WHY A HIGH SOCIETY IS A FREE SOCIETY

The Guardian UK ^ | 5/19/02 | A C Grayling

[LarryLied]

One measure of a good society is whether its individual members have the autonomy to do as they choose in respects that principally concern only them. The debate about heroin, cocaine and marijuana touches precisely on this. In my submission, a society in which such substances are legal and available is a good society not because drugs are in themselves good, but because the autonomy of those who wish to use them is respected. For other and broader reasons, many of them practical, such a society will be a better one.

I have never taken drugs other than alcohol, nicotine, caffeine and medicinal drugs. Of these, I have for many years not taken the two former. I think it is inimical to a good life to be dependent for pleasure and personal fulfilment on substances which gloss or distort reality and interfere with rationality; and yet I believe that heroin, cocaine, marijuana, ecstasy and cognates of these should be legal and available in exactly the same way as nicotine and alcohol.

In logic is no difference between legal and currently illegal drugs. Both are used for pleasure, relief from stress or anxiety, and 'holidaying' from normal life, and both are, in different degrees, dangerous to health. Given this, consistent policy must do one of two things: criminalise the use of nicotine and alcohol, in order to bring them in line with currently illegal substances; or legalise currently illegal substances under the same kinds of regime that govern nicotine and alcohol.

On civil liberties grounds the latter policy is preferable because there is no justification in a good society for policing behaviour unless, in the form of rape, murder, theft, riot or fraud, it is intrinsically damaging to the social fabric, and involves harm to unwilling third parties. Good law protects in these respects; bad law tries to coerce people into behaving according to norms chosen by people who claim to know and to do better than those for whom they legislate. But the imposition of such norms is an injustice. By all means let the disapprovers argue and exhort; giving them the power to coerce and punish as well is unacceptable.

Arguments to the effect that drugs should be kept illegal to protect children fall by the same token. On these grounds, nicotine and alcohol should be banned too. In fact there is greater danger to children from the illegality of drugs.

Almost everyone who wishes to try drugs, does so; almost everyone who wishes to make use of drugs does it irrespective of their legal status. Opponents say legalisation will lead to unrestrained use and abuse. Yet the evidence is that where laws have been relaxed there is little variation in frequency or kind of use.

The classic example is Prohibition in the USA during the 1920s. (The hysteria over alcohol extended to other drugs; heroin was made illegal in the USA in 1924, on the basis of poor research on its health risks and its alleged propensity to cause insanity and criminal behaviour.) Prohibition created a huge criminal industry. The end of Prohibition did not result in a frenzy of drinking, but did leave a much-enhanced crime problem, because the criminals turned to substances which remained illegal, and supplied them instead.

Crime destabilises society. Gangland rivalry, the use of criminal organisations to launder money, to fund terrorism and gun-running, to finance the trafficking of women and to buy political and judicial influence all destabilise the conditions for a good society far beyond such problems as could be created by private individuals' use of drugs. If drugs were legally and safely available through chemist shops, and if their use was governed by the same provisions as govern alcohol purchase and consumption, the main platform for organised crime would be removed, and thereby one large obstacle to the welfare of society.

It would also remove much petty crime, through which many users fund their habit. If addiction to drugs were treated as a medical rather than criminal matter, so that addicts could get safe, regular supplies on prescription, the crime rate would drop dramatically, as argued recently by certain police chiefs.

The safety issue is a simple one. Paracetemol is more dangerous than heroin. Taking double the standard dose of paracetemol, a non-prescription analgesic, can be dangerous. Taking double the standard medical dose of heroin (diamorphine) causes sleepiness and no lasting effects.

A good society should be able to accommodate practices which are not destructive of social bonds (in the way that theft, rape, murder and other serious crimes are), but mainly have to do with private behaviour. In fact, a good society should only interfere in private behaviour in extremis.

Until a century ago, now-criminal substances were legal and freely available. Some (opium in the form of laudanum) were widely used. Just as some people are damaged by misuse of alcohol, so a few were adversely affected by misuses of other drugs. Society as a whole was not adversely affected by the use of drugs; but it was benefited by the fact that it did not burden itself with a misjudged, unworkable and paternalistic endeavour to interfere with those who chose to use drugs.

The place of drugs in the good society is not about the drugs as such, but rather the freedom and the value to individuals and their society of openness to experimentation and alternative behaviours and lifestyles. The good society is permissive, seeking to protect third parties from harm but not presuming to order people to take this or that view about what is in their own good.

[VOA]

WHY A HIGH SOCIETY IS A FREE SOCIETY

I haven't seen any studies...but having been around long enough...
My intuition tells me that this country had a crappy automotive industry and military
form the late 1960's until Reagan was President for a few years.

This return to competitiveness coincides with a LOT of public and private drug testing of employees.
While I dislike drug testing...it is interesting that our automotive industry and
military snapped back to good form at about the same time that being high on the job
became either difficult or simply would cost a job.

And I'm not mentioning this just for "drugs", I met a few UAW workers for Chrysler from
the late 1960's and they said that booze, weed and a few other "soft" drugs
were par for the course...and really degraded the product.
(I'm not down on the working Joe/Josephine on the assembly line...the management
was probably going around with a collective clouded head during that era as well.)

[philman_36]

So many deep thoughts and so little time.
Being as this drug thread was "the only game in town" you should've had plenty of time.

[Buckeroo]

What do you mean by your comment, Jim?

"Your beliefs have no influence there because the philosophy you've embraced is morally bankrupt and detrimental to the interests of our nation and its people. " -- Roscoe

I agree that as a nation, we are morally bankrupt. But it has little to do with my moral fibre or capability. It has to do with a nation that has sanctioned the love of welfare while silencing those that shout LIBERTY.

[Buckeroo]

waiting for your reply, Jim.

[Buckeroo]

waiting for your reply, Jim.

[philman_36]

Tell your point to Congress. I am tired of your comments Roscoe JimRob.
I was once assured in a FReepmail that Mr. Jim only posts under his own name.
If you are correct that Mr. Jim is also Roscoe and is posting under other names my whole opinion of FR has just changed. How you would know that is beyond me, but I'd sure like to know.
If it is possible for Mr. Jim to post as Roscoe then how many other names could he be posting under? It's not right at all if it is true.

[Buckeroo]

Who assured you of anything?

[philman_36]

Who assured you of anything?
Well, Mr. Jim assured me. I guess I shouldn't take his assurances to heart. I'll sure keep this in mind until either Roscoe or Mr. Jim reply.
In the meantime, for the WOD supporters, and especially to Reagan Man and your reply #178 and the overdose issue...
I was looking up something in regards to Gouverneur Morris and ran across this...
Initiative 229
(3) The courts of Alaska, Hawaii, and Michigan have noted presidential commission findings, scientific studies, and learned treatises which:
(a) Characterize cannabis as a relatively nonaddictive and comparatively harmless euphoriant used and cultivated for more than ten thousand years without a single recorded lethal overdose;
(b) Demonstrate that moderate cannabis intoxication causes very little impairment of psychomotor functions; reveal no significant physical, biochemical, or mental abnormalities attributable solely to cannabis use; and that long-term, heavy cannabis users do not deviate significantly from their social peers in terms of mental function;
(c) Disprove the "stepping stone" or "gateway drug" argument that cannabis use leads to other drugs; rather, that lies taught about cannabis, once discovered, destroy the credibility of valid educational messages about moderate and responsible use and valid warnings against other truly dangerous drugs;
(d) Indicate that cannabis users are less likely to commit violent acts than alcohol users, refute the argument that cannabis causes criminal behavior, and suggest that most users avoid aggressive behavior, even in the face of provocation; and
(e) Declare that cannabis use does not constitute a public health problem of any significant dimension, and finds no rational basis for treating cannabis as more dangerous than alcohol;
(4) Cannabis does not cause the social ills that its prohibition was intended to guard against; rather, that most of the social ills attributed to cannabis result from its unreasonable prohibition which:
(a) Provides incentives to traffic in marijuana instead of limiting its prevalence, since almost all cannabis users evade the prohibition, even though drastically expanding public safety budgets have reduced funding for other vital services such as education;
(b) Fosters a black market that exploits children, provides an economic subsidy for gangs, and sells cannabis of questionable purity and uncertain potency;
(c) Generates enormous, untaxed, illicit profits that debase our economy and corrupt our justice system; and
(d) Wastes police resources, clogs our courts, and drains the public budget to no good effect;
(5) Alcohol prohibition caused many of the same social ills before being replaced by regulatory laws which, ever since, have granted alcohol users the privilege of buying alcohol from state licensees, imposed strict penalties protecting children, delivered alcohol of sure potency, and generated substantial public revenues;
(6) Cannabis prohibition is a sumptuary law of a nature repugnant to our Constitution's framers, and which is so unreasonable as to:
(a) Arbitrarily violate the rights of cannabis users to be secure against unreasonable search and seizure as guaranteed to them by the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution;
(b) Unreasonably impose felony burdens on the cannabis users while the state grants special privileges to alcohol users, which violates the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution;
(c) Unnecessarily proscribe consumption of an "herb bearing seed" given to humanity in Genesis 1:29, thereby violating their unqualified religious rights under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and their natural rights under the Ninth Amendment to the United States Constitution;
(d) Violate the individual's right to privacy and numerous other natural and constitutional rights reserved to the people under the Ninth Amendment to the Unites States Constitution; and
(e) Violate the state's right to regulate and tax an intoxicant1market as reserved to states under the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, thereby abdicating control to illicit markets; and
(7) The constitutional ends of justice, order, and the perpetuation of liberty; the governmental purposes of preserving the peace, safety, and happiness of the people; and the vitality of the United States Constitution demand the replacement of a costly, self-defeating prohibition with regulatory laws controlling cannabis cultivation, potency, sale, and use; defining and prohibiting cannabis abuse; protecting children with a comprehensive drug education program and strict penalties for the sale or provision of cannabis to minors; funding a state drug abuse treatment program; and raising substantial revenue for public use.

I have no reason as to why Mr. Munro would lie so I presume he is being truthful. He apparently used viable information as stated early on.

[BlackbirdSST]

Would you support a proposal for decriminalized possession of small quantities of marijuana for personal use, on the condition that users surrender their driver's licenses in advance?

Pretty lame, Roscoe. Would you support the same for a myriad of Prescription Drugs or Alcohol? Blackbird.

[BlackbirdSST]

MYTH: Drug laws infringe on individual freedom and privacy as well as make criminals out of otherwise law-abiding citizens. FACT: All laws, by their nature, restrict a certain degree of freedom--the freedom to do as one pleases, whenever one pleases, regardless of the harm or potential harm to oneself or other. Civilized society has the right and the responsibility to regulate behavior in order to protect individuals from their own poor decisions as well as others from the risks of certain behavior. Drunk driving, traffic regulations, possession of explosives and weapons, incest, and child labor are but a few examples. Those who want to legalize drugs would have you believe that individules who choose to engage in illegal behavior bear no responsibility; but, instead, the law is to blame, even though most of our citizens elect not to violate the law. The legalization advocates focus on the rights of drug users while ignoring the rights of the public. Based on their philosophy, it is acceptable to allow a very small segment of our society to get high with impunity while placing the majority in great jeopardy from their intoxicated state. Based on their theory, drunk driving should not be against the law. A drunk should only be punished after he or she has a traffic accident and kills or maims someone. Additionally, the majority of our citizens do not fear law enforcement. It is those few who choose to violate the law who feel threatened by the police. They seek protection of their own freedom while they choose to violate the freedom of others. Deputy Chief Thomas J. Gorman California Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement

I love it when you guy's bring such unbiased "opinion" to the discussion. Blackbird.

[weegee]

I don't know about that. There ae a number of schemes to traffic in cigarettes without paying the taxes (when the Mississipi river flooded and truckloads of cigarettes were written off as "damaged" in the floods, investigators went to examine and verify that they hadn't "disappeared".

"Moonshine" still exists.

Who polices these crimes? The ATF (Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms). Who do you think would police drugs if we legalized them and then "taxed the hell out them" as many people suggest? A simple procedure to move the DEA to be under the ATF.

Do you feel safer now?

[weegee]

A chief difference is that it is much easier to die from an overdose on illegal drugs (cocaine, heroin, amphetamines, etc.) than tobacco or alcohol.

Our courts already have decreed that tobacco "deaths" are a product liability issue. Any manufacturer of legal cocaine, legal heroin, etc. would find themselves open to lawsuits from the trial lawyers.

[Rudder]

Marihuana does not impair driving ability.

[metesky]

A tax collector is tarred and feathered
during the Whiskey Rebellion.

[LiberteeBell]

Also, I wouldn't want my health insurance premiums (or any insurance premiums for that matter) to increase because of the need to cover people who are hell bent on self destruction and property owners from their actions. Already we are all paying a premium for people who smoke tabacco. Also, sure as anything I'll be asked to pay for their treatment to get off drugs if they want.

Consider this: already we are paying--through taxes--to keep minor drug offenders (and I'm talking about those who have a little marijuana for personal use, not those who robbed the local bank to support their habit) in jails or prisons. The threat of jail/prison time is exactly the *wrong* incentive to provide for someone who might want to kick their drug habit. P.S. I think the gubmint should get out of the health care business too. It's the stupid bureacuracy that's making health care costs skyrocket.

[jammer]

You should, then, change your name.

[rebelyell]

The war on some drugs is nearly over. The drugs won.....but the drug warriors haven't figured it out yet.

[LiberteeBell]

headsonpikes

64

knock off the personal attacks.

You're getting on headsonpikes for "personal attacks" on reagan man, the King of personal attacks???

ROFLMAO!!

[LIBERTARIAN JOE]

I've seen a number of drug legalization advocates on FR who oppose such an approach by claiming that driving is safer while stoned on marijuana.

I'm one of 'em (based on 25+ yrs of personal experience)... studies by the fedgov, the Canadian & UK governments, both recent and dating back as far as 30 years, don't agree with me though. They just found that drivers under the influence of 'weed' are statistically no more accident-prone than the general driving population.

I'm sure these studies don't carry much weight with you and the rest of the 'all I need to know about marijuana I learned by watching Reefer Madness' crowd.