'CRACK COCAINE MAXIM GOLF EXPERIENCE'

Harper's Fear of Drugs Blinds Him to Proliferation of Legal Drug Cultures

In a recent speech announcing $64 million for a new federal anti-drug
campaign, Prime Minister Stephen Harper stated that the main reason
Canada deals with illegal drugs is a "drug culture" that has existed
"since the 1960s" that "often romanticized" drug use.

This drug culture makes it "cool" and "acceptable" to take drugs, and
this is why there are widespread addiction problems, since addicts
are coerced into destructive lifestyles. Harper underscored his
argument by mentioning that his son is "listening to my Beatles
records and asking me what all these lyrics mean."

Of course, we have all heard this tired argument before, and it comes
as no surprise that Harper, a rigid and unemotional man who famously
shook his son's hand instead of hugging him as he went off to school,
would give such a narrow reading of sociological trends as to blame
pop culture for the "highly lucrative business" of the illegal drug trade.

I venture to guess that he trot out this "damn kids and their rock
music" theme purely as a tool to gain old-school conservative
credibility in anticipation of a potential election.

But tired rhetoric and political tricks aside, this campaign is
indicative of a greater underlying social conservatism trend, that of
pure economic hypocrisy. The Canadian state condones some types of
corporate addiction-peddling while punishing others.

While it is admirable that a portion of the funding is being directed
to addiction treatment centres, the campaign's main logic -- that to
respond to subcultures where millions of individuals willingly
abrogate their responsibility as law-abiding citizens, a state must
be willing to intervene on the citizen's behalf through anti-drug
advertising and harsher punishments for drug dealers -- is flawed.

The Canadian state permits many different potentially addictive
methods of recreation -- gambling, smoking, drinking, sex-phone
lines, fast food, you name -- on the assumption that as grown men and
women, citizens are expected to lead responsible lives.

In other words, the responsible citizen is permitted to engage in
recreational, but potentially addictive, behaviour. The vendors of
these activities do not assume responsibility for their customers.

The mixed message inherent in this becomes obvious when we take the
example of a legal drug culture, such as a university pub night. All
aspects of such a culture are present -- a drug, an associated
population of users and a steady stream of culturally related output.
What is different is the presumption of personal responsibility.

In the pub culture, drug dealers are not only permitted to sell, but
also to continually advertise and normalize their product as a
regular aspect of the college lifestyle. Beer and liquor are marketed
directly to the university student demographic.

Imagine a "Crack Cocaine Maxim Golf Experience."

There is nothing inherently wrong with the advancement of this
assumption of customer responsibility in the face of brand marketing.
It is the culmination of the politics of corporate liberation -- an
evolution from a government style of central control to one of
decentralized entrepreneurship.

This liberation is being paralleled in most facets of modern civil
society. Individual and minority rights, corporate law and property
law have all shown a trend of downloaded responsibility to the
individual in return for less centralized state control. True to
form, the state now contracts out more of its own former
responsibilities than ever before.

But instead of maintaining a level playing field by downloading
responsibility across the board, the new federal campaign exhibits a
negligent understanding of the differences between demographics in
subcultures and an unwillingness to apply the concept of corporate
liberation to social policy. This economic hypocrisy is the real
negative force in the world of illegal substances.

As can be seen with the pub culture, drug cultures accept the
recreational use of substances specifically on the assumption that
there exists a "mindspace" that can accommodate both personal
responsibility and recreation.

That assumption of accommodation is what makes it specifically a
culture and not merely a collection of individuals. There must be
aspects from within that are productive enough to sustain a
sufficient cultural output level.

It is ironic, then, that the existence of drug cultures themselves
disprove the notion that use will inevitably lead to abuse. It is
actually the cultural aspects of drug use that allow for a
continually productive citizenry.

Meanwhile, illegal drug dealers can thank the federal government for
funding their own advertising campaigns.