Prohibition versus Liberalism

18
07
07

Prohibition versus Liberalism

tagged with:

I know some of our distant Liberal Party forebears were so imbued with Welsh Methodism and non-Conformism that they viewed alcohol as the work of the devil herself and each town's brewing family as an instrument of the industrial masters' subjugation of the working man, but I cannot square Norfolk Blogger's paean of praise for Gordo's strong hints that the government will once again increase the prohibition on cannabis with any of the schools of thought of modern liberalism...

I wonder if Nich is one of that strange breed who still believes that alcohol should be banned, or one of that rather more populous breed who believes that their own poison is okay but anyone else's must be ruthlessly repressed. I've harped on about cannabis enough lately, so won't say much more except that I just cannot see how a liberal can want to criminalize such relatively harmless personal habits or fail to appreciate how that very illegality is the thing that causes the most harm about drugs. Regret perhaps that some want to indulge (or damage whichever way you see it) themselves in such a way. Desire to help the worst cases who clearly cannot cope transform their lives, indeed. But criminalize? Please.

Technorati Tags: cannabis, drugs laws, lib dems, liberty

Trackback URL for this post:

http://jockcoats.me/trackback/541

Comments

Submitted by Tom Papworth (not verified) on July 18, 2007 - 23:41.

I agree. I've posted a comment to Nich's blog, which I'm sure he'll post once he's vetted it. I don't believe that the causal link between cannibis and harm has been proven, and I don't hold with banning things to protect people from themselves. Details will be available at Norfolk Blogger in due course.

Submitted by Jock on July 19, 2007 - 00:49.

Thank goodness! With the Tories last week and Labour today I was beginning to wonder if I was so far out on a limb when I read Nich's piece tonight that I might as well give up. I did wonder where common sense had gone and when it left!

Submitted by Aaron Trevena (not verified) on July 19, 2007 - 09:34.

It's infuriating - The Norfolk Blogger is just repeating the ill-informed nonsense of the more hysterical sections of the press, and our "fearless leader" has remained silent on the RSA report on drugs since march - after calling it a 'wake up call' - did somebody just press the snooze button on that alarm clock then?

There is no causal link between cannabis and schizophrenia, and the research into the link at all is skewed by comparing very different social groups (and other issues : http://hashbangperl.livejournal.com/29402.html).

Skunk isn't actually 25 to 30 times stronger at all (http://www.guardian.co.uk/drugs/Story/0,,2041749,00.html) in fact in 1978 you could get skunk as strong as the strongest skunk available now.

Submitted by Tristan Mills (not verified) on July 19, 2007 - 12:34.

I'm glad there's strong feeling in the LibDems on this :) I'd like to add, even if the link is proven that it is not grounds to ban it. I have seen the destruction cannabis use can cause, however the person in question was already suffering from mental illness and if it wasn't cannabis it would have been alcohol or something else. The only solution for him was to try and sort out the underlying issues.