C.E.P.T.A.
The CAMPAIGN for EFFECTIVE PREVENTION and TREATMENT of ADDICTION.
8b. DRUGS: INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM & ITS EFFECT ON OTHERS
by Kenneth Eckersley
Many of our members consider that the decision to use or not use drugs should rest entirely with the individual, and there are some members who confess to quite determinedly using such substances in order, they say, “to exercise their freedom of choice”.
(Whether addiction actually allows them any freedom of choice is another matter.)
They argue that drugs should be “liberalised” or even “legalised”, and apparently define these as the freedom an individual should legally enjoy, without let or hindrance, to personally possess and / or use drugs at any time at his or her sole discretion.
Liberalism is essentially in the heart of every S.I.F. member, otherwise he or she would not be a member. It is the rightful urge to escape from oppressive and restrictive laws. The intention is to achieve real freedom of choice in all things.
But in a society controlled and monitored by the propaganda of powerful and wealthy vested interests, is freedom of choice actually any longer available to us in any great measure?
Many of the activities of organisations such as the psycho-pharmaceutical lobby (in Westminster and throughout our establishment) are totally suppressive in their nature and designed specifically to eventually restrict our freedom of choice in order to enhance their profit – and control of us.
And theirs is not just a war of words.
Such lobbies take both direct and indirect economic and even physical action to eliminate competition or to hide their own shortcomings. They thus distort those factors which are able to influence our preferences, so that, at times even rule by a benevolent dictatorship might appear to be the better choice!
But whilst a nanny state is the last thing we want, we must recognise that today we are moving away from state control and into more and more control by multinational companies and international operators such as George Soros. So . . can the huge, well-heeled professional lobby pushing so hard to legalise drugs really be run by that lethargic minority of 'stoned' mainly penniless citizens who daily use illegal substances ??
Encouraging other people and groups to campaign for drug legalisation is good business tactics for certain vested interests!
So 'think' . . . .
Experience in other countries shows that drug consumption of all types and at all ages soars when formerly illegal drugs become freely available.
But drugs of all types have exactly the same deleterious effects on human beings whether they are illicit, licensed, prescribed or legal.
And as brain researcher Dr Gabriel Nahas observed: “The poisonous nature of intoxicants is not determined by debate. We cannot vote for or against the toxicity of drugs”, and in personal health terms an illegal heroin user is possibly better off than a legal methadone user.
The subtly and gradiently organised PR campaign to change from Illicit Drug Usage to Legal Usage starts by trying to gain our sympathy for drug users (the medical cannabis argument is an example). They then move on to trivialising the use of drugs (“pot never did me any harm” – ignoring the fact that 1960’s pot had a THC content of only 0.5% whilst today’s genetically developed street offerings range between 5.00% and 27.00% - i.e. from 10 to 54 times a more powerful ‘stairway to heaven’).
Then we come to that lobby’s arguments for the ‘normalisation’ and ‘de-penalisation’ of drug use. (Why should otherwise law abiding citizens be penalised for doing something which harms no one but themselves – not true of course, as the use of drugs inflicts untold harm on marriages, children, families, colleagues and the community at large).
Then they move emotively into their crocodile-tears ‘decriminalisation’ arguments and particularly set out to enrol liberal-minded thinkers like ourselves into their liberalisation ideas, before propounding the fictitious benefits of ‘legalisation’.
Yet in every country where decriminalisation, liberalisation and / or legalisation have been tried, the result has always been considerably increased drug usage and vastly increased damage to the community in terms of health, social costs, divorce, lost production and casual crime.
THE DUTCH EXPERIMENT
In 1990 the Dutch Minister of
Justice regretfully announced that since de-criminalising Cannabis,
The permitted amount of cannabis for personal use was, in consequence, reduced from 30 grams to 5 grams, and many ‘coffee shops’ have been closed.
But usage of Cannabis at all ages and the drug Mafia continue to expand, as a result of which the citizens of their whole country have in numerous ways become victims of adopting a liberal attitude towards the desire of (what was originally) a minority of individuals to use drugs.
THE ALASKAN EXPERIMENT
In 1991 it was rescinded nearly unanimously by a state-wide referendum. 12 years later their economy is nearly recovered and crime rise rates have come down. So their present attitude to legalisation is – NEVER AGAIN.
Because, once again, the victims were not just the individual drug users who made themselves so ill. The victims were the whole population who had to pay for the liberalisation mistake out of their taxes, out of lost productivity and in extra costs of administering their failed drug policies.
John Stuart Mill, in his famous book 'On Liberty' said: "The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others . . ."
* Drug users cause the most accidents at work.
* Users mug old people and rob people's homes.
* Users & drunks cause most road accidents.
* Users bankrupt businesses & destroy jobs.
* Users commit the majority of crimes, and,
* Increasingly, Drug Users are today's main
source of harm to others and their future . . .
Daily proven by experience, the use of drugs of all types and classes is the activity most likely to bring harm to others, so that, encouraging drug usage by advocating a policy of liberalisation is a crime against society and against beliefs central to liberal philosophy.
Then there is the harm to our children – our future citizens. In liberalising or legalising drug use, should we extend this freedom of choice to our youth?
We already have babies born as drug addicts - because of their mother’s addiction. What choice did the child have? We already have appallingly neglected children – because of their parent’s ‘choosing’ to continue using drugs. So what choice does the child have?
And if you do support liberalisation of drug use, do you include children of all ages by giving them the right to smoke cigars, drink whisky, shoot up heroin and snort cocaine, etc?
The number of Cannabis related road accidents causing death & injury is rapidly catching up with the number of Alcohol related road accidents causing death & injury.
And in both cases it is usually the innocent by-stander or other driver who dies or is crippled for life.
Liberalising Cannabis increases its supply - which of course is different from legalising manslaughter.
But before you vote to liberalise, try convincing the widows and orphans of that difference, and try persuading them that breaking the law by using drugs is a victimless crime!
Drug liberalisers say that deciding to use drugs is exercising one’s freedom to choose! But is choosing slavery to a drug truly an act of freedom for the individual - or for any other person or group who may become the victim of that individual’s addiction?
Dependency on, and addiction to, any drug hands control of the user and his or her life to that drug. And because the people in our communities care, because they have a social conscience and generally lean towards being good Samaritans, granting such ‘freedom of choice’ to the individual robs the local community of its own freedom to choose not to support addiction, because in fact they have as an act of conscience to support family addicts – or, even as an act of self-defence.
The definition for a cured drug addict gives us a clear view of the real freedom for all which pertains in a drug free society.
A real cure results in comfortable lifelong abstinence, and is defined as:
A fully employable former drug user or addict:
1) who has not used his or her original addictive substance(s) for a period significantly longer than 12 months,
2) who has not replaced such earlier usage with another addictive substance,
3) who remains fully convinced that he or she will comfortably abstain for life,
4) who is now taking responsibility for his or her own life,
5) who neither wants nor needs further rehabilitative support, and,
6) who is now willingly contributing to his or her local community.
Any form of legalisation, or move towards it, greatly expands drug taking because, in addition to the existing dependants increasing their use, legalisation gives a green flag to those non-users who:
a) would normally not break the law, or,
b) who assume that government approval or relaxation means that drugs are not after all as dangerous as has been earlier said.
After all, decriminalisation and legalisation, etc., are not demanded by the vast bulk of our people, but are promoted by powerful vested interests to further their turnover and profit goals rather than the needs and requirements of the population at large. Nor is so-called ‘drugs education’ in ‘Harm Reduction’, ‘Informed Choice’, ‘Responsible Drug Use’ or ‘Safe Drug Use’ demanded by parents for their children.
What our children and their parents need and want is real prevention education based on the truth about drugs. And what our citizens naturally expect from treatment is that it will ACTUALLY CURE drug addiction!
Along with that however, as John Stuart Mill indicated, we must be ready to exercise responsible control over an addicted minority in order: to prevent harm to the majority. Which is after all for the addict’s benefit as well.
Oh dear! Is that nannying, or is it taking responsibility for our less fortunate neighbours and the society in which we live?
© Copyright C.E..P.T.A. and E. Kenneth Eckersley, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 & 2005. All World Rights Reserved
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