IT'S ABOUT DRUGS!

Many of us oppose the legalisation of heroin, and most other drugs as well.
We seem to believe that they are the source of poverty, disease, crime and
a host of other ills, and pose a real threat to our children to boot.
Because of these beliefs, we gotta keep a lid on the can, and eradicate the
menace of the goddamned junky and stoner. We should naturally disagree with
Robert Sharpe's letter to the editor suggesting we legitimise the heroin
trade (Not Heroin or Out).

However, Sharpe's advocacy of legitimising the heroin trade (and I assume
the drug trade in general) is the one chance we have to make our political
system more just, legitimate, and in tune with reality.

Think about it. The entire war on drugs is operating on the premise that
prohibition will lead to the eradication of drugs. If there is any other
unstated goal of the war on drugs, like the subjugation of racial
minorities, the young and the poor, then let the authorities say it (as
Nixon was wont to do).

But if the goal of prohibition is the eradication of drugs for the benefit
of society, then this is to deny reality completely. Heroin use, and drug
use in general, is a fact of life, and after thirty years of intense
battles, the war on drugs has not reduced their use, nor is it likely it
ever will. If anything, the war on drugs increases drug use - in Holland,
where marijuana is decriminalised and is easily accessible, there are half
as many users as in the United States. Kids, always seen as the main prize
to be won or lost in the war, smoke up more than ever, but keep on
graduating nevertheless. To think that keeping heroin illegal - and any
other drug for that matter - will reduce or eradicate drug, use is to deny
reality, much in the same fashion as the Soviet leadership consistently did
throughout its rule.

The official reality in the Soviet Union was whatever suited the
Marxist-Leninist ideology,much as the goal of prohibition suits the
conservative-Puritan ideology of the righteous in our society. When the
official reality of a worker's paradise failed to coincide with actual
living conditions, internal decay, dissatisfaction, hypocrisy and rot set
into the whole system. In maintaining our official reality that prohibition
will solve the drug problem we are setting ourselves up for the same
mistake the Soviet leadership did. While the parallel is not explicit, the
lesson is clear.

Some societies, like several of our European counterparts, realise the harm
in denying reality, and have taken pragmatic and rational action with
remarkable success, treating drug use not only as a fact of life, but as a
health problem, and not a criminal problem. Ours, on the other hand, seems
to ignore their example, and history, continuing instead to fabricate and
entertain the official illusion that the war on drugs may actually
eradicate drugs.

In doing so, this can only serve one purpose, as it is clearly not serving
the purpose of reducing or eradicating drug use. The perception is becoming
increasingly clear that the war on drugs is a tool the political
authorities use to a) waste money to give cops jobs or b) to control people
who use drugs - the marginalised, the young and the poor.

But this is expensive in many ways. Keeping drugs illegal not only costs
billions in enforcement, but loses billions in tax revenue by keeping the
drug trade a black-market affair. Social costs are also high, as the war on
drugs has forced soft drugs like marijuana to be dealt in conjunction with
heroin and cocaine, increasing the chance of pot smokers to "overlapping."
It is also a health hazard for drug users who must rely on unreliable and
sometimes-deadly drug sources, resulting in overdoses and the spread of HIV.

Furthermore, it is undermining the legitimacy of our political
institutions. As it becomes clearer that the only purpose the war on drugs
can serve is to waste taxpayers' money or to subjugate and control users,
those that use drugs and their sympathisers will become more and more
alienated from the realm of the legitimate political process. An increasing
number of us will lose faith in the government's claim to represent us, and
this can only lead to one thing.

But like the Soviet government learned, this will be the cost of
entertaining the official reality at the expense of reality, regardless of
how ridiculous it may be.