Saturday, February 19, 2005
drugs and prohibition - how should a libertarian think about it
hmmm
I think we are in a cleft stick here. Libertarians should believe that people can poison themselves in peace as long as it doesnt harm others - fine by me.
but what where there are externalities - ie., societal costs not bourne by the user - well this is where I for one feel that some form of societal sanction is justified.
BUT. These sanctions don't really work, they create monsters (cf prohibition) and can severely harm the less dangerous idiot (code for drug user incidentally).
Tricky. I am with the anarchist friend noted in Gordon's comments. To live in a true anarchist, or libertarian world requires considerable maturity and a real sense of self responsibility. If you don't have these things then the anarchist commune, libertarian state - or for that matter your socialist welfare state, is going to be open to exploitation by your standard social psychopath. I recall the author of Citizen Shweyk (sp?) who was expelled from his anarchist commune for stealing their bicycle and selling it to buy beer.
What i think is the solution is a sliding scale - one that reinforces personal responsibility. Yes liberalise dope - but use it on the job, accept you get sent home and your pay docked. Yes Meth is seriously bad news and perhaps education is the key here- as with crystal in the 80s the epidemic in the States died off because the kids could see what it did to the shrivelled 25yr olds ahead of them. Maybe if you use meth, compulsory education and drying out centres are needed. If you sell meth or P or whatever, then I think you need to be hunted down and dealt to, and for this i think hard labour not sitting around in a cell watching DVDs and planning your next business venture.
But i do think we are in a conundrum here.
Personally I agree with banning meth, and with educating people about it. I know this causes me dissonance with my beliefs, the above is an attempt to reason it through. I guess if you have to have a state - and clearly you do, you might as well put it to some good use. I'd rather it was educating people to be responsible about drugs than hassling me about obesity or smoking, or driving too fast, or not being nice enough to the tangata whenua...some of whom seem to fit well into the social psychopath category themselves. Step forward Messrs Iti, Tamaki, Wetere et al. (To be honest Mr Tamaki doesnt fit here, he is an entrepeneur not leaching off the state's tit and good luck to him- except for the creepy blackshirt bit).
I think we are in a cleft stick here. Libertarians should believe that people can poison themselves in peace as long as it doesnt harm others - fine by me.
but what where there are externalities - ie., societal costs not bourne by the user - well this is where I for one feel that some form of societal sanction is justified.
BUT. These sanctions don't really work, they create monsters (cf prohibition) and can severely harm the less dangerous idiot (code for drug user incidentally).
Tricky. I am with the anarchist friend noted in Gordon's comments. To live in a true anarchist, or libertarian world requires considerable maturity and a real sense of self responsibility. If you don't have these things then the anarchist commune, libertarian state - or for that matter your socialist welfare state, is going to be open to exploitation by your standard social psychopath. I recall the author of Citizen Shweyk (sp?) who was expelled from his anarchist commune for stealing their bicycle and selling it to buy beer.
What i think is the solution is a sliding scale - one that reinforces personal responsibility. Yes liberalise dope - but use it on the job, accept you get sent home and your pay docked. Yes Meth is seriously bad news and perhaps education is the key here- as with crystal in the 80s the epidemic in the States died off because the kids could see what it did to the shrivelled 25yr olds ahead of them. Maybe if you use meth, compulsory education and drying out centres are needed. If you sell meth or P or whatever, then I think you need to be hunted down and dealt to, and for this i think hard labour not sitting around in a cell watching DVDs and planning your next business venture.
But i do think we are in a conundrum here.
Personally I agree with banning meth, and with educating people about it. I know this causes me dissonance with my beliefs, the above is an attempt to reason it through. I guess if you have to have a state - and clearly you do, you might as well put it to some good use. I'd rather it was educating people to be responsible about drugs than hassling me about obesity or smoking, or driving too fast, or not being nice enough to the tangata whenua...some of whom seem to fit well into the social psychopath category themselves. Step forward Messrs Iti, Tamaki, Wetere et al. (To be honest Mr Tamaki doesnt fit here, he is an entrepeneur not leaching off the state's tit and good luck to him- except for the creepy blackshirt bit).
# posted by gazzadelsud @ 12:41 PM 
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Why is NZ just about the only country where methamphetamine is at all popular?
Largely because of prohibition of other drugs - the NZ custom system is efficent enough to make importing drugs and precursors risky and "low yield". Meth is the one of the few synthetic drugs that can be made in a kitchen from readily available raw materials.
In the UK, E and coke are the drugs of choice - both of them are much less antisocial than P. (Although I think the effect of meth in turning people into psychopaths has been grossly exaggerated by a combination of the media and defence lawyers).
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Largely because of prohibition of other drugs - the NZ custom system is efficent enough to make importing drugs and precursors risky and "low yield". Meth is the one of the few synthetic drugs that can be made in a kitchen from readily available raw materials.
In the UK, E and coke are the drugs of choice - both of them are much less antisocial than P. (Although I think the effect of meth in turning people into psychopaths has been grossly exaggerated by a combination of the media and defence lawyers).
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