Plants have resisted attacks by animals to eat them in various ways. Most notably, they have grown thorns or thrown off toxic chemicals. It has taken millions of years through the processes of natural selection. But plants, like animals are still organic. They cannot produce chemicals of such toxicity that in killing animals they kill themselves. Thus they sometimes produce chemicals that will merely scare some animals off. Various chillies contains chemicals that result in sensible animals (non-Mexicans) not coming back for a second bite. Marijuana plants, poppies and the coca plant contain chemicals that cause animals that eat them some cause for not returning.
Some of the chemicals have different effects in different animals … poisonous to one, beneficial to another, toxic to tumour cells benign to other cells, inducing addictive euphoria in one species and having no effect on another.
They are there. They are part of the biological struggle between species on earth. It is difficult to see how they can ever be eradicated.
Yet we still try. The futility and danger of trying is now is becoming obvious to more people, though not to most politicians, police and people whose religion prevents it.
In the past couple of weeks, more respectable people in positions of influence are joining the acknowledgers of the obvious.
Dr Don Weatherburn of the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics pointed out, obviously, that heroin, like other products is subject to market forces. If you prohibit something, it becomes scarcer and you drive up the price. Also, the greater the risks of production, the higher the price. The more the prosecutions and the higher the penalties, the higher the price. And addicts resort to more crime to meet the higher price. Or worse, they induce others to take up the habit so they can profit from them.
The police royal commissioner, James Wood, pointed out, obviously, that with such large amounts of money at stake, police will be bribed to turn a blind eye. The NSW Law Society agrees.
The corruption appears to run into the lower levels of the judiciary in Australia and higher levels of it elsewhere. In short, prohibition has delivered: more addicts, more crime and corrupt police. It has also delivered some very strong proponents.
The proponents of prohibition are nearly all selfish: the dealers and corrupt cops who like prohibition because it brings money; the honest cops who like prohibition because it brings more resources to their organisations to “”fight” the drug menace; the religious moralists who get to feel righteous and morally superior to fallen addicts; the prohibitionist politicians who like to be seen playing tough and pandering to the ignorance of the general public.
But the public are seeing the obvious failure of prohibition far more quickly than most politicians.
Last week we saw NSW Premier Bob Carr and Federal Justice Minister Duncan Kerr shuffle their feet with embarrassment when asked for their opinion on the ACT heroin trial. Would they try something to replace their present failed policy? Oh no, they selfishly shied away for fear that people from the religious minority might start a scare campaign against them. Political survival is more important than responding responsibly to the obvious.
How do they explain the inconsistency of condoning nicotine and alcohol by taxing them, allowing them to be advertised and discouraging nicotine quitters by taxing Nicorette and not allowing Quit classes to be tax deductible, even though tobacco and excessive alcohol kill more people than narcotics.
The inconsistency can only be explained by politicians failing to stand up to those selfishly promoting the status quo by recognising that narcotics, tobacco and excessive alcohol use all present a health problem. Governments should actively discourage them and help users without resorting to fines and jails which demonstrably do not work.
The justification of present policy is supposedly to save drug users and prevent more people from using them. It is having the opposite effect. The real reasons for present policy are irrational fear or selfish clinging to the status quo.