Debate held on drug legalisation

May 13, 2011

Issue

An audience of more than 600 people at a forum debate in Sydney on May 10 voted by a margin of 69% to 23%, that, "All drugs should be legalised."

The forum was sponsored by Intelligence2, a project of the St James Ethics Centre. It heard arguments for and against the proposal and questions and comments from the audience.

Dr Alex Wodak, president of the Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation, and a founder of Australia's first needle exchange, argued: "As a starting point, we must recognise that the ‘war on drugs’ has failed. Legalisation is the only answer.

"Drug use has increased markedly under prohibition. Prohibition pushes people into the arms of organised crime. Money is rained down on customs, police and law enforcement, while drug rehabilitation programs are starved of funds.

"We must remove the oxygen of illicit profits from the drug system. The question of drugs is a health and safety issue, not a criminal issue.”

Dr Greg Pike, director of the Southern Cross Bioethics Institute in Adelaide, said that "legalisation equals normalisation, which would lead to increased availability and acceptability of drugs".

Nicholas Cowdrey, former NSW Director of Public Prosecutions said: "Drugs should be legalised, not normalised. Legalisation would mean regulation of drugs, merely the removal of prohibition. The criminal law is not a good method to regulate health and social behaviour.”

Jade Lewis, a former addict and campaigner against illegal drugs, presented her personal struggle as a case for the continued prohibition of drugs.

Comedian Wendy Harmer said the major reason to legalise drugs was to "reduce hypocrisy" and undercut the "law and order junkies" who are the real problem in society.

Journalist Paul Sheehan spoke against legalisation of drugs on the grounds that the present situation was acceptable and said there is no “war on drugs” in Australia.

In discussion, most participants rejected this argument, asserting that there is a real “war on drugs” and that it is failing here and overseas. One speaker said that "20,000 people are arrested over drug use in NSW alone, every year".

Another speaker proposed "all the money now allocated to drug law enforcement” should be spent on “drug rehabilitation and health programs".

[The next debate in the Intelligence2 series will be on June 16 at 6.45pm at City Recital Hall, on the topic: "WikiLeaks is a force for good." Visit: http://iq2oz.com/ ]

Australia

Comments

Anonymous replied on Tue, 05/17/2011 - 00:14 Permalink

If you are a prohibitionist then you need to ask yourself the following questions: Why do you wish to continue to spend $50 billion a year to prosecute and cage your fellow citizens for choosing drugs which are not more dangerous than those of which you yourself use and approve of (alcohol and tobacco)? Why are you willing to waste more of everybody else's taxes on this garbage policy? Why do you need to wage war on your own family, friends and neighbors? Why are you helping to fuel a budget crisis to the point of closing schools and libraries? Why are you helping to waste precious resources on prohibition related undercover work while rapists and murderers walk free? Why aren't you not concerned that many cases do not get taken to trial because law enforcement priorities are subverted by your beloved failed and dangerous policy of prohibition? Why are you such a fan of the prison-industrial-complex to the point of even endangering your own children? Will you applaud when, and due to your incipient authoritarian approach, your own child is caged and raped? Will you also applaud when your own child , due to an unnecessary and counter productive drug conviction, can no longer find employment? Why are you willing to follow The United States into a bottomless pit? Here's what the UK Economist Magazine thinks of the situation there: "Never in the civilised world have so many been locked up for so little" http://www.economist.com/node/16636027 According to Paul Craig Roberts, a former editor of the Wall Street Journal and former assistant secretary to the treasury under Ronald Reagan, "Police in the US now rival criminals, and exceed terrorists as the greatest threat to the American public." http://www.newstatesman.com/north-america/2011/04/orleans-city-jail-police "Narcotics police are an enormous, corrupt international bureaucracy â¦ and now fund a coterie of researchers who provide them with âscientific supportâ â¦ fanatics who distort the legitimate research of others. â¦ The anti-marijuana campaign is a cancerous tissue of lies, undermining law enforcement, aggravating the drug problem, depriving the sick of needed help, and suckering well-intentioned conservatives and countless frightened parents." â William F. Buckley, Commentary in The National Review, April 29, 1983, p. 495 There is no conflict between liberty and safety. We will have both or neither. Ramsey Clark (1927--) You must know by now, that prohibition does not keep drugs away from our children. Drugs are easily obtainable in almost every school in Australia. There would be less drugs in Australian schools if drugs were legally regulated. This is no different than what happened during the 1920s in The US: "It has made potential drunkards of the youth of the land, not because intoxicating liquor appeals to their taste or disposition, but because it is a forbidden thing, and because it is forbidden makes an irresistible appeal to the unformed and immature. It has brought into our midst the intemperate woman, the most fearsome and menacing thing for the future of our national life." http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/HISTORY/e1920/senj1926/judgetalley.htm

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