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THE DRUG LAWS:

A CASE OF COLLECTIVE PSYCHOSIS

By Dr. John Marks

Political Notes No. 82

ISSN 0267-7059          ISBN 1 85637 174 3


An occasional publication of the Libertartian Alliance

25 Chapter Chambers, Esterbrooke Street, London SW1P 4NN

(c) 1993: Libertarian Alliance, Dr. John Marks 

Dr. John Marks is a Consultant Psychologist at the Chapel Street Clinic
in Widnes, England.

The views expressed in this publication are those of the author, and
not necessarily those of the Libertarian Alliance, its Committee,
Advisory Council or subscribers.

LA Director: Chris R. Tame      Editorial Director: Brian Micklethwait

The Libertarian Alliance: For Life, Liberty and Property

        

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I am a consultant psychiatrist in Widnes, northern England and
prescribe hard drugs such as heroin and cocaine. Ironically I may not
prescribe hasheesh, nor opium nor coca. This is like being able to
prescribe cognac but not wine. Nevertheless this policy has eliminated
drug deaths, there is no H.I.V. infection, and a police study of our
programme shows a 15-fold fall in drug-related acquisitive crime. Most
interestingly, the incidence of addiction has fallen 12-fold.



HARM MAXIMISATION AND INHUMANITY

Daniel Roche is a citizen of Widnes. In adolescence he experimented
with drugs. He gained a liking for cannabis. Avoiding the black market,
he grew his own cannabis on local unused waste sites. He supplied
himself, in this way, peacefully, for eighteen years. He was a cable
layer, working for a large electrical company. He paid taxes. He had
his own house. He was married, with children successful at school.

In 1988 the police seized his cannabis, and he was fired from his job. 
He couldn't pay his mortgage, so he lost his house. More cannabis was
found growing in his garden. He was sent to prison and his family split
up. He is now still in prison in Liverpool. I call this policy "harm
maximisation."

John Montgomery of Oklahoma is a paraplegic. He lives with his mother,
who buys his hasheesh, the only thing that relieves his muscle spasms. 
Earlier this year Jim Montgomery was sentenced to life imprisonment
when two ounces of hasheesh were found under his pillow. I call this
policy "inhumanity."

If all government expenditure on warnings against tobacco are divided
by the total number of deaths from tobacco and similarly for alcohol,
heroin and cannabis, we get #30 per tobacco death, #300 per alcohol
death and #1.5 million per heroin death, which illustrates the
"overkill" against heroin. But the ratio for cannabis is infinity,
because the denominator is zero.


DANGEROUS BECAUSE THEY ARE FORBIDDEN


Prohibition has its origins in a fundamentalist religious belief that
drugs offer independent and *therefore dangerous* solace. The bizarre
belief of prohibition, that forbidding drug use avoids the harm from
using drugs, not only prevents citizens learning how to use drugs while
avoiding their harms but also gives the erroneous impression that
things not prohibited are harmless. A knife is arguably more dangerous
than a drug and it is clear from this example that it is the uses to
which knives or drugs are put that determine whether they are
dangerous. In fact the opposition to drugs is ideological, usually
religious. Drugs are not forbidden because they are dangerous but
dangerous because they are forbidden.

Undoubtedly the way drugs are taken may be dangerous, but to claim that
an inert chemical, rather than what one does with it, is dangerous is
not merely nonsense; it is the thirteenth chime of the clock, which
casts doubt on all that has gone before, and diminishes the effects of
the health propagandists' more sensible work. It is well that there are
organisations such as the World Health Organisation which seek to draw
our attention to the dangers of drug taking, but it is not at all well
that the members of such organisations should behave as though drug
takers are "hostes humani generis", or as though the rules of evidence
do not apply to those who campaign against drug taking.

Some ways of taking drugs may be dangerous to life, the individual or
society, but the drug taker who thus misuses her drugs no more
represents the totality of drug takers than the alcoholic derelicts in
the gutter represent the totality of alcohol consumers. It is generally
agreed that there is a link between some forms of drug taking and
certain unpleasant medical conditions. Obviously I do not deny that
claim and I do not recommend the practice, and if someone - one of my
children say - were to ask my advice on the matter, I would make a
considered and, I flatter myself, eloquent case for not taking drugs
such as to become dependent on them. But three things, when I
contemplate the anti-drug propaganda, stick in my throat.

INTOLERANT FANATICISM


The least important is the twisted argument it leads prohibitionists
into. For example it is often said of such cases "If she hadn't taken
drugs she'd not have died so young", to which I'm inclined to reply
that if she hadn't been born she wouldn't have died of anything and
that if we'd some eggs we could have some bacon and eggs if we also had
some bacon, or even that if my grandmother had wheels she might well be
a bicycle.

The second, worse, trait of the anti-drug prohibitionists is their
intolerant fanaticism. The language they use about drug takers is the
language of hate; to call it totalitarian would be very little of an
exaggeration and will soon be none at all. Nor are they content to
ensure - and a very reasonable claim it would be - that as far as is
reasonable, drug taking should be restricted to private homes or
specially licensed premises.

No: they insist that all drug taking shall be stamped out by law, that
the world and every citizen's private home shall be exclusively for the
use of non-drug takers and that more and heavier penalties shall be
inflicted on those who take drugs, including life- imprisonment for the
paralytic who smoked cannabis to relive his spasms, and penalties are
even provided for those who fail to report a fellow citizen, or in
America a family member, who is taking a drug. Have we forgotten Soviet
Russia so soon?


GOOD BY COMPULSION

But the third and worst failing of the anti-drug propagandists is their
inability to see, or if they see to admit, that what they are
advocating is an assault - a serious assault - on the individual's
freedom to lead his or her own life in whatever directions, including
dangerous ones, he or she chooses. To choose whether we take drugs is
part of a great right - the greatest, really - the right to govern our
own lives, and not to 
have others govern them for us.

Of all the tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its
victims may be the most oppressive. To be "cured" against one's will of
conditions we may not regard as diseases is to be put on a level with
those who have not yet reached the age of reason and never will; to be
classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals. All societies
which have tried to make the citizen good by compulsion have come to
grief, and the grief has almost invariably been that of the citizens,
not the leaders.
-- 

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