LETTER: PROHIBITION IS GOOD FOR NO-ONE
Source: Hull Daily Mail
Date: July 21 2007
Author: Carl Wagner
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Diana Johnson MP often claims that, “as a lawyer”, she understands the importance
of freedom and justice, so I wrote and asked her to justify her governments
continued persecution of cannabis users.
At the time, she claimed the policy was a public health measure but now seems
to have changed her mind and says it is a crime reduction policy.
Diana’s confusion is understandable.
A recent report from the Science and Technology committee found
"significant anomalies in the classification of individual drugs and a
regrettable lack of consistency in the rationale used to make classification
decisions."
It said the concept of a deterrent effect had "little or no support from
the available research", and it agreed with the head of the Governments
own advisory council (ACMD) who said that UK drug policy “is not fit for
purpose”.
This is the same conclusion reached by the respected medical journal the Lancet
which recently published a scientific study that objectively examined the
current drug classification system.
According to objective measures, like potential harm, alcohol came out as the
fifth most dangerous drug right after heroin and cocaine. Both alcohol and
tobacco were rated as being far more dangerous than either LSD or cannabis,
whilst ecstasy was near the very bottom of the list, highlighting its relative
safety compared with alcohol and tobacco.
If you can be sent to jail for using the least harmful drugs but won’t be
punished at all for using hard addictive drugs like alcohol and tobacco, then
the policy obviously has nothing to do with health.
Drugs don’t cause crime, prohibition causes crime. Not only does it increase
the sheer volume of offences by making crimes of things that are not criminal,
it increases the frequency and violence of crime.
The vast majority of illegal drug users do not commit crime. In fact,
statistically they commit less crime than the non drug using population. Those
that do commit crime are invariably addicted to heroin and crack cocaine.
Heroin and crack users commit £16bn worth of crime a year to feed their habits.
Prohibition is good for no-one, whether they be cannabis users, vulnerable
individuals or society at large. It has criminalised millions of otherwise law
biding citizens, given rise to organised crime, increased underage usage,
diminished freedom, promoted disrespect for the law, but it has not curtailed
usage.
If Diana Johnson thinks this situation can be improved by carrying on
regardless, then she is about as close to reality as the most hardened addict.
Carl Wagner