Drug Law Reform in Australia
On April 3 2012, there were many articles about a report by a group of eminent Australians which advocates wholesale drug reform.
Current (2012) Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs and former NSW Premier Bob Carr, whose views were considered by the group, came out in support of drug law reform, particularly as the laws relate to soft drugs.
See Carr joins calls for rethink of drugs laws
Yes, it is about time to have a real conversation about this issue, and funny Bob is the one to raise it. Is he the only secure pollie from the main parties who can speak his mind without fear of a media and political backlash?
Whilst clearly drug reform is important, and a lifetime brand, a virtual tattoo on the forehead as a criminal for drug possession/use is way over the top, there are a couple of points to consider.
Drugs and the black economy
What people do not get about drug reform is that it is not about drugs. It is about money and the black economy.
Where will funds come for black market weapons if not from drugs (OK, sex trade, and whatever else springs up to replace drug business) if the drug business is shut down?
Who will the big arms companies sell their rockets and machine guns on the black market to then? Who will have weapons to fight the sanctioned armies then?
The legal arms trade then gets threatened.
Lots of interested threatened there, including possibly the Vatican whose holdings in such businesses were uncovered by the pope circa 1980 just prior to his death.
What will organised crime do to raise money then? The bikies with their factories? The Italian dope mafia? The dope farmers?
Will they go out and get jobs selling cars? Sitting at a desk? Not likely.
Interesting how the dope growers voted against legalising dope in California; too much business and easy lifestyle at stake.
Wall Street and drug reform
Catherine Austin Fitts gave a lecture in New York some years ago, talking about the link between Wall St and drug money.
She, and she had quite a resume in terms of being a Washington insider, said that at that time $750 billion of drug funds/year were being funnelled into Wall St via blue chip companies.
(She said that while individuals are required to explain where their money comes from, corporations are not.)
If drugs (all drugs, so not entirely applicable to this scenario where soft drugs are on table) were legalised then there would be a significant drop in the stock market value.
By now that figure will have blown out to maybe $1-2 trillion/y. Big money.
In a room of 2000 people she posed the following question: Given that most crime, burglaries, muggings, were related to drugs, if drugs were legalised and it became safe on streets, and people could live without fear of being attacked/robbed by a junkie, and the cost of that would be a 15% drop in stock value, who in the room would like to legalise drugs?
In that room, 3 people raised their hand. Mmmmm.
Watching The Wire (described as best TV series ever made) and the drug trade in urban USA, one has to wonder what these people will sell if drugs were legal.
People make way too much money too easily to get a normal job. What will lawyers do? Cops? Prison guards? Customs?
My main point is that legalising drugs may not stop the criminality but maybe shift it elsewhere.
The desire to make lots of easy money will not fade with drug laws, merely move on to the next high profit market. Kids? Organs?
Drug laws allow a sector of society to make money very quickly, a sector that perhaps has always existed. Warlords have always had their henchmen.
The upside of drug reform
If drugs are legal, then there is no money in it, so no need for junkies to find customers in schools/clubs etc to fund their habit.
Take the profit motive out and the business model and the market will collapse. If people can grow their own, then the big growers will go out of business, or at least the profit motive will plummet.
Let’s see how the modern economists think about letting free market economics into the drug trade!
Synthetic marijuana
It was interesting what happened in OZ recently re the legal synthetic dope (made as medial marijuana) sold in tobacco shops.
Sold under a few brands including K2 and Kronic, it was packaged in 3 gram bags for around $50.
For a while ‘smoking dope’ was legal and it was very pleasant to not have to deal with paranoia.
Initially this dope was a far better experience than the ‘natural’ version with all its super fertilisers and hybrid seeds, yet as the lawmakers clamped down on it the quality/experience deteriorated.
Here we had a drug with the negative effects of dope removed (and there are lots of negatives re dope) which initially was a very positive experience.
One of the upsides of this synthetic marijuana was that strength could be standardised instead of the lottery that ‘naturally grown’ (with or without synthetic fertilisers that can have a massive impact on strength) marijuana can be.
It was great going into the shop and have an adult conversation about the pros and cons of each brand. And there was nobody dealing it, other than the shops. The model seemed to work.
Yes there were issues about kids hanging around asking adults to buy for them, and then getting stoned and silly, but that is a wider issue than drug reform.
By Mark O’Brien
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