This is the most idiotic article I’ve read in months. Not just for the line "dope smokers [should be] forced to do community service with the mentally ill (many who gained their affliction by smoking dope)", although this utter lie is something of an indication of the cluelessness of the whole piece.
The wrongheaded core of the piece is Mr Clark’s equation of drug users to people who buy child pornography or stolen goods. He suggests that it’s wrong of society not to punish the former group in the same way that we’d punish the latter two.
Duh.
We punish fences and pr0n-gathering paedos because their money leads directly to innocent people being harmed. This is only the case for drug money *because* of prohibition: if heroin were prescribed on the NHS, or cannabis sold by BAT, then there wouldn’t *be* any associated third-party harm. Which, unless you’re an authoritarian maniac, suggests that there shouldn’t be any punishment either. (via)
I’m not sure that’s entirely true. Even if legalised, drugs would still carry a cost that addicts would have to find. The evidence suggests that nice, sensible, middle-class users can hold their lives together enough to afford a weekend habit. But can anyone else?
Broadly though, I agree with you – the social costs after legalisation would almost certainly be lower than the costs due to the current situation, so I’d do it for that reason. It won’t be a happy, smiley Utopian paradise, though, except for the stoners.
At least it would be Utopia for somebody… and better for everyone else.
I don’t think it would be better for everyone else. Better in aggregate, sure, but there would be losers. Anyone who presently can’t access hard drugs but has an addiction-prone personality, for example.
Accepted.
I have now read all of Ross Clark’s article and it is absolutely idiotic. This is not just a disagreement, this is a wail of anguish that this moron is paid plenty of money for writing what is little more than poorly argued, aevidential drivel.
I might not be a better writer. But I am cheaper. Mr Murdoch, I’ll take your silver.
Andrew B, did you just coin "aevidential"? Should be "anevidential" as in anoxic. Agree totally, though.
> nice, sensible, middle-class users can hold their lives together enough to afford a weekend habit. But can anyone else?
You mean the people who can afford mobile phones, Sky subscriptions, 60-a-day fag habits, alcoholism, and fish and chips every night? Yeah, I’m sure they can manage.
S2: I’m not sure if that’s a description of the middle classes or the rest. Or, to rephrase, I don’t get your point – could you expand?
The rest. My point is that I often hear about how "the poor" can’t afford various things, but I can’t help but notice how much more disposable income they have than me.
And… cue another flame war.
Oh, I see. I’d expect they’d hand out heroin with the giro in John’s brave new world. ;)
Relatedly, I always hear that Thin Lizzy lyric as "whisky in the giro"…
Are you saying you can’t afford fish and chips every night? I live in Notting Hill, and you can buy fish (cakes) and chips for £1.40 in the local chippy. So I don’t believe you.
"aevidential" – I said that i wasn’t a good writer. I was looking for a word that means "without referring to evidence", but one that doesn’t mean, "contrary to evidence". So I made one up, using the model of ‘amoral’ (as different from ‘immoral’).
My point is that I often hear about how "the poor" can’t afford various things, but I can’t help but notice how much more disposable income they have than me
I can beat that; I once saw a hut in an African village that had a satellite phone. They’re clearly minting it.
Were illegal drugs to be legalised, their supply and distribution would presumably fall into the hands of multinational companies, just like those who sell tobacco.
Well, only if the legalisation was done in a really cack-handed manner by a bunch of free-market zealots… ah, actually I think Clark might have a point.
Aside from that though; the rest of the piece is a bunch of arse. And I don’t say that just because I don’t want to be doing community service.
And they’ve got all those kids in Africa with their fat bellies – fucking chubsters. Probably stuffing their faces with caviar and steak tartare all day. That’d certainly explain the flies. (etc. – Christ…)
Looks like fish’n’chips is the only thing that’s cheaper in London then. £1.40? Blimey. It’d be between 3 and 4 quid in Scotland and Norn Iron, which makes it best part of a tenner for two people.
I’d never heard of Ross Clark until now, but he’s spot on! It was the late, great Auberon Waugh who first pointed out the obvious, that if a government was truly serious about ‘fighting drugs’ it would attack the *users*. After all, it’s much easier, cheaper and safer, just like motorists, so the police would love it. Of course, it will never happen because a large section of drug users are nice, middle-class types, like John B and Jim Bliss, who vote and who know how to scream abuse at their MP – metaphorically, speaking!
John B is bit of a chancer! He not only wants drugs made available, he wants the NHS (as though they had nothing else to do!) to dish out heroin for free! Well, I’ll go along with that, the day they dish out Laphroag at my local surgery! In the meantime, if it’s all right with him, I’d rather not have Gordon Brown dipping his hand in my pocket (yet again) to feed some-one else’s habit – no-one feeds mine!
I confess I still can’t quite make up my mind on the issue. Part of me recognises the insidious social effects of drug use over time, plus the fact that so many of the feeble-minded and the immature will be sucked into the habit to tragic effect; but the other part of me says let it rip, and if they die, well, too bad! Just so long as they don’t ask me to contribute to rehabilitation centres, counsellors, Bahama cruises for recovering addicts and the like.
If someone unaware of the real world, say a Martian, or perhaps someone from Samizdata, read one of David’s contributions, replete with the usual "my money", "Gordon Brown dipping his hand into my pocket" etc, they’d get the impression that he personally funded half of the government’s expenditure. Perhaps he does? Maybe a "Duff charge" could simultaneously pay for our public services and reduce our nation’s dependence on him.
>
> Of course, it will never happen because a large section
> of drug users are nice, middle-class types, like John B
> and Jim Bliss, who vote and who know how to scream abuse
> at their MP – metaphorically, speaking!
>
I was going to respond to this, David, as it mentions me by name.
But then I happened to read your recent blog entry and your decision to refer to Bob Geldof as a "thick ‘Mick’" throughout.
It suddenly struck me that the sort of casual contempt you dish out towards the Irish probably extends to me too, what with me being Irish and all. And I can’t in all good conscience hold a civilised debate with someone who considers me worthy of insult because of where I was born.
And I would suggest to all you other micks out there, as well as any spics, wogs, frogs, krauts, niggers or chinks who might be reading that any discussion you may have with Mr. Duff should be carried out in the knowledge that he’s a feeble-minded fool.
No, Matthew, I do not fund half the government’s expenditure, it just *feels* as though I am! Apparently, this is a ‘touchy-feely’ era. Well, Gordon ‘touches’ me for loadsa’ money every year, and I ‘feel’ miserable – but not as miserable as Jim, see below!
Back a few years, there used to be a rather naughty saying about blacks walking around waiting to be insulted. Jim Bliss goes around waiting to be upset! I wasn’t dishing out "casual contempt towards the Irish", I was dishing out a specific insult at a rather wicked man whose egotism and stupidity defies belief, and whose actions result in great harm to others. I had not the faintest idea that Jim was Irish, and frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn if he’s Irish or Martian. And *if* I ever consider him to be "worthy of insult", I’ll insult him! (I’m quite good at it, too!)
And if it’s "feeble-minded" you’re looking for, you should have been at Hyde Park this week-end, there were 200,000 examples to be studied. Honestly, I don’t know why they let them out unattended.
David, are you by any chance a member of a golf club?
Hey, David, you know what – you fund my decadent lifestyle!
Through the ESRC, of course. I’ve just received my quarterly stipend, and I expect you to pay the next on October 1st.
Here’s to you, David, and cheers!
(Mine’s a Brains)
David,
you just said: I had not the faintest idea that Jim was Irish
But less than 2 months ago here, you addressed this little gem to him, on his blog:
Ireland, of course, has been ruled by other people for centuries, so I can understand your enthusiasm for being bossed about by foreigners
So you are either (a) lying, or (b) a feeble-minded fool.
Out of interest, which is it?
D2, no, I’m not old enough!
PS: Have I just been insulted? Unlike dear, old Jim, up above, I never can tell.
Have I just been insulted?
All right, (b) it is.
Andrew – quality booze choice. It’s Brains you want!
> Part of me recognises the insidious social effects of drug use over time, plus the fact that so many of the feeble-minded and the immature will be sucked into the habit to tragic effect
You’ve convinced me. Let’s ban politics.
Larry, you have me on the hip! I shall have to settle for ‘feeble-minded’. I had completely forgotten that exchange with ‘Paddy O’Bliss’, which is surprising considering the fact that he’s the only *delicate* ‘Oirishman’ I have ever come across. But a certain amount of forgetfulness is to be expected at my age, the Doctor told me as he injected the sedative.
And, Andrew, please, please, tell me that ESRC is something that I will be happy to have been forced to pay for. Is it perchance, Electronic Sexual Rehab for Conservatives? If so, I may join the party – in all senses!
I doubt that you will be happy about paying for the ESRC at all – it is the Economic and Social Research Council.
Why am I not surprised? I suppose it could be worse. As you’re there, it might have been the Economic and Research Coucil for Comics. Well, at least, have fun at my expense!
"He not only wants drugs made available, he wants the NHS (as though they had nothing else to do!) to dish out heroin for free!"
Doubt it. On prescription perhaps. Given the cost of pharmaceutical H (ie, losing the price premium because of its illegality) they’d probably makea profit at the current prescription price as well.