Now that we've covered the kind of background, lets go back to what i was saying a little earlier about mandatory sentences. I think they are a fundamentally bad idea. They very much blur the lines between the legislative and the judicial systems which should be separated. Sentencing guidelines are OK but to tell an independent judge, that no matter the facts of the case, he has to give out a minimum punishment is absurd. It is blind to the fact of the case and robs the judge of his independence and discretion. Minimum sentences are usually the promise, a political promise, made by politicians who promise to be "tough on crime". Good old premier Ted in Victoria is an example of this, he brought in several changes and established minimum sentences for a lot of crimes, the article in the brackets discusses this in some detail and its definitely worth a read (It goes into it much more here in the section on "law and order populism" -
http://www.cla.asn.au/0805/index.php/articles/articles/prisons-in-victoria-2010).
So, american style mandatory charges are definitely not the way to go. They don't focus on rehabilitation most of the time, they're just punitive punishment. Lets not forget america has a lot of privately owned prisons, for profit prisons, run by corporations. Its in their interests to get more inmates and for their sentences to be longer. Its not in the interests of society as a whole but its in their interests. We cant underestimate the massive amount of lobbying power they must have as well. Be weary of those tough on crime, the politicians job is to legislate, all the things most of society considers bad are already illegal anyway, so its not like we're lacking legislation. Same with teds promise of armed guards at every train station, it'll cost us massive amounts of money and most of the time they'll be trying to fight boredom rather than crime. So, this isn't the way.
Even if the penalties aren't harsh, i think criminalising drug possession at all (especially the softer, less harmful, less addictive drugs like marijuana) is a bad idea. Once you go through prison or get a criminal record you're worse off for it and often, worse off for society as a whole. Prison is also costly as well, America has massively overcrowded prisons partially because of their war on drugs. That article i linked above mentioned it costs $100 000 a year to house a single prisoner in Victoria. That person, who was just possessing weed, no longer contributes to the state through taxes at all and becomes a burden on the state, both in prison and once they get out. Nothing for a small amount, a fine for a larger amount but an amount thats below a level that you could do some serious trafficking at.
If you are trafficking in large quantities of drugs of dependence, you are causing harm to society as a collective, there is no ifs or buts about it. People like this must be punished. Especially things like heroin, they cause harm against a person, they cause harm to the state because heroin users often turn to crime to fund their habit and often neglect their loved ones and Dependants, also they're a drain on the health-care system and all the other machinations of the state. This all goes back to social contract theory. So, people like this should definitely not get off scott free. You are causing harm to a society, you are taking away from a society, they have to be stopped and they have to be punished. All their assets bought with criminal proceedings should become the property of the state and sold to fund the state that they damaged. This is especially true for hard drugs that almost incontrovertibly cause harm.
For cannabis and lesser drugs like ecstasy, i'm not quiet sure. Possession should definitely not be a criminal offense, at least in quantities for personal use. Lets go back to my continuum though:
"Total illegality with harsh penalties (criminal), make it illegal with minor penalties, make it tolerated or decriminalised to posses weed but not to supply or traffic, make it legal to grow/distribute/traffic and be sold by private individuals or at the very far end let the state (i mean the state as an idea of collective people under a government, rather than Victoria) supply people with it. "They don't cause as much physical harm but they are still drugs of dependence. People become dependent on them and spend increasing amounts of cash on them as they would of previously done. This not only affects them but think about their family as well, if the father is spending more money on booze or weed and he's the sole income earner, theres less money for the family overall. The family is worse off because of the fathers dependence on the drug(s), this inflicts harm on the family against their will and i think its our duty as a society to ensure their protection. No kid should have to grow up the child of an addict (to whatever drug).
The people who sell these drugs are the ultimate cause of harm and they do deserve punishment as i've said above.
Now, i can anticipate what some will say (if anyone is still reading up untill this point), legalise it. It'll be cheaper. I prefer the decriminalised approach, when people get fined they still feel the touch of the law and know people are watching them. Strong policing is important, i read a summary of a study (dont remember by who now) that suggested when people know police are active, present and have recieved punishment, even just a fine, they are less likely to commit crime than if the police and the state have almost an invisible presence and it looks like they don't care. If we do legalise it, we run into the problem of who grows it.
If its private individuals we would need extensive quality checks and legislation, whole new departments, inspectors, enforcement agencies, ect. All this would cost the state money, it would cost the collective money. You would recoup some in taxes but ultimately, the state is still losing money because of this. We also must remember that it would still be illegal in many other places, how are we to know if these legal drug dealers (especially things that need to be farmed like coco, cannabis, poppy for heroin) aren't skimming off the top or selling to international crime syndicates. It definitely can happen and i believe it definitely will happen given a large enough network of "farmers". You're giving them a license to be able to legally supply international drug cartels at least some of the time, all on the dime of the state unless the enforcement and oversight is extreme (and highly expensive). It also signals that society thinks its ok or permissible to deal in drugs that cause dependance, which as i said above, ruins lives.
People will say, Ah! It makes the government money though! It's good, it brings in tax. I find it highly ironic these people most of the time tend to be libertarians favouring small governments and low taxes and yet take the chance to speak glowingly about massive agencies, oversight and taking in taxes. We also have to think where these taxes are coming from - people who are buying these drugs of dependence. Sure, some will be casual users but plenty will be dependent on it. This hugely impacts families and the money in the families. If they're spending more and more pay over time to buy drugs, harming their family in the process, i find it grotesque that we should sanction this as a collective people and not only sanction it but take a profit off it. That the state, us the collective people should draw a profit of people who are dependent on such a drug. I personally find that unacceptable that we should do that as a collective people. Just because we can legalise it and make tax off it doesn't make it ok. We could open up the market for assinations, legalise hired murderers and make a profit off it if we really wanted to but should we? There are certain things we should just not endorse as a society then proceed to profit of it as well. Ignoring the whole irony of the fact you're adding more taxes, increasing the range of the state and creating massive new departments which drain tax money, things classical liberals (the best modern person i can think of is ron paul) are against, ignoring that exactly how far do you classical liberals want to take it? What else do you want legalised and want the state to profit off of?
I reject the idea of classical liberalism of small governments and only things that harm people other than the person carrying out the action should be prohibited. John stuart mill is noted for this kind of idea for example: "
[T]he sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number is self-protection. The only purpose for which power can rightfully be exercised over any member of a civilised community against his will is to prevent harm to others."
Yes, we should punish transgressions that occur against others but we should also punish transgressions against the collective people and against the state.
Think about gambling for instance. We have legalised gambling, sure, it brings in tax money but we have provided a very easy avenue of access for people to get addicted. This, as i said, is a drain on a persons finances and affects the family and society as a whole. Should we feel happy that we're making money in taxes off people who are addicted problem gamblers? The very gamblers we enabled via legalising gambling? The grotesque irony here is that we then go on to use tax money to try rehabilitate the very problem gamblers we were complicit in creating. If there was no easy venue to gamble, we would have a lot less gamblers. I am sure of this fact.
I am not opposed to gambling but i am opposed to the creation of problem gamblers and all the ills that come with this. I am fine with the state making tax money off casual gamblers, the very rich "whales" and overseas visitors as well. More than fine with that. Recently i was at crown and i started talking to one of the floor managers, he told me that crown employs around 5000 people (which is a plus) and take in 50 million dollars...a day. In losses. He was trying to convince us not to gamble too much, which is pretty weird for a guy who works in a casino but he seemed religious and he could probably realise we were young and didnt go all that often. Nice guy though, gave us gold cards when he was only meant to give us bronze. Thats 50 million dollars a day that the casino makes, all off money people lose.
Most problem gamblers don't hang around casinos though, usually the local pokies, the point remains the same though.
It also creates a problem. The state was doing fine before gambling tax revenue but now they have all this extra money, they find a way to spend it. After awhile they depend on it coming in. Its in the interests of the state and the politicians to keep that money flowing (the government makes massive amounts of money off gambling, on the order of billions of dollars (
http://www.theage.com.au/national/gambling-returns-16-billion-20090505-atzt.html). It makes up 1/10th of the revenue of the state of Victoria, its obviously now a vital part of the governments funding (
http://www.swinburne.edu.au/chancellery/mediacentre/media-centre/news/2010/10/gambling-revenue-on-the-rise-) , they need it, they've become attached to it. After awhile it will be very hard to wean the state off this and repeal the law that legalises gambling, just like the laws that legalise alcohol. All i mentioned about gambling can be applied to drugs.
People say alcohols legal, why do you support that? Frankly, it doesn't matter if i do or don't. Its too late to change the laws, once you grant the people a freedom like this, its very hard to take it back, especially after it becomes so ingrained in a society. Consuming alcohol is a massive and common place feature of our culture now. Theres no going back.
The same could be said about drugs, once we legalise it, if the experiment fails, we'll reach a point where it will be very hard to change things back to the way they were. We'll have to have massive law and order responses on the order of war on drugs to shut down all the things we previously allowed.
We're looking at this in terms of just law as well but just like i mentioned for alcohol, society plays a huge role. It's now a normal thing amongst almost all of us to go out and have drinks. If it was illegal and wasn't widely accepted, i probably wouldn't go out and find an alcohol dealer. If we allow a thing, we don't only need to think about the present, things aren't static, they do change. People say, if you suddenly legalise weed or cocaine, its not like everyone will go out and suddenly start using it and surveys back that up. This is only the short term though. Overtime, it'll become more and more common places and accepted, just like alcohol. You'll have more and more people using it, more and more people becoming dependent on it, the state being complicit in it, not to mention the effects that it'll have on the public health-care system we all have to fund, the families and personal finances of these people and the inevitable rehab programs the government will have to bankroll on a much larger scale like gamblers help, for the very flames they fanned in the first place. This will happen over a fairly long term, it'll be a generational thing. You'll have weed cafes or cocaine cafes open up and it'll be a common thing, those growing up will be more accepting of it. We then have private industries (just like gambling and alcohol) based upon dealing things of dependence to people. We could then have advertising for marujiana brands on TV and other things like that. Lets not lie, the cool factor and all the advertisement around alcohol makes us want to drink it more. I don't see many of us doing kava for example.
80-90% of people in the OCED countries use alcohol and about 60% use tobacco, both legal and alcohol more socially acceptable. The percentage of people using hard illicit drugs on a regular basis is below 1% and for cannabis (more socially acceptable) its around 1-10%. Prohibition also keeps the costs high due to the risk and expenses needed in producing, smuggling, ect. I saw on hungry beast tonight actually that street drugs have a profit margin thats fairly high, weed had something insane like 1400% profit margin. Young people are especially price sensitive. This is the rationale for having high alcohol taxes and they work. I buy less alcohol, especially if its just for home or something because it costs more. If you look at disadvantaged and aboriginal communties people go straight for the cheap stuff, the goon, because they are price sensitive. Alcohol taxes in australia are messed up though, its not by % of alcohol, its by the class of beverage. Wine is more alcoholic than beer but taxed at a lower % to apparently support the wine industry or something (
http://www.theage.com.au/national/tax-shakeup-to-hit-beer-wine-prices-20100116-mdj1.html /
http://www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/fca/subabuse/sub123.pdf ). The same applies to drugs.
I do not find it morally acceptable that we as a collective people should think its ok to extract revenue for the collective from people who are addicted only later to try rehabilitate them.
So, i think we should decriminalise possession, deal out fines for any quantities beyond a couple weeks of personal use and punish the people who sell it with the full force of the law.
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