NO 'FAIR TRADE' IN DRUG SMUGGLING

David Aaronovitch urges us 'to forget ... prohibition' and encourage users
to abstain. That Sir Keith Morris, the former UK ambassador to Colombia,
has called for the legalisation of cocaine should give Aaronovitch pause
for thought.

Certainly it is difficult to disagree with the Metropolitan Police
commissioner that it is hypocritical of someone who would not dream of
buying anything other than fair trade coffee to buy cocaine.

However, Aaronovitch's logic is flawed. We cannot forget prohibition
because it is prohibition that denies the consumer the possibility of
buying 'fair-trade cocaine'. The fair-trade movement provides the consumer
with an ethical decision when buying certain commodities. It should not be
confused with reducing ethics to consumption choices nor should it be used
as an excuse for reducing the political to the personal.

The human misery of the cocaine trade is created by prohibition, regardless
of whether a tiny proportion of cocaine users compromise their 'fair-trade'
ethics by buying it.

It is often suggested that the alternative to prohibition is a legal free
market and anyone concerned with fair trade would surely oppose this.
However, as Transform points out in its report 'After the War on Drugs -
Options for Control', the abolition of prohibition presents the opportunity
of a regulatory clean slate.

D J Welch

Manchester M16