A Dopey Campaign.

Society is littered with rules that are unprincipled, counter-productive and dumb - and the continued criminalisation of marijuana is one of them. Firstly, it seems a glaring and vapid inconsistency within our legal system that we deem it fit for the government to take away our right to choose what to do with our own bodies here (cos weed is heapz bad 4 u), but yet seems to have no problem with 18 year olds skulling back bottles of absinthe, losing all their money by betting on the All Blacks to win the Rugby World Cup, before selling themselves on the street for sex so they can continue to pay for their lung cancer treatment caused by a 5-pack a day cigarette addiction. And even you're someone who believes choices rot your brain (Paul D?) , and think that the answer is not give people any choice over things that are objectively bad for them (and so the government should also ban smokes, absinthe and the All Blacks), surely you must concede that people are going to find ways to do this 'bad stuff' anyway (often because it's addictive), and therefore legalisation becomes the best way to deal with the inevitable harms. Once something is legalised, the government can concede it exists, it can start to regulate it. The government ,unlike your current local supplier, has no interest in getting you addicted. It can ensure that when marijuana is legitimately sold, it can be taxed at a level which takes into account the negative externalities (social costs for non-economics kids) caused by dope. This will hopefully discourage first time pot smokers from trying the stuff, but at the very least will allow the government a pool of resources to deal with the inevitable bad stuff from marijuana use - like the self-induced brain damage or the general damage an addiction causes to finances and familial relationships. The legalisation of marijuana would be smart, responsible politics - conceding a problem exists, and determining that the best way to deal with it is not jail time for addicts (allowing them to hook up with more suppliers), but more funding to rehabilitation centres.

On the back of that rather marathon first paragraph, it should be noted that society is also littered with behaviours that are counter-productive and dumb - and the smoking of marijuana is again high up on this list. For all the protestations that 'it's fun' and 'it's not even as bad as drinking alcohol lol', its still got a truckload of harmful long-term effects, which I can't be assed going into here, because you should have taught them by a nice, well-meaning social worker while in high school. Legalisation of marijuana isn't the 'good' option, or even the 'morally principled' option. It's just the 'least bad' option for dealing with a bad, socially harmful thing that is a bane to society.

There are three types of people in society. There are those who don't smoke pot, who (rightly) think pot is bad and (wrongly) see it as being immoral, and who see the legalisation of pot as the first step on the road to Mad Max-ian anarchy. Then there are those who do smoke pot, cant see what all the fuss is about and wish the government would stop declaring them criminals for putting something in their bodies that may cause harm to them, but causes no harm to others. Then is a tiny minority of people like me, who don't smoke pot (on the grounds that my diet of pie sandwiches and cheap wine already has me hurtling towards an early grave without any additional help, thank you very much), but who think it should be legalised on the grounds of personal choice and/or 'its the best way to deal with the problem'. The problem is that while the first type of person is armed with a whole bunch of arguments that are rubbish and irrational (FACT: At a town hall meeting I attended in Mangawhai once, an old lady stood up and said 'We can't legalise this drug, there will be more young people growing dreadlocks!), which stems from never having really thought the issue through...the first group of people significantly outnumber the second and third groups. So how do we make them see the light?

And thats why this post isn't really about the legalisation of marijuana at all. Rather its a bitter rant against the NORML campaign currently being run by pro-legalisation advocates. This campaign (at least as it appears to an ignorant member of the public) seems to be little more than organising events in seedy public parks for large numbers of stoners to actively flout the current law and get stoned in large numbers. It's baffling, and a testament to the wear-and-tear continued marijuana usage has on the mental faculties, that the organisers think it will win over the hearts and minds of the Reefer Grinches. All these 'J Day protests' (as they have been coined) acheive is to alert the anti-marijuana lobby to their 2 biggest fears that arise from legalisation - that it normalises and makes 'fun' a substance with harmful effects, and that its 'normalisation' in society will get more people addicted. The argument that 'Marijuana usage is fun' will not end the Drug Wars. An acknowledgement that marijuana is bad, but legalisation is the best way to deal with the harms. just might. The NORML campaign must really hammer the inefficiency and inadequacy of 'prohibition', while playing up the fact that legalisation does not, and should not equate to social acceptance.

This may go some way to defeating the strongest argument that can be mustered by the anti-pot lobby - that more people will become addicted. Firstly, if marijuana usage retains some sort of 'taboo' status, people will be less likely to take it up. Secondly, smart, effective regulation allows for those who are addicted to have better access to care, and also makes it harder for the industry's current heavy hitters, which relies on a business model of pushing the drug onto as many new and naive users as possible.

It's sad that the people most committed to marijuana reform are the people who are doing the most to damage its political acceptance. But that doesn't have to be the case. Once stoners acknowledge the harms of their product of choice, the case against marijuana becomes about as pathetic and pointless as Dragonball:Evolution. After all, a model of 'criminal ban - no questions asked' has been a policy disaster, both on the taxpayer who must bear the brunt of the 'war on people putting they stuff they want to put into their own bodies' and the addicts themselves. I think NORML are conducting their campaign in a boneheaded way that will ultimately fail, but overall - they sit on the right side of the argument. Its time for a change.

Alex

NOTE: Had I have been braver, I would have written this post about the legalisation of ALL drugs, not just marijauna. But I'm not entirely convinced on this - with some drugs (say P), the fact that you are more likely to lose control and cause harm to others after taking the drug seems a convincing enough reason for their continued criminalisation. But I'm really not sure, and theres convincing stuff that says that acknowledging the problem through legalisation is still a better means of harm reduction than criminalisation. Check out this article on Portugal, which has a legalise all drugs policy. My mate Will has also considered this issue on his blog. If anyone wants to argue for the legalisation of ALL drugs, I'd be happy to hear/read it.