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UVSS HEMPOLOGY 101 CLUB LESSON #19 : SOCIAL IMPACT OF PROHIBITION - Part 2 |
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The prohibition of drugs is premised upon the vast number of negative consequences that are thought to arise from their use. Once focusing on the moral corruption of the individual, today there is an emphasis on the pharmacological effects of the drugs themselves, including the possibility of addiction, adverse psychological conditions and physical illness. Aside from damage to the individual, advocates of prohibition also indicate the extensive social costs that are borne by the community at large - such as health service provision for addicts and the crime that is often generated by the need to finance a habit. As the criminological community has pointed out for many years, efforts to control these risks through prohibitionist policies have generated their own sets of problems and paradoxes. Most prominent in the literature are discussions of the emergence of black markets, criminal subcultures and organized crime, the financial and community costs of law enforcement and dilemmas in the administration of effective public health strategies. Melissa Smith, THE PROBLEM OF DRUG PROHIBITION FOR DRUG USERS, Electronic Journal of Sociology, 2005. Throughout the decades since Richard Nixon first proclaimed a war on drugs in 1971, the United States has repeatedly made a “drug war exception” in its foreign policy toward repugnant and repressive regimes. Policy toward Burma has been by no means an aberration. The United States adopted a similar approach to Panama’s dictator, Manuel Noriega, Peru’s authoritarian president, Alberto Fujimori, and even Cuba’s dictator, Fidel Castro. Incredibly, Washington even sought to cooperate with the infamous Taliban regime in Afghanistan and praised its professed effort to eradicate the cultivation of opium poppies. The willingness of U.S. administrations to collaborate with the most odious dictatorships in the war on drugs is long-standing and continuing. It is more than a little distressing to see the U.S. government betray America’s values in that fashion. Moreover, it has been a myopic, utterly futile policy. In case after case, Washington’s ostensible partners in the anti-drug crusade have themselves been extensively involved in drug trafficking. Carpenter, Ted, UNSAVORY BEDFELLOWS: WASHINGTON’S INTERNATIONAL PARTNERS IN THE WAR ON DRUGS, Cato Institute, 2002 |
The vast majority (87%) of the sample said the arrest and conviction had not resulted in them reducing their use of cannabis, 18% were more discreet about their use. Only three respondents said that they stopped smoking for fear of another conviction, four had stopped using for other reasons, and two said that they defiantly smoked more as a consequence of their conviction. Most continued to use despite their conviction because they enjoyed it (62%), didn’t see it as a criminal activity (41%), saw it as a victimless crime (25%), or disagreed with the cannabis laws (22%). The majority of respondents were law abiding and had respect for the law and police in general, but not for the cannabis laws and their enforcement by police. The vast majority (85%) believed that police deserve respect for maintaining law and order, 88% believed that they were a law abiding person, and 81% believed that most laws are worth obeying. Yet 90% believed that cannabis use should be legal, and 84% did not believe that strong drug laws deter illicit drug use. A minority (21%) continued to see themselves as a criminal as a result of their cannabis conviction. THE SOCIAL IMPACT OF A MINOR CANNABIS OFFENCE UNDER STRICT PROHIBITION - THE CASE OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA, Lenton, Heale & Bennett, Feb 1999. The pursuit of prohibitionist foreign policies can generate serous consequential harms in the countries where those policies are imposed - defoliation and other environmental harms due to crop eradication, adverse health consequences from the use of herbicides on drug crops, loss of livelihood for already desperately poor farmers. Because prohibition is often enforced selectively, production and trafficking by some ideologically favored groups is tolerated, enhancing their power. This enables them to brutalize the population and destabilize the otherwise democratic governments. Colombia is perhaps the best example. Both the left-wing guerrillas and the right-wing paramilitaries in Colombia are known to profit extensively from the trade in cocaine. Thus, prohibitionist policies both empower those domestic terrorist groups that are able to profit from the drug trade and often create other hardships within the countries on which those policies are imposed. Oscapella, E., 2001, HOW DRUG PROHIBITION FINANCES AND OTHERWISE ENABLES TERRORISM. |
