs without at the same time making important social reforms. There is no doubt in my mind that if heroin were legalised straight away with no other parallel changes, a lot of vulnerable people could die. Any reform of public policy has to take that into account.
But for far too long any discussion of drug policy has occured in a sort of fairy-tale land, in which a whole area of debate has been shut down in advance. I find it a sign of the times that it is now even thinkable for a senior police officer to broach the subject of legalisaing heroin in public. Ten years ago it would have been unimaginable. By the standards of British public life, that is progress.
Curious.
Yet isn’t Amsterdam, that bastion of drug-freedom, rethinking it’s policies as the drug-abuse population increases dramatically each year?
Frankly I think legalizing drugs would probably be a good idea. The people who are inclined to abuse drugs would end up dying far earlier and thus remove that tendency from the gene-pool. A harsh viewpoint yes, but I’ve known a lot of drug users, abusers and dealers. The simple fact is that anyone who chooses the false dreamworld of drug abuse over life deserves to lose the latter.
That goes for alcohol too btw.
ed
But who’ll have the courage to stand up and say no tax money should be used to treat addicts?
And then there’s speed…not only should it be illegal, all tweekers should be shot on sight. The “it’s the prohibition that causes crime” argument just does not fly in the case of speed.
fnyser, would “speed” include diet pills and tea?
If my x-wife were up for days on end doing outrageously weird shit on tea and diet pills, sure. But then we come back to earth where “speed” actually means “amphetamines”
I am inclined to think tax money should be used to treat addicts –taxes on the drugs that is. Not because the druggies have to be taken care of, but because their behavior causes effects and costs external to the transaction between the pusher and the user.
In a perfect world a tax -strictly limited to the amount of costs incurred to spouses, children, automobile accident victims, etc- would be logical to levy on drug transactions. Anything more would be an incentive to the state to encourage drug use.
Because the real world is not perfect, a drug tax ‘might’ be a good source of revenue for dealing with the effects of dealing.
perhaps next we should legalize burglaries, since that makes criminals out of a lot of people too. oh wait, britain has pretty much already done that, by allowing burglars to sue homeowners for shooting them.
Samkit,
One big difference. Stealing is wrong. Shooting up isn’t.
Samkit, presumably you think it is okay for the State to outlaw actions involving consenting adults. Burglary, of course, is, by definition, an act carried out by a person without such consent. Rather obvious difference, don’t you think?
I have been saying for years that free-of-charge administration of drugs on demand (in heavily armoured clinics, naturally) is the way to go. There is no population shortage. Scrap all the support structure trying to get people off drugs, let them go out with a smile. As for ‘tweekers’ committing crimes, so what, lock them up like non ‘tweeking’ criminals.
Think of the police time saved, the court time saved, the customs time saved. It goes on and on.
This is nothing unusual. Police are always saying “this is daft”, because they’re the ones who have to waste their time chasing otherwise innocent junkies. They realize they’re “losing the war”, that it’s inevitable they’ll continue to do so, and that they aren’t helping anyone.
Of course Richard Brunsom is right. I am sure he’s had enough of the whingers in North Wales complaining about the muggings, robberies, burglaries and assaults that are taking place by users attempting to fund their habits. Far better to legalise drugs and therefore free up police time to concentrate on the real threats to society. The inconsiderate parking, the speeding, the old community charge protesters and people who put out their rubbish in the wrong type of bags.
Adam: The point is users only need to fund their habits through “muggings, robberies, burglaries and assaults” because the price of drugs is inflated because they’re illegal.
In the US the war on drugs has been responsible for the worst erosion of our civil liberties, especially property rights (read RICO statutes). The main argument against legalization that I hear all the time is “A lot of people will die from overdoses if you legalize drugs”. Even if this were true (the point is arguable), a lot of more worthy citizens have given their lives in war to protect the rights of their countrymen. I’m willing to let the users give theirs in the same cause.
Yet again we have some idiot – who quite frankly shouldn’t be in charge of a pencil, let alone a police farce – saying that *because* they can’t/won’t deal with the situation, *therefore* the thing should be decriminalised.
Posession of these things is illegal. If you don’t like the law, campaign to have it revoked. Don’t just say “Well, I think I’ll ignore this bit of legislation cos I don’t like it”. Exceeding the speed limit is illegal, although most people do it – but it is nice and easy to police with automated systems, providing someone doesn’t blow them up in the meantime (aside – no style, should have used thermite).
I’m rapidly approaching the state where I’ll actively encourage laws to clamp down on things other people enjoy – there was no significant outcry against the government theft of firearms from law-abiding citizens, so why the hell should I be defending anybody else’s “rights”?
Ed, what you say is not harsh at all but realistic. If we keep treating people like children they will behave like children. Addicts are just losers with no self-control. Its no one else’s fault they are addicted to whatever. Until we make it clear that this is the case and they are not “victims” we won’t ever solve the drug addiciton problem.
The war on drugs is an abject failure with more drugs being available now and cheaper. The only thing it has done is made criminals rich.
Bring back opium dens. If people want to blow their life away on drugs, let them. Cull them from the gene pool.
Maybe I miss the nuance of the Chief Constable’s statements (as reported) but it is unclear to me whether he is saying
‘we should decriminalize heroin becasue we (the police) are completely unable to deal with the crime it causes’ (Peter’s point, I think)
OR
‘we should decriminalize heroin because, while we (the police) are quite happy to keep enforcing the law the best we can, the cost to society (in lost treasure, lost freedom and resultant crime) far exceeds whatever benefit there may be’.
If the former – sack the SOB. A CC who asks that the law be changed to reduce his workload doesn’t deserve the public trust.
If the latter – more power to him. These are issues that a CC should be discussing – in those terms.
To address the larger point – what, exactly, do those who oppose legaliation of heroin expect will happen if it is legalized?
As a sometime copper, I have met exactly two smackheads who were highly-functional, contributing members of society. Both, incidentally, were that way because of their smack habit, not in spite of it. But they were the exceptions.
Almost all smackheads contribute nothing positive to society. Most are net consumers, because they almost always resort to some form of crime or other to support the habit. The rest of society pays their way, one way or another, and pays far more than it would take to support them, because the criminal nature of their addiction ups the costs.
So make the stuff legal, and cheap. Hell, it grows in places where nothing else will. Sell it at known, certified strengths, just like aspirin. Put in place draconian laws against selling or providing it to minors, and against things like driving under the influence. Change the employment laws (if need be) so that an employer can test any employee as a condition of employment, and fire anyone under the influence with no recourse.
What will happen? Nothing will change much in society – except that crime will fall like a hot rock. Smackheads will continue to be smackheads – no gain there, but no loss either. There will be little or no increase in consumption, because most folks who aspire to some sort of normal life free of dependency are not going to think “Oooh, look, government-tested heroin! Let’s try some of that this weekend!” They’re going to think “I’m still not going to use that s**t because it could cost me my job, my family, my car, my house, my boat, my retirement cottage up North, my 401K and the love and respect of everyone I ever knew”.
As Andrew Ian Dodge suggests, let opium dens flourish, if they can. Offer government-funded rehab (and I mean rehab – 120 days of therapy, not a couple of quick weeks in a semi-private at Betty Ford) for those who want to rid themselves of their habit. If people want to crap away their lives on smack, let them. We’ve demonstrated, with startling clarity and not just in this matter, that it is just stone impossible to suppress this sort of personal vice without resort to measures which are incompatible with any sort of free society. I don’t mind paying something towards the support and help of those who are enslaved to this crap – I just object to the price being so artificially inflated by the fact that we’ve decided to make what they do illegal.
llater,
llamas
And whilst we’re at it, no more ruddy methodone, either. Rehab, not mollycoddling. AFAIK, you don’t give alcoholics measured doses of alcohol-substitute – make the beggars go cold turkey. Film it & flog the footage as the ultimate reality television (or should that be surreality?).
What I would like to see more focus on is the idea of Freedom of Ingestion. One would think this is a more fundamental freedom than that of speech, religion, self-defence, etc…
From my point of view if the state has the authority to control what you can and cannot put into your body, then fundamentally you are nothing more than livestock.
Adam : The point is users only need to fund their habits through “muggings, robberies, burglaries and assaults” because the price of drugs is inflated because they’re illegal.
What like fags? ‘Illegal’ fags are far cheaper in the UK than legal cigarettes. Also I *think* that firearms are generally cheaper when illegal – never bought one though.
Regarding this CC’s opinions, just remember this is the same CC who wants all government bodies to restrict information given to Paul Smith of Safespeed. See (Link).
“There is no doubt in my mind that if heroin were legalised straight away with no other parallel changes, a lot of vulnerable people could die. ”
Make that “a lot of people could kill themselves”.
“Yet isn’t Amsterdam, that bastion of drug-freedom, rethinking it’s policies as the drug-abuse population increases dramatically each year? ”
I hope not. The drug-abuse population is irrelevant. The only important measure is the homicide rate – the rate at which people are killed by others. Letting more people get murdered in exchange for stopping other people from hurting themselves is nuts.
The American homicide rate dropped significantly in 1933, in the middle of the freaking Depression, because Prohibition was repealed. We need to repeal the current Prohibition and let the same thing happen (a drop in the homicide rate, that is, not another Depression!).
“Change the employment laws (if need be) so that an employer can test any employee as a condition of employment, and fire anyone under the influence with no recourse.”
But by the same token, employers must never be required to fire druggies. Laws against operating dangerous machinery under the influence (as opposed to failing a drug test for use days or even months ago) are quite sufficient.
I’m not convinced the price would fall to any great extent – the customers ARE addicted (don’t compare cigarettes t heroin please).
The degenerate alcoholics I worked with for a bit would steal and rob to get their booze. Most addicts will become incapable of holding a job at some point and even if it only cost 5 or 10 dollars to fix, well, gotta fix.
If your gunna get heroin down to the 5 – 10 dollar range I would imagine that you’d have to exempt the industry from lawsuits. Someone dies of lung cancer and smoking MAY have contributed in some part… and whammo, a billion dollar suit is won. Now what’ll happen when someone’s kid OD’s on Smack-o-licious™ brand heroin?
Surely if Heroin is decriminalised, it is only a matter of time before it becomes available on the NHS. Then the problem of cost disappears, so drug related crimes diminish.
Doesn’t the NHS already supply heroin?
Fnyser – I don’t know if the NHS prescribes heroin. I very much doubt it, though of course it does do so with morphine and other substances associated with the root source – opium.
As is often the case, heroin at one time was highly regarded as a wonderful painkiller, which it is. Similarly, many other drugs were actually developed and encouraged by the State, let’s not forget. Speed, for example, was given out to aircrews on bombers in the WW2 to keep them wide awake in the grinding eight-hour trips to and from their targets. A number of military personnel got hooked on various drugs given out as painkillers, of which the German Nazi leader Goering was an example.
By the way, I have read elsewhere that the copper I mentioned seemed more concerend about enforcing traffic laws etc than catching criminals. This guy may talk sense on drugs but of course he may be a twit on other grounds.
Anyway, if drugs are decriminalised I would bet that a lot of property-related offences would decline. I cannot prove that, of course, but it seems a fair assumption.
Only worry is that if we do legalise all drugs, we could encounter the kind of “druggie tourism” that has been a problem in Zurich, Switzerland.
The NHS does prescribe heroin but it is only 300 or 400 people depending on the source.
When is the NHS (taxpayer) going to pay for my beer?
Johnathan Pearce wrote:
‘Anyway, if drugs are decriminalised I would bet that a lot of property-related offences would decline. I cannot prove that, of course, but it seems a fair assumption.’
From my own experience, I believe what you say is true.
Some criminals go into that line of work because it’s a living, and they have no moral qualms about it.
But I’ve been along on a fair number of warrant services, for non-drug-related property offences (auto theft). I cannot recall a single one that I attended where evidence of illegal drug consumption was not also found.
There’s some drug users, especially pot users, who finance their habit from legitimate income. The high-functioning smackhead I mentioned above was paying for her habit out of her paycheck with no problem, and only got caught because she did something exceptionally stupid.
But the majority of cocaine, opiate and methamphetamine users pay for their habits, in whole or in part, from the proceeds of some property crime or other.
As to price – I have seen analysis that indicates that legalized drugs could be made and sold for prices that would make you blink. Standardized marijuana cigarettes could sell for less than the tobacco variety (exclusive of taxes), given the very large existing demand. Tobacco is hard to grow, marijuana is easy. And legal (prescription) opiates are actually dirt-cheap as it is.
llater,
llamas
Driving under the influence of anything that impairs you is already exactly as illegal in most US States as DUI. They run the largest ‘recognizing and differentiating folks high on things other than alcohol’ class for law enforcement in the world here in AZ up in Phoenix. It’s really the same situation as the libertarian position on hate speech laws: they are ridiculous, as the State can never truly know my intentions, only my actions. Doesn’t matter WHY I’m so impaired I can’t pass a road side coordination test.
That’s the law already.
In Amsterdam it’s not like you have totally legal heroin in pure doses of known strength at the corner store, which is what you’d have if they had actually gone all the way to legalization, which they never did.
Christ there’s stuff at least as strong as heroin in every pharmacy in America, and pure cocaine in most hospitals (rub a bit o’ coke on your sore tooth, or that nasty bunion on your foot: God’s own local anesthetic!) Just levy a high tax on intoxicating drugs if bought without a prescription, the products are already on the freakin’ shelves!
Oh, and those high taxes that you levy on your newly legalized recreational drugs? Dump them into medicare. The increased profits to existing pharmas will also go towards financing future theraputic drug R&D, so we’ve now taken care of that problem with one fell swoop too.
R&D for the recreationals that currently exist is zero. Hell they all work in the first place because their original sources were all plants (with only 22 amino acids in the DNA codon system, it’s no surprise that the same shapes appear cross-kingdom!)
Freedom of ingestion indeed!
We are all of us electro-chemical beings. How dare one group tell another what chemicals they can and can’t ingest???
So heroin is legal, the NHS (taxpayer) provides it, so I do not have to committ crime to support my habit. But now I’m a state sponsored junkie unable to hold a job. So what do I do to support myself that has high returns on little investment of time and money?
Oh, well junkies should get public (taxpayer funded) housing and food and transportation and……
I really don’t buy this “legalizing them will make them cheaper” bit. Where I work (and lived for 12 years) drugs are cheap. I would guess, from talking to friends from around the country, that drugs are cheap everywhere whether its crack, meth (easy to make in home labs), speed, heroine. Ditto from the cops in my Naval Reserve unit. The problem comes after the addict is so hooked on the stuff and can’t hold a job that they resort to illegal methods. I do not see how making it legal will help.
D’OH. Oh yeah. “the place” is Chicago.
How is the War on (some) Drugs different from prohibition? Prohibition didn’t work. A roughly constant percent of U S population are addicted to alcohol. There is no argument with the fact that criminality declined drastically when prohibition was repealed.
A point that needs emphasis is that law enforcement wastes resources enforcing drug laws. Prisons waste resources incarcerating junkies. Hell, prison building and administration is a growth industry whose costs are entirely borne by taxpayers.
Anyone who tells you the jails are full of drug offenders is a huge freeking liar-head. Poeple do not go to jail unless the have some serious weight. When you here about the poor schmucks serving time for possession 99.9% of the time it is for possession AND murder, possession AND rape, possession AND armed robbery. It is simply a way of tacking on more time to people who richly deserve it.
When I worked at a detox center, the police would bring people in with significant quantities of drugs on them and just tell us so we could flush it.
fnyser: “But now I’m a state sponsored junkie unable to hold a job.”
I can see that someonee who for other reasons can’t hold a job might turn to drugs, but what makes you assume junkies can’t be useful by reason of being junkies? The reason many addicts drop out eventually in our current circumstances is that the pursuit of the fix undermines their normal lives. Otherwise the junky categorisation is purely conventional.
All depends on the individual and their individual poison. There are plenty of alcoholics and nicotine addicts doing important things well, and heroin is closer to nicotine than alcohol in its effect on the user’s capabilities. If all were predictably and readily available, I’d have no problem with my surgeon or pilot being a smoker or a heroin addict, but I’d be deeply worried if I knew them to be a drunk or pothead.
I would have thought that to be a libertarian you would have to live in a society where there is at least a modicum of useful liberty.
All the curbs on true freedom in Britain, yet libertarians get their shorts in a knot because the state is making it difficult to be a successful junkie. And libertarians profess to speak for English freedom? Poor Britain. If Orwell were alive today he’d either be in an English asylum or happily living in New Hampshire next door to Mark Steyn (a fugitive from Canada, another emerging socialist utopia).
I’m sure the leftists are happy to let you have a slick looking web site festooned with guns and ammo (that nobody will ever be allowed to own), just as long as you’re using it to promote their causes, such as legalized heroin. (Yes, legalized heroin is a leftist cause). You British libertarians are unwitting (at least I hope it’s unwitting) tools of the left. To illustrate this, this is how I picture a conversation between two English lawmakers:
First Honorable member… “the libertarians want the right to own guns reinstated and heroin usage decriminalized”.
Second Honorable member… “well, they’re not going to get guns, but I suppose there’s no harm in legalizing smack.”
First Honorable member… “they also want unfettered access to abortion and the right to defend one’s property”
Second Honorable member… “Defend ones property! Can’t have that either. We’re with them on the abortion though”.
First Honorable member… homosexual marriage and laws protecting free speech?
Second Honorable member… “Free speech Ha Ha Ha! those libertarians sure are a hoot. We’ll go along with the homosexual marriage instead.”
Then they’ll have a good belly laugh and comment on how valuable libertarian input is and how you’re such a compromising bunch of fellows.
The best comment to this post so far was from Peter who asked why he should care if drug users “rights” were denied when Peter has no rights of his own. Bravo buddy, you’re the only one who saw this phony pro-and-con heroin use argument for the shit it really is.
Sorry for the long and erratic post but I’ve been reading Samizdata for a long time and I’ve come to wonder why you guys don’t stop supporting leftist causes until you’ve made some progress toward restoring the most basic of freedoms such as the right to any means of defending one’s home and family.
Good luck
Guy, Go have a smoke, then bang up and tell me it’s the same – hell, we’ll even let you skin pop. Not a lot of time around drugs, eh?
You can function (or think you can) on your drug of choice, fine. MY only requirement is that taxdollars are not used to support/treat addicts BEFORE legalization.
Well, another caveat…. Intoxication should not equal diminished capacity and crimes comitted under the influence should draw stiffer penalties.
fnyser,
You’re quite right about the question of legal capacity for the (voluntarily) intoxicated, in my opinion. Abnegation of personal responsibility ought to be discouraged. This was the case with drunken crimes until relatively recently in legal history.
(Likewise, I’m inclined to regard joint enterprise–going along with the gang–as an exacerbating factor.)
Spare your sneers, however. I don’t maintain that the experience for the user of those drugs is similar. I’m suggesting that they affect certain faculties (such as motor skills and decision-making) much less than other drugs do, and this is not paralleled by conventional categorisations of hard and soft. My only standing to tell someone else whether they should be taking drugs is when their doing so might injure me, and that will vary drug by drug and user by user.
Guy, we’re in agreement but for the effects of Heroin. I’m telling you, it pretty well impairs motor skills and decision-making. Comparing it to tobacco is just not reasonable.
Refreshing to see such lively interest in this blog and this post. The person who claimed in a February 7 comment that our prisons aren’t full of people convicted on drug abuse and possession violations (and other victimless crimes) is either lying, himself, or is simply ignorant of the facts. A quick trip to your local prison (since the war on drugs there’s almost certainly one nearby) or jail facility will reveal the truth.
But the war on drugs is here to stay. One poster observed it’s a growth industry, and he/she is absolutely correct. It isn’t gonna get better. It’s going to get a LOT worse.
Incidently, the hesaid-shesaid blog url I named in the URL block isn’t mine, but I post there frequently. It discusses lots of issues in a frank, honest dialogue between men and women.
Yea why dont we legalize drugs and watch our children die and fail and our grandchildren become addicted before they are born.We all need to be installing bars on our windows and women should not go out alone at night because did I not read somewhere that a guy on Meth has a tendency to be violent and is sexually high?.Of course we could allocate one or two states to keep the druggies all together so we always know where they are.We should all contribute our hard earned money to open more rehab centers,Oh wait!!! we wouldn’t need to because it would be acceptable if it was lawful.Try being married to a meth head and a drunken pot smoking pig and then tell me about legalizing drano heads.
Do you think the current system is working then, Victoria? Would it take me more than 30 mins cruising the streets of London to find someone who would sell me that stuff if I wanted it?
Prohibition has failed so clearly another approach is called for. We have alcohol rehab centres and alcohol is lawful so I think you really have not thought this through.