cannabisnews.com: Britain's Move Biggest Crack in US Prohibition Dam





Britain's Move Biggest Crack in US Prohibition Dam
Posted by CN Staff on July 14, 2002 at 14:00:12 PT
By Gwynne Dyer
Source: New Zealand Herald 
It's moving further towards decriminalisation than any other country in the world," warned Keith Hellawell, the former policeman who was the British "drugs tsar" until the Labour Government belatedly realised that his job was as ridiculous as his title. He was responding to British Home Secretary David Blunkett's announcement last week that being caught with marijuana will in future be treated no more seriously than illegally possessing other Class C controlled drugs such as sleeping pills and steroids. He was technically wrong, but in terms of its political impact he was right. 
Hellawell was technically wrong because Britain is not leading the parade of European countries who have broken away from the prohibitionist United States approach. Even after Blunkett's changes, Britain will lag behind other European countries such as Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium and Portugal in its laws on recreational drug use. But he was right because Britain is (a) still more or less a great power, and (b) speaks English. The main engine of the war on drugs is the US, which managed to enshrine its prohibitionist views in international law during the Cold War by a series of treaties that make it impossible for national legislatures to legalise the commonly used recreational drugs. All that other countries can do without Washington's agreement is to decriminalise the possession and use of at least some of the banned drugs. Numbers of smaller European countries have already decriminalised various drugs, but what the Portuguese or the Dutch do will never have an impact in the US. Britain is one of the very few countries whose example will ever be seen as relevant in the country that is the real home of the drug war. Britain's decriminalisation of marijuana, and even more importantly its partial return to the old policy of prescribing free heroin on the National Health Service for addicts, could finally open the door to a real debate in the US. The actual changes in British law are rather timid. In future British police will generally confiscate marijuana and issue warnings to users, rather than arresting them, but "disturb public order" by blowing marijuana smoke in a policeman's face and you're in jail. Moreover, only a small fraction of Britain's 200,000 heroin users will get free prescriptions. Nevertheless, this is by far the biggest crack that has yet appeared in the prohibitionist dam. Until the late 19th century, all kinds of recreational drugs were legal throughout the Western world. Florence Nightingale used opium, Queen Victoria used marijuana, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle writes in a matter-of-fact way about Sherlock Holmes injecting drugs with a syringe. Then came the Women's Christian Temperance Union, most powerful in the deeply religious US, which succeeded in banning one drug after another (mainly on the grounds that they were associated with Chinese, Blacks and other racially "inferior" groups) until by the early 20th century only the mainstream Western drugs - alcohol and tobacco - were still legal in the US. For almost two decades, in the 1920s and 1930s, the WCTU even succeeded in prohibiting alcohol in the US. Organised crime expanded tenfold to meet the opportunity created by this newly illegal demand for alcohol - Al Capone was just as much the result of alcohol prohibition as Pablo Escobar in Colombia was of America's war on drugs - but eventually there was a retreat to sanity in the case of alcohol. There will eventually be a return to sanity on drugs, too, but Britain's decriminalisation of marijuana is only a very tentative first step. The war on drugs is one of the most spectacularly counter-productive activities human beings have ever engaged in. "We have turned the corner on drug addiction," said President Richard Nixon in 1973, and predictions of imminent victory continue to be issued at frequent intervals, but the quality of the drugs gets better and the street price continues to drop. As any free marketeer should understand, making drugs illegal creates enormous profit margins and huge incentives to expand the market by pyramid selling. When cocaine was still legal, annual global production was 10 tonnes. Now it is 700 tonnes. Drug prohibition greatly increases the number of users, fills the jails with harmless people, channels vast sums into the hands of the wicked people who work to expand the lucrative black market, and causes a huge wave of petty crimes. It is estimated that between half and two-thirds of the muggings and property crimes in both Britain and the US are committed by cocaine and heroin addicts desperate to find the inflated sums needed to satisfy their habit. Decriminalising marijuana only nibbles at the fringes of this problem, for marijuana users are overwhelmingly neither addicts nor criminals. The more significant part of Blunkett's initiative is his willingness to revive the old policy of prescribing heroin to addicts (now around 200,000 in Britain, compared to around 500 when that policy was dropped at Washington's behest in 1963). He's willing to let only a small proportion of them have it on prescription for now, but since those will be the only heroin addicts who stay alive and for the most part stay clear of crime, the rest will also be back on prescription sooner or later. It will be many years yet before mainstream American politicians gain the political courage to take on the prohibitionist lobby directly, but the external environment is changing. * Gwynne Dyer is a London-based independent journalist. Complete Title: Britain's Timid Move Biggest Crack in US Prohibitionist Dam Source: New Zealand Herald (New Zealand)Author: Gwynne DyerPublished: July 15, 2002Copyright: 2002 New Zealand HeraldContact: letters herald.co.nzWebsite: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/Related Articles: Pot Users Relax with New Law http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread13410.shtmlBritain To Let Pot Smokers Off Lightlyhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread13384.shtmlHash On The High Street http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread13382.shtmlBritain Loosens Up on Pot http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread13367.shtml 
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Comment #9 posted by kaptinemo on July 15, 2002 at 06:11:00 PT:
However its' flaws, it's a powerful article
Sure, the WCTU was organized by Bible-thumping males (who somehow evaded the draft that caused so many Americans to die in World War One). But you can't expect a New Zealander to catch all of the nuances of a largely American insanity.But one thing is clear: it would seem that some journalists have seen through the propaganda and have arrived at the same conclusion so many of us did so long ago. Namely, that the moment a major US ally goes decrim, a huge crack in the foundation of the DrugWar opens up...large enough to take a significant portion of the rotten structure it's built on with it.It's one thing when a country whose name most Americans cannot pronounce goes decrim. It's another entirely when a nation seen as a ally for almost a century politely turns it's collective back on the DrugWar and says in urbane, cultured tones it's not engaging in such foolishness anymore. In their 'putting away of childish things', they are serving notice to the rest of the world that the US cannot expect lockstep compliance anymore. Not from 'developed countries', at least.And Washington rightly fears this. Fears it with an intensity which will be betrayed by further thoughtless American bombast directed at Great Britain...whose cooperation in the upcoming Iraq Invasion is absolutely indispensible.Oh, the times, they are a-changin'.
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Comment #8 posted by freedom fighter on July 14, 2002 at 20:54:09 PT
Well, E.J, I'm sure there were mightly few
powerful Bible belt men running the show back then, after all, most boys have already head out to the first terrible world war. Dang, us common boys would have put the temperance ladies in place! Are you so sure these ladies have not been consorting to those thumping bible boys?? If only I have a proof of a wily beauitful creature being a witch!:)ff
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Comment #7 posted by FoM on July 14, 2002 at 19:32:44 PT
Here You Go - Drug Testing
Here's the drug testing archives. Everytime I post a drug testing related article it goes into this archive. I wasn't sure if people knew about how the archives work. You can click on the icon in any article and it will take you to the related articles. This is a popular one. The most current article posted will be at the top on the archive page.Enjoy!http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/list/drug_testing.shtml
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Comment #6 posted by p4me on July 14, 2002 at 19:20:37 PT
Canada bans drug test
There was an article at http://www.globeandmail.ca/servlet/RTGAMArticleHTMLTemplate/C/20020711/wxtest?hub=homeBN&tf=tgam/realtime/fullstory.html&cf=tgam/realtime/config-neutral&vg=BigAdVariableGenerator&slug=wxtest&date=20020711&archive=RTGAM&site=Front&ad_page_name=breakingnews on July 11th about Canada banning drug test because it is a violation of The Human Rights Act. This was also on the Friday, July 12th edition of pot-tv news.Of course the land of pee has no Human Rights Act, only a corrupt government insistant on bending the will of the people to its own policies. I just had to put this up that Canada does not its people to P4me.1,2
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Comment #5 posted by E_Johnson on July 14, 2002 at 15:39:17 PT
Put him back on weed and get him off booze!
Vodka is not a drink for an 18 year old who is just having fun. It's a drink for an 18 year old who is becoming dependent on alcohol. That's really bad, I don't think they should ignore this.When people snitch to the tabloids, sometimes it's because they are genuinely concerned.
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Comment #4 posted by E_Johnson on July 14, 2002 at 15:32:53 PT
What school graduated Gwynne Dyer??????????
I'm pretty shocked by this assertion by Gwynne Dyer that a small travelling band of female religious extremists had the political power to effect a ban on alcohol for the whole country at a time when women had just very narrowly won the right to vote and still didn't have the right to work or have a bank account or get credit in their own names.This WCTU was a minor temperance movement that got a lot of attention because of their extreme radical tactics.They were WOMEN! This was an era when WOMEN were marginal members of society.Even after women got the vote, women still had essentially no political power.The move towards prohibition was led by the male leaders of the Bible Belt, by religious conservatism in America, and women had no power whatsoever in religious conservative circles.The WCTU was a convenient sideshow for people because their tactics were so extreme and so attention-getting. Plus they were women so that automatically made them newsworthy. But the real political power in the movement was male. In New Zealand they've had powerful landowning women for a long time so they might think that the WCTU in legend was the same as the WCTU in fact.But it's not true. It's a cartoon representation of prohibition, which took a lot more political power to accomplish than one tiny band of insane women could possibly ever muster.
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Comment #3 posted by FoM on July 14, 2002 at 14:53:23 PT
JHarshaw
I think Prince Harry is adorable. I think he has enough of that devil in his eye look that will make him an interesting and successful person. He dares to question.
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Comment #2 posted by JHarshaw on July 14, 2002 at 14:49:33 PT
Prince Harry
FoMLong Live Prince Harry Pothead born at 4:20pm.
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Comment #1 posted by FoM on July 14, 2002 at 14:22:54 PT
Oops News
People in the News 
By Associated Press, 7/14/2002 
LONDON (AP) Prince Charles' office said on Sunday that a tabloid report about his younger son's drinking at a party was exaggerated and that Prince Harry had been doing nothing illegal. 
The News of the World reported that Harry, 17, drank 6 bottles of a vodka-laced drink equivalent to nine shots of the liquor at a polo club party on Friday evening. 
A spokeswoman for St. James' Palace, Prince Charles' office in London, said the newspaper report was ''blown out of all proportion.'' 
''He was at a private party and had a couple of drinks. He has not done anything wrong. He has not done anything illegal,'' she said on customary condition of anonymity. 
In January, Charles confirmed that he had sent Harry to a south London rehabilitation clinic for a day so he could talk to recovering addicts and see the dangers of drug use. Harry, then 16, admitted last summer that he'd drunk with friends at a pub near his father's Highgrove country estate and smoked marijuana with friends, according to press reports confirmed by a royal source. 
Marijuana is illegal in Britain and the drinking age is 18. 
The spokeswoman said Charles and Harry's older brother, William, 20, had been acting as chaperones more often in recent months. 
''His father and Prince William have certainly been around a lot more,'' she said. 
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