Atheist Age

Drug War Lies Increasingly Under Fire

Like most Aussies I grew up assuming drugs were a “bad thing” that evoked such horrific images, it of course would never happen to me. Thanks to law enforcement, tough talking politicians, Quinn Martin Productions and a barrage of demonstrable myths, I was so confident prohibition was “just” it received little scrutiny.

I never suspected Australia would eventually be seen by progressive nations as the Indonesia of the Pacific due to our backward and brutal approach. Our inability to stand up for ourselves. Our cowardice in caving in to those who demand compliance not compromise. Surely not in the land of the great fair go? Last year Portugal jailed no-one for drug use related crime, eight years after decriminalisation. Crime rates continue to fall dramatically. We jailed thousands for the same offences at tax payer expense, ensuring a continual flow of criminals.

For an abundance of reasons I now know I was not only wrong but I was being lied to and exploited by those who supported prohibition of valuable medications for their own reasons. Along with hundreds of thousands I predicted, and witnessed, the criminal underworld prohibition was nurturing take control then firm it with their own “designer drugs”. They didn’t need the meds that narrow minded conservatives wanted to tax. Thanks to this blind approach the demand for drugs – and certain dizzying profit – was theirs for the taking. Criminals care not for voter gullibility, nor religious pressure, nor consumer health, nor much at all except profit.

They already had money, power, skill and access to the information needed to create not just “a drug”, but generations of addicts, criminals, widows, orphans, corrupt politicians and police until their power base became unquestionable. In Mexico today, drug cartels rule the nation – not the streets. Accordingly, Mexico has decriminalised possession of most drugs. Obamas administration is well content, unlike Bush who reacted predictably the last time Mexico sought to protect its very future.

Australian criminal networks, sustained overseas as much as domestically, confirmed they had no need for the narrow choices that saw the genesis of prohibition. Their own brands of drugs served only one purpose. To satisfy the demand for illicit drugs that prohibition had created. I call this “the gold star on the Christmas tree of prohibition”. I hoped it wouldn’t arrive, but felt even more hope that when it did, we’d stop kidding ourselves. I guess you know what really happened. We were indoctrinated on the breast of prohibition and gagged like the infants we were. I know many readers are darn sure prohibition is what “those scum” deserve and it is those bigots we have failed also.

Profit is all that matters and all that matters after that is corruption. But not cop drama corruption. The serious mass killing crap only Antonio Maria Costa can muster. Or the global and infantile “drug-free” movement who seem to delight in the prospect of an AIDS ravaged Australia. Truly disturbed journalists like Miranda Devine, Andrew Bolt and Piers Akermann who must surely contribute to suffering, confusion, ignorance and death – all to push up sales and rage against compassion and change. Splendidly ignorant and simply dangerous South Australian MPs and loyal foot soldiers on a quest to destroy the potential of cannabinoid medications, by demonising any expression as ‘criminal’, for reasons void of objectivity. Ironically, “euphoria” is the symptom most complained of by cannabinoid patients. Interestingly, none are “addicted” nor reference withdrawal.

Abuse of any medication causes harm. Medicinal cannabis is an exciting new research area with huge potential. The lack of side effects and the number of beneficial effects renders taking dozens of drugs per day – as we currently do to manage severe illness – almost medieval.  Michael Jacksons story is well known. Do we now ban those medicinal agents? Do we deny others their value? Is it right, for example, for Jacksons family to now demand entire policies be changed – as do corrupt MPs now wasting time, energy and your money in Parliament?

Is is accurate to slander and attack all medicinal science or those who publish data? Of course not. But if the prohibitionists keep up the moral panic, and if we accept terms such as “cannabis addict”, “cannabis psychosis”, “killer skunk” it is us who shall condemn future generations to the suffering a medication-free life must indeed bring. Already South Australian chronic pain patients are denied analgesics thanks to these “purity movements”. The blurring between zealotry, junk science, new age magic and corruption is almost complete.

By banning professionally made water pipes, misguided egotists may convince themselves they are “victims” of a policy we know saved not just Aussies – but our very national health. To say “I escaped harm minimisation, not addiction” – at the prompting of a tax payer funded conservative, anti-choice lobbyist and unloyal MP – is perhaps the same as a recovered cancer patient claiming to have “escaped oncology” and insist on “homeopathic non chemotherapy”. It must be quite a chuckle to pretend it was your GPs fault and ruin small businesses over stage antics.

Ad hominem attack based on cum hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy is childish, unwelcome and sums up the approach of people who simply want easy money from easy funding sources. At best the drug free movement and the South Australian Recovered Users twaddle can bask in post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacies. One wonders how Portugal would see the clinically planned, intentional and baseless attacks on small businesses perpetrated by Bong Banning Gangs. I had no idea recovered pot “addicts” had so many enemies to punish. And yes, this contributes directly to crime, harm and death.

Yet, now that kids make pipes from toxic materials, those responsible for ensuring this outcome refuse to engage the science behind the evidence. Blame aplenty – but evidence is a no go zone. We now have a double whammy of a problem and more innocents suffer. Still not satisfied, they creep around our cities “dobbing in” consenting adults. Cannabis use is not altered, but more poisons are ingested. My guess is that even the most stubborn can see such nonsense is puerile, demonstrably futile and absolutely self serving. Corruption whatever the cost to others. Incredibly they counter with a claim to be helping. “Saving others” much like missionaries who preach against condom use to HIV ravaged communities.

Or their omnipresent buddies – the plethora of internet savvy fundamentalists who by default hate anything backed by evidence and not godly magic. The suffering they have ensured for you, I and our families is inestimable. Corruption is an appalling thing, in all its forms, including the juicy buzz of power.

“Science” is now pushed out as a negative in its entirety, so desperate is their need to maintain this futile, lethal war on ourselves. I’ve no doubt that next “science” will conveniently offend their beliefs. Calls will rise for this monster to be silenced. Politicians will oblige and the science illiteracy we see in government will gradually percolate down to most of the community.

Worst outcome? “Drug free” conseratives will support homeopathy and continue to expand faith healing, immediately suiting the modernity hating beliefs actually driving its suicidal approach. Like minded MPs will ensure funding for useless programmes is diverted away from harm minimisation. Phoney “addicts” cashing in on the scam see only their windfall, whilst destroying the lives of others who are mere proprietors in other Australian states.

HIV and other blood borne infections will seemingly rise overnight. Dr. God will be on constant call. Actual medicos will face new and abhorrent discrimination. We’ve just signed on for another decade of Drug War self sabotage.

Worse, after calling for a future of Human Rights, Harm Reduction and Health Responses and to place human dignity first, Costa was worn down in months by the drug-free gang such that Harm Reduction was not mentioned in the UNODC final report. We’ve also just witnessed an outpouring of hard evidence exposing prohibition for what it is. Journalists deconstruct his false claims in moments.

British troops prevented more opium production this year since they arrived in Afghanistan he boasts. Sure, but the level is still much higher than before you arrived – and stocks outweigh global use at the highest ratio ever, they counter. But addiction is around 1%, he offers. It has been so since 1880 and still when Nixon launched the actual “War”, many reply. From wooden batons on Chinese immigrant labourers to satellite guided missile strikes on billion dollar cartels – actual addiction is stable. Only use has increased – yet prohibition was encouraged by the USA Temperance Movement to stop ‘wicked’ addiction. And on goes the futility.

The sensible and demonstrable future we can no longer play around with is fortunately supported by the WHO, UNAIDS, other UN agencies and a rapidly rising number of nations and human beings. Even more fortunately the nonsense prohibitionists fabricate is not shared by mainstream Christianity and non theists can take comfort in knowing that fundamentalism has many opponents. Slowly and surely we shall rise above this moral panic, corrupt religious conservatism and futile lip service to individuals who are in reality our enemies and will always seek to justify this.

I guess in the end, it was prohibition that “happened to me”. But my oh my – just look what we did.

Micheal Gormly is the author of Kings Cross Times from Woolloomooloo, Sydney. If you’re awake and a citizen of this planet, you really need to read what he has to say. Little wonder the Alternative Media Group published his piece.

Global Tide Turning Against The War On Drugs.

Selected paragraphs;

Locally we now have the lavishly funded National Cannabis Prevention and Information Centre (NCPIC) to foment panic. It published a minor study claiming that cannabis makes people violent – pure Reefer Madness nonsense. It has now conducted an evidence review to support a new campaign claiming that driving stoned is the same as driving drunk. But this is not backed up by NCPIC’s own report, which concludes that “great variations and inconsistencies” in the findings “detract from the likelihood of a clear synthesis of results”.

None of these cannabis plagues actually show up clearly in population studies, which is why authoritative bodies like the British Government’s Scientific Advisory Panel advised against reclassifying pot into the more serious Category B. This was ignored by Gordon Brown, who went ahead anyway in a desperate pursuit of political points. The privately funded Beckley Commission recognises dangers of cannabis but concludes that prohibition is disproportionate and ineffective.

A recent Cato Institute study assessed Portugal’s progress since it decriminalised all drugs including the hard ones in 2001. Cannabis use is down among teens and HIV transmission has been slashed.

Full piece

Tags: Crime, Discrimination, Drug War, Science, Terror, USA