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 he increasingly public debate about the legalisation
of cannabis has tended to follow a few well-worn moral and
health arguments. But the changing attitudes of the public,
over the last four years, with nearly 50% now amenable to
decriminalisation at least, may even be affecting this holier-than-thou
Government. In fact, although cautious and pious by nature,
Blair almost seems to be promoting these discussions, which
bear all the hallmarks of easing the pressure for action
while
continuing an essentially conservative approach. The fortuitous
outburst of Anne Widdecombe, and the late 'downfall' of Michael
Portillo, have demonstrated just how embarrassing this whole
debate can be for politicians in general. And since most of
them have partaken in the 'war on drugs' as a routine rant,
for them now to march their soldiers down the hill can only
be difficult and embarrassing.
And of course, surely, we all know why drugs should not be
made legal? They are dangerous for our health, leading innocent
teenagers to freak out and die from ecstasy raves. They are
worse than nicotine, apparently, in terms of causing lung
cancer and it is 'scientifically proven' that they damage
your brain. Cannabis in particular is seen as the gateway
to addiction, since surveys of what might be termed end-user
addicts all show the journey starting with smoking pot before
the dark valley of heroin, cocaine, self-injecting, HIV and
death. No matter how much the protagonists for legalisation
might argue that drugs are nothing to do with morality, and
that health issues could be best addressed - for example as
with nicotine and alcohol dependence - in a non-criminalised
world, the traditionalists will not yield. They quote Victorian
values, unaware that Victorians happily chewed opium, drank
laudanum, smoked hashish, and experimented with cocaine without
the whiff of a policeman on their shoulder.
But perhaps the most important issue in the drugs debate
is not morality, or health, or protecting your children, it
is surely money. A number of countries now largely survive
off this black economy, especially in the third world. The
most dangerous and lawless country of all, Colombia, is able
to ship its most valued product via an armada of planes, ships,
and technology that dwarfs even what the United States can
put up. Money laundering has become a core financial activity,
in every part of the banking world, and tinpot offshore tax
havens are allowed to flourish because the very rich need
them. And maybe it is worth asking apparently stupid questions,
like: "how useful is it for globalised capital to have
enormous sums of 'black' money swilling around in the system?
One of the most striking aspects of the illegality of certain
drugs is the effect this policy has had on criminal activities.
Why bother to hold up a train or rob a bank when a couple
of shipments of cocaine can make you more than a millionaire?
Organised crime, as "The Godfather" movies told
us several decades ago, is virtually coterminous with the
importation of illegal drugs. And the Mafia have long been
in debt to the era of prohibition in America for their establishment
as an extremely wealthy collection of organisations. In fact
this model historical example, of what happens when the law
is used as a misguided moral agent, to deprive people of an
activity that has no intrinsic immorality, can also help us
understand what is happening today. That is to say, we can
expect a rising tide of gang-related murders, smartly dressed
hoodlums and the criminalisation of otherwise ordinary citizens.
Because we now have an international financial system of
such size and complexity that it is very happy to have big
investors who may need to remain anonymous. Not only do drug
warlords have to employ smart lawyers, bankers and stock-brokers
to 'invest' their capital, but they also make profits in a
different league from your day-to-day commercial organisation.
Capitalism, in both its primitive and advanced forms, has
always admired the entrepreneur and the speculator. Terms
like 'boardroom battle' and 'blood on the carpet' are regularly
used by financial journalists to describe business machinations,
and the 'captains of industry' like to see themselves as toughened
buccaneers, carving out new markets like the slave traders
of old. The drugs trade thus fuels arcane and complex trading
arrangements, via 'shell' companies or 'junk' bonds or whatever,
while lending an alluring aura of danger and serious personal
enrichment.
Another aspect of the illegalisation process can even be
seen as a form of neo-imperialism. What on earth would happen
to Europe's wine lake? What about all that tobacco investment,
if people started regularly using the cannabis sativa and
coca plants of the third world? These can be seen as natural
exports for a number of countries, just as coffee comes from
Brazil, yet farmers are impoverished by attempts at eradication,
or enforced alternative crops. The social and economic soul
sickness of inner city U.S.A. (and Europe) is somehow blamed
on cash crop farmers, living perhaps a more equable and adjusted
life style than their bored, aetiolated, morbidly individualistic
cousins in the North.
There is also a strong element of racism in this. Not content
with the globalisation policies that have led to such outbursts
of anger as seen in Seattle and Genoa, our political masters
portray the products of the third world as essentially corrupting.
This can be translated into stereotypes of black men smoking
weed, or Colombians snorting coke, stereotypes that reinforce
the location of evil in non-Europeans. There is nothing new
in this, reflecting as it does the Victorian imposition of
opium on the Chinese, and the imputation that such a civilisation
was inherently evil. The fact that alcohol for example is
metabolically difficult for some non-European peoples, as
a pleasant and anxiety-relieving substance, is rarely considered
relevant.
Along with this approach, of course, is the extraordinary
array of legal, custodial, excise and other officials employed
in the suppression of drug use. Most grotesque in the context
of the USA, with its two million plus prison population, the
fact of the matter is that drug usage / abuse accounts for
about 50% of inmates in prisons. Most cynical of all, is the
well-known acceptance that drug usage is rife in prisons,
because it makes life easier for everyone, especially the
prison officers. Yet ask the Home Office to publish any kind
of study of urine drug screens, on inmates (and they have
been done), and there would be a wall of embarrassed silence.
But having raised this army of law enforcement agencies, what
are governments supposed to do when they are not needed? The
notion that they might be more usefully employed in terms
of treating those people who do become addicted by drugs,
that is in terms of therapy and support rather than suppression,
may be somewhat difficult to establish. After all, many drug
enforcement officers are admirable, highly moral, committed
individuals, who put their lives on the line to bring the
'evil drug barons' to justice. How do you unpick this state-sanctioned
commitment to the moral cause of 'saving the children'?
Reframing the drugs debate, therefore, it is possible to
see it as the abuse of a moral crusade amongst the good-hearted
to generate a law that enables a subterranean form of high
capitalism. While officially happy to go along with the 'third
way', that blends the drive of the profit motive with social
concern and a general improvement in standards of living for
most people, the dark side of entrepreneurism has always looked
for exploitable evasions and new methods of doing business.
The creeping regulations imposed by social democracy have
led, perhaps fortuitously, to a drugs-funded black market
that is wonderfully convenient. In this sense the 'war on
drugs' can bear comparison to the mass propaganda of George
Orwell's 1984. At the moment we are at war with Eastasia,
but it might as well be Eurasia, or Oceania, and anyhow, do
we even know what country we are living in?
All of which makes it even more imperative that we somehow
persuade the Blair Government to get on with the legalisation
of cannabis, and other drugs, as soon as possible. Apart from
the enhanced tax take, and the reduction in legal and custodial
costs, we should be able to get a reasonably clear picture
of the current global balance of trade. There might be a chance
for some Third World economies to develop, and it might be
possible to divert some of that laundered drug money into
health and taxable resources. The extent to which capitalism,
for better or worse, depends on addiction to fuel its expansion
might also emerge. But therein lies the problem. The 24 hour
international finance/stocks/futures markets are hooked on
drugs money and its consequences. So perhaps health is the
reason for making drugs illegal? But the health in question
is not yours or mine, it is the health of a financial system
that needs all the drug warlords it can get.
Dr Trevor Turner is a consultant psychiatrist in East
London.
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