|
|
There is an enormous amount of moral effluvia over drugs. Conservative politicians work themselves up into an addictively adrenalin-soaked rage, demanding stiffer penalties for drug users. The ultimate irony, as shown by writer Alfred McCoy, is that the drug trade out of the 'Golden Triangle' in South East Asia was controlled for many years by the CIA. There are also the claims by Black community leaders in the USA that crack cocaine was deliberately peddled in the ghettoes by these spooks to raise funds for arms for the Nicaraguan contras.
Sadly, Australia does have an enormous problem with illegal drugs such as heroin and the problem will only grow if Prime Minister John Howard and his fellow moral junkies have their way. Howard's decision to cancel the ACT heroin trial was typical of the reactionary and benighted attitudes we have come to expect from this man. It will do nothing to stop the drug problem - quite the opposite in fact.
Over 500 people, die from overdoses each year. The number looks set to increase. We have high rates of HIV and the various strains of hepatitis contracted from sharing needles. The drug industry is by definition unregulated. There is no guarantee that drug users get what they think they are buying and dealers often 'cut' heroin with a variety of dubious substances including flour, sugar and even rat poison. Overdoses also occur when a particularly strong batch of heroin hits the streets.
Although it is not confined to the working class, it is the working class that suffers the most from the drug trade. Many young people turn to drugs because they feel - rightly - that the system has nothing to offer them; that they have 'no future'.
Socialists should not encourage the use of these highly addictive drugs. As it stands, the illegal drug scene is a morass of human suffering and crime, but until we break away from the moralising attitudes which label the users criminals, the suffering will only increase.
Illegal drugs are big business with a shady array of underworld capitalists raking in fortunes from a mushrooming industry. This 'illegal bourgeoisie' is devoid of morality. They are true robber baron capitalists whose sole concern is the maximisation of profit, regardless of the suffering they cause.
We should not feel any sympathy for them if they are caught. They are merchants of death with other obnoxious sidelines to boot. They deserve only to occupy a prison cell - indefinitely.
Yet it is rare that they are caught. The police admit that repression has failed. Borders are porous, there is a guaranteed market for the product and the big shots can insulate themselves from the risk of arrest. We should not forget that the power of the Mafia grew as a direct result of the trade in bootleg liquor during Prohibition in 1920s America.
More numerous are the arrests of street dealers who are often addicts themselves. Some of these are as young as ten years old, enticed by the lure of ready money and held by the quickening hold of the drug they are cold-bloodedly introduced to. The other arrests are of drug users. Arresting these people is vicious and pointless, yet up to 75% of all prisoners in Australian gaols are there for drug-related offences.
The more far-sighted among the police agree that drug use must be decriminalised. This would have the two-fold effect of cutting out the illegal drugs bourgeoisie and of regulating the medical problem of drug addiction. The ACT trial was to have supplied 40 long-term users with free heroin to determine how well they could function without having to spend their lives searching for the money for the next 'hit'.
Such trials have already been run in other countries, including Holland and Switzerland. They have shown that drug users can function in society and hold down jobs.
In one swoop, Little Johnny Howard has deprived countless thousands of Australians any hope for the future. He has the social vision of a flea.