Tips for Anti-Drug War Agents
About a week ago I spent a late night playfully writing a campaign briefing for a campaign against the War on Drugs. Well the ABC's Hungry Beast was very quick to take my advice, as the form and content of last night's featureshowed, to my great gratification. They have even provided the sort of proper information I was fondly imagining, which is convenient because I don't really have the discipline for proper research. Hungry Beast got McNair Ingenuity Research to ask 1008 Australians about it. There's links to the rest of their research as well. Anyway, this was my effort: - Be honest at all times and quote data accurately. The facts are overwhelmingly on our side and there is no need to exaggerate or embellish them.
- There is no need to hide from the realities of drugs, their dangers and harms. The dangers are mostly reduced if we end the Drug War, and the benefits of ending it far outweigh even the most exaggerated estimates of the benefits of the War.
- This is a 100% evidence based campaign. Never shy away from good evidence against our case. In fact, if good evidence-based argument demonstrates that we are incorrect, and that continuing the Drug War has the greater benefits to society, then we are obliged to abandon our campaign and, if we must, look for more effective ways to improve our society. This campaign may for individuals be emotional or even spiritual, but it is based on evidence and the best quality, most up-to-date research available. We are pursuing this campaign because we want to improve our society if we can and ending the Drug War will, according to the best evidence we have, make significant improvements to our society. If it is proved otherwise we are obliged to abandon the campaign.
- Never denigrate those concerned about drugs. We should assume that their intentions are good, as they almost always will be. If they care for people, the facts will speak to most of them eventually. Cutting them off and making them even more reticent to look at the information we are providing, is all loss. Be courteous at all times, not ever patronising or belittling. Remember in argument to attack ideas and not people.<!--[
- Alienate no one, and avoid setting any political party up as 'good guys'. We are after a broad consensus, based on good information, across parties and across all of society. Remember the facts are on our side. The cost-benefit analysis for people and society overwhelmingly supports our case.
- We are not interested in recriminations. If there are allegations that someone has broken the law or engaged in corruption, we leave that to the processes of law. We are interested only in ending the Drug War - a legislative and institutional change to society which will, regardless of justices or injustices past or along the way, make life better for everyone in the World from now on. Busting a corrupt police officer or government official is low on our priority list. So is blaming some political force or another, or a previous generation, for the Drug War. Blame is a secondary concern, and I'd prefer to leave it to the law, the courts and the historians. We must keep our eye on the goal of making a major improvement to society from now on.
- Never promote drugs, and make sure you are always acknowledging of the very real dangers of substance abuse. Recommend that people do not take drugs, and if they do to ensure they have good information, clean drugs, a healthy mood, and good friends around them. When people express their distaste for drug use, empathise with their real concerns and encourage them to continue their efforts to steer people away from drug use. There are very good reasons - mostly to do with health and finances - to just never take drugs, and there is no need for them in a healthy, happy, exciting life. It is possible of course to argue the virtues of drug use, as it is possible to argue anything. It is at least as possible to argue against drug use, for health reasons (including social cost of health) and for financial reasons, and that makes it an unhelpful argument. Assuming that drug use is in fact a dangerous adult vice is our safest ground. After all, it is.
- You may be drug users yourself, and this may indeed be a motivation for supporting the campaign. After all, being a drug user would see you very close to the injustice and the health hazards of the Drug War environment. Attaining the liberty to take drugs is an inevitable effect of this campaign, but it shouldn't be seen as the reason for the campaign. Taking drugs is never entirely safe, and drug addiction is never good. The point is, being able to take drugs is not one of the benefits of ending the drug war. Being able to purchase drugs cheaper, cleaner, safer, and without supporting organised crime or rainforest destruction is a benefit for users, but in the scheme of ending the War, it is but a minor benefit. Meanwhile, it is already (clearly) possible to purchase and use drugs, so it is hard to call the freedom to take drugs a benefit of ending the War. The most important benefits for ending the War are the things that benefit all of society (eg. less chance of being mugged, less house-breaking, higher life-expectancy, lower taxes). It is these universal benefits that we must lead with and keep in the center of the debate.
- The term “Drug War” was invented by the warriors themselves, but it is a very descriptive term and we should use it constantly. A war is something expensive, with casualties, and that requires constant justification on the basis of results. If our opponents try to avoid the term, don’t let them. It’s their term, it is apt, and we will insist on it. In our literature we always capitalise “The Drug War” or “The War on Drugs” as it is a proper noun for a historical event with a beginning… and an end.
- In short, concentrate on demonstrating the costs of the War and always fully elaborate the projected costs of ending it. Be uncompromisingly fair in how you treat research, regardless of what it shows. This campaign succeeds on facts, or it should not succeed. If anything bias your assumptions against the case to end the War, in order to better emphasise our case and demonstrate our own intellectual integrity. This campaign must be as intellectually spotless as we can make it. Once again, the evidence is overwhelmingly on our side.
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Rendering the campaign politically viable
Thanks Paul, Justin and Geoff for your thoughts.
It's gratifying of course to see that you concur that the Drug War should end. It's quite amazing how many people broadly do, just going by comments on media forums and the like (as well as the linked survey). That such a simple step, that would quickly and not-insignificantly improve everything from our health to security, the balance of trade and even the safety of our children is not being seriously and loudly considered is the real mystery. The reason, as far as I can gather it, is because it is considered too politically deadly, that any appearance of being 'soft on drugs' would destroy a politician. All that means, of course, is that it will take very good leadership.
As the Hungry Beast episode exemplified, there is good campaigning going on, but perhaps there's also a fear factor among citizens. Maybe civic agents don't want to be associated with drugs, especially if they are in fact associated with drugs.
I think this campaign is worth it, for so many reasons. In terms of demonstrable costs and benefits, this campaign makes more sense than pretty much any high-profile campaign I can think of. Let's see: we can save thousands of lives, reduce the police and prison burden whilst reducing crime, allow customs to focus on real threats hence increasing our security, improve community relations with police, hence helping the cause against anti-social crime even more, save rainforests, eliminate a lot of organised crime outright, reduce police and government corruption possibilities, improve the balance of trade (there is no need for Australia to import opium products, for example), provide thousands of real jobs (they already exist of course, they just don't pay taxes), raise revenue, improve education AND REDUCE THE DEFICIT. If you have a bit of spare civic energy, there really are worse things to put some effort into.
But Justin, I shall raise my sword, in the friendliest possible way, to the thrust of your post, as indeed it conflicts with one of the campaign hints I have suggested. You are absolutely correct to point out the corrupt interests involved in the Drug War, but as I say in Point 6, I don't think these will actually help the campaign.
Privately, if the War does end, I will hope there's a few people busted. There are some very bad people involved on both sides of the War. But we must keep in mind that these people would not exist, or would not be as bad, if it were not for the Drug War environment. The campaign can be won politically, in my view, if we stick to a straight triple-bottom-line cost-benefit analysis of the Drug War. Among the crooks, and even among corrupt cops and corporate agents, there will be those who can see the clear truth of what we're saying. Some of them will be helpful with information, and some of them, given enough provocation, will even speak out themselves. (There is a good interview with an ex-cop on the Hungry Beast program).
Anyway, just as I don't think, "Legalise drugs; they're really not too bad" is a useful strategy, I don't think, "Drug warriors are evil and corrupt" is the way to go either. Both slogans have a lot of truth in them, but my point is that ending the drug war will help everyone and those things which effect everyone can render the campaign politically viable.
Legalising drugs and arresting bad guys are desiderata, in my humble view.
Swao war on drugs for war on terror..
.. and the guidelines are almosrt as equally as axiomatic, Hamish. I't s fascinating to watch, across so many fronts, how many people's words do their cause a disservice. One of my such faves was the misguided friend who wanted to set an Animal Lib burnt animal's fundraiser next to the Scouts' volunteer barbie for (human) bushfire victims.
Marquis of Qeensbury rules, please, chaps and chappettes! A punch to the whatsits might be cathartic, but the rage with which you fill your antagonist's eyes will likely do you more harm than good!
Richard,
Richard, Richard...
"Queensbury" is NOT a good paragon.
It was a (the) Marquis of Queensbury who had poor old Oscar Wilde banged to rights with hard labor, for mistaking the Marquis' son for a sheep.
The fairness becomes problematic.
Why not chose someone with a relatively more compassionate record, like Judges Dead and Jeffreys, The Rev. Samuel Marsden or Roland Friesler?
Easy done - happens all the time
"It was a (the) Marquis of Queensbury who had poor old Oscar Wilde banged to rights with hard labor, for mistaking the Marquis' son for a sheep."
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
...for paradise, a goat.
Yes, you got it.
Richard Tonkin's thread, "Ya shag one sheep" explained the the confluence that now gathers in swirls and eddies around the melancholic vicinity of a sheep's anterior quarters.
If Rann had shagged a dozen barmaids and none of them had complained, no story.
If they had all swooned at the memory of such a tryst, when "Mr.Wonderful" was Mike Rann, would there have ever been a story?
..................................................................................
And what about the sheep?
No one ever asked them if that was what they had wanted...and why did they roll off and go to sleep afterwards, as well....
The Real Drug Lords
A brief history of CIA involvement in the Drug Trade
"1973-80, AUSTRALIA
The Nugan Hand Bank of Sydney was a CIA bank in all but name. Among its officers were a network of US generals, admirals and CIA men, including fommer CIA Director William Colby, who was also one of its lawyers. With branches in Saudi Arabia, Europe, Southeast Asia, South America and the U.S., Nugan Hand Bank financed drug trafficking, money laundering and international arms dealings. In 1980, amidst several mysterious deaths, the bank collapsed, $50 million in debt. (See Jonathan Kwitny, The Crimes of Patriots: A True Tale of Dope, Dirty Money and the CIA, W.W. Norton & Co., 1987.) "
Enough is enough
Yeah, I agree Hamish. Drug use is at its core a public health problem. Criminalisation exacerbates the problem. It's like throwing people in jail for having suicidal tendencies. No one would suggest the best way to handle a self harming kid, say by using razor blades or over or under eating, is to shame and prosecute her.
Criminalisation is a source of far more human tragedy than the drugs themselves. The social and human cost is enormous. The collateral damage of this war destroys the lives of thousands of innocents. Whole countries are put at risk. Mexico is the latest basket case because of the US war on drugs. It's border states resemble, perhaps appropraiately, a warzone. An old fashioned shooting war.
This war empowers and makes wealthy beyond imagination the ugliest individuals around. It corrupts legal and political systems and police forces. It warps economies. It fuels terrorist organisations and builds international gangs of such power and reach they challenge the state itself. It hands weapons to rogue states such as North Korea and Iran. Aren't nuclear missiles enough?
The war on drugs might have been a good idea at the time but it has been going on for so long we have lost sight of who is supposed to be fighting who. Only one thing is now clear. We lost. Time to hang up the guns and go home.
War is a racket
Marijuana and its related by products have been used since Adam sat down with Eve, rolled up a fat one, got a fat one, and the rest is history.
Unfortunately the laws that relate to (illegal) drugs do far more damage to communities, families and individuals than the drugs themselves could ever do.
So why a war on drugs? Remember "war is a racket". Follow the money follow the interests - like all wars it is, and has always been about control, power and cash. Do the research and you will find the same old games played by the same old people. Anslinger, Herst, Mellon and Co. You will find the racist game; the corporate game; the media manipulation game; the fear game; the career advancement game and so on. It's all there and it stinks. It has absolutely nothing to do with public health and everything to do with the aforementioned.
Once again the punters have been duped - but not all of them.
What would you rather: to have your home violated and your property stolen by desperates to get drugs, or have those desperates go in peace and with dignity to the local chemist for their medication - just like anyone else who is supplied with anti-depressants etc?
I'll leave that choice to you, and if it's a hard one then a little bit of homework may help.
Anyway I'm off for a big fat one - joint that is. Would you like to join me dear Hamish?
Have tended to think
Have tended to think that the range of situations invoked under the general umbrella of substance abuse seems as limitless as the numbers of people involved.
A bloke in a pub, hitting the beer and shots as part of a difficult adjustment to unemployment or marriage breakup. The house wife in outer suburbia bombed out on various of "mothers little helpers" to cope with the realities of marriage and parenthood at variance with the glitty world of women's magazines and soap opera.
Maybe white kids sniffing glue or outback, kids blowing their brains out with petrol. A sportsman with health problems thru enforced use of steroids as part of the training regime.
"Ice" addicts disrupting an entire neighborhoood, as occurred in mine a couple of years ago, or truckies or plant operators forced to use amphetamines to keep awake. So on and so forth.
People like my late mum, brought up to beleive cigarettes were harmless by the media and tobacco companies. Pot smokers eventually moving beyond social smoking to habituation to an easy way out. Kids on prozac for ADTD, when it might be more constructive to work thru kid's problems with them rather than just stupefying them for the sake of a lazy convenience.
You could extend the list include obesity and comfort eating, or even the sanctimony of wowsers high on their personal virtue,workaholics who cant relate tot heirown families or fantasists who act out their frustrations in anti social ways without ever touching a substance of any kind.
I'd utterly concur with Hamish, particularly para 7 and congratulate him on raising a topic many are comfortable with at being swept under the carpet.