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At
the recent Sinn Fein Ard Fheis, motion 221 proposed
by the Seosamh MacLiathain Cumann from Galway was
voted down; the motion called for the decriminalisation
of cannabis for personal use to end the criminalisation
of young people who would otherwise never appear before
the courts. According to a letter writer to An
Phoblacht/Republican News,
"The
vote was lost by eight votes, and when a recount
was called for from the delegates, a senior officer
board member hurried from the stage into the backstage
area and emerged with several leading Ard Chomhairle
members to bolster the vote against the motion."
Of
course whilst this vote cannot be directly linked
to the recent spate of suicides of youngsters in Belfast,
some of whom in the past had suffered punishment beatings
for drug related 'offences', one cannot help thinking
that for a party that considers itself to be radical
on a host of issues, Sinn Fein is, as far as illegal
drugs are concerned, still back in the dark ages,
or at least many of its current leadership are. Statements
made on this subject by leading Sinn Fein politicians
are at times identical to the ill informed nonsense
that is often spouted at Westminster, Leinster House
and on Capitol Hill. Like the ruling elite in these
aforementioned Parliaments, certain SF leaders seem
to believe that if they condemn illegal drugs and
those who take them, they are marching on the side
of the Angels, when in reality the opposite is often
the case. After all, who benefits most from Prohibition,
if not the major dealers and importers of illegal
drugs such as cannabis? Without prohibition they would
no longer have a market.
It
is worth remembering that whilst narcotics like morphine
and cocaine, plus less potent drugs such as cannabis
have existed and been used by human kind for thousands
of years, up until the early part of the 20th century,
almost everywhere in the world all of the main drugs
which today are regarded as 'problem drugs' were legal.
It was only the pressure exerted by the United States,
often via organisations which they economically controlled,
like the World Health Organisation, that insisted
upon the almost total prohibition of these drugs throughout
the world and thus emerged the disastrous situation
in which today we now find ourselves.
Indeed
the US insistence on the prohibition of Heroin went
as far as to ban its prescribing stateside, as a pain
killer for people with terminal diseases such as Cancer.
Of course the ever willing pharmaceutical industries
were ready and waiting, at twice the cost, to step
in to fill the need and provide a synthetic version
of Diamorphine. Never mind that no such drug was needed
as Opiates have served humankind well for thousands
of years as the best pain killer available. This aforementioned
example I would suggest clearly points out who was
providing the motor behind this, on the surface self
righteous and seemingly idealistic, piece of legislation.
Whilst
banning diamorphine (heroin) for terminally ill patients
was a step too far for Europe, US pressure did eventually
result in much of Western Europe ending what was known
as the English method of treating drug addicts. This
method of treatment consisted of a GP prescribing
via a prescription the addict's needs with clean pharmaceutical
heroin and to a lesser extent cocaine. It was cheap
to implement, had a high success rate and almost totally
eliminated a black market of any size. It simply was
not worth it economically for gangsters to deal in
drugs as there was no market for them. It is only
in recent years that countries who want nothing from
the US treasury, such as Switzerland, have returned
to this method of treating addicts. Having much the
same success rate that was achieved previously, when
last this method of treatment was used before it was
ceased, after being made illegal in the late 1960s,
that is the vast majority of Swiss addicts once given
their daily does, are able to live normal and productive
lives. Incidentally, the list of individuals who were
treated in this way in the UK, prior to the systems
abolition and went on to become acclaimed in their
various professions makes interesting reading. As
too does the success rate the Swiss have had in returning
addicts to 'normal life,' well over 50%. Whereas the
best of today's 'conventional', one-cap-fits-all treatment
programs for addicts, using detox or short maintenance
methadone can only boast of a 20-25% success rate,
the majority hardly reach single figures
To
listen to some SF politicians, one would think it
is only working class communities in which drug abuse
becomes a problem. This is media spin, designed to
belittle working people, written by some nice middle
class journalists who should know better, were it
not for the blinkers of ambition their newspapers
proprietors prefer them to wear. The fact is like
alcohol, illegal drugs are used by all classes within
society, Queen Victoria's flunky regularly signed
the local Chemist shops, pharmacist drugs book near
Balmoral when picking up her cocaine in the late 19th
Century and little has changed since. It is just that
in affluent areas drug users have enough cash to support
their habits, either through work, family funds or
by paying for private doctors to prescribe their needs.
As strange as it may sound, whereas restrictions were
placed on the UK's NHS doctors from prescribing to
addicts, few were placed on private doctors so doing
(talk about one law for the rich, etc.).
In
any case, much of the social depravation that we see
in certain working class areas and which is often
laid at the door of dealers and drug addicts has in
reality little to do with drugs and everything to
do with central government's economic and social policies.
Cities like London, Dublin and Belfast had run down
working class neighbourhoods long before every kid
on a street corner had smoked a spliff. Drugs are
a convenient scapegoat for governments the world over,
whether it be to blame the less well off economically
for their living conditions, or to introduce harsh
new laws and increase military/police spending as
has happened of late in Colombia.
Drugs
in themselves are not the major problem. For example
a long term, regular user of clean pharmaceutical
heroin, will suffer few if any physical ill effects.
Whereas a regular drinker of alcohol will within a
decade begin to suffer severe symptoms, such as liver
damage, which if they refuse to stop drinking will
eventually kill them. True cannabis is not harmless,
as most people take it by mixing it with tobacco which
is extremely dangerous and harmful yet no politicians
wants that banned.
The
overwhelming majority of people who are damaged by
cannabis are done so by being arrested and becoming
part of the criminal justice system. This is as true
in a politically 'abnormal' society such as the north
of Ireland, as it is in one in which the police, in
general agreement with the public, implement the law.
Approx two thirds of young men under 25 in England
and Wales have criminal records, the vast majority
for drug, alcohol or motoring related offences. The
majority with drug related offences are for lesser
drugs such as cannabis or E. Is it any wonder when
one considers the immense waste of time these offences
take up, that the majority of English and Welsh police
forces no longer bother to enforce certain drug laws?
Apart from the total hypocrisy of it, most young police
officers having themselves tried drugs, it means that
police officers can concentrate on more serious work.
The police across the Irish Sea seem to have learnt
that when governments enforce unpopular laws, it is
they who become unpopular. Like breaking the Sunday
trading laws, few see smoking cannabis as doing anything
criminal, nor I might add do most see selling it as
being a hanging offence. Except, that is, the control
freaks out there.
It
has to be said that for all the fine words spoken
by the likes of P O'Neill, to justify punishment beatings
of youngsters who have become involved with illegal
drugs, I cannot help thinking that in societies like
the north of Ireland, where the police do not have
the support of the nationalist population, one of
the major reasons organisations like the IRA were
so anti drug and often still are, was because drug
users risked coming into contact with the RUC, due
to the illegality of the substances they were using.
This being so, in all likelihood the police would
make an attempt to use the youngsters as informers
or pump them for info. Thus they constituted a danger
to the armed struggle; all else flows from this. Of
course it could not be put so bluntly as this, so
all the crap put out by the US, UK and southern Irish
governments about drugs were repeated like a mantra
by leading Republicans, to a degree that some republicans,
who should now know better, continue to do so, even
though the ceasefire has negated any previous justification
for so doing.…
The
silly gateway theory: the nonsense of which is
proved by the millions of people, including myself
who took drugs occasionally in our distant youth,
only to grow out of them as we did many things as
we got older.
Evil
pushers: In my experience, at street level the
pushers of drugs are working class kids or young adults,
much like your children or mine. The more so if they
have developed a habit to the likes of heroin and
have been forced to the margins to survive. When the
state called for a war on drugs, what they actually
meant was a war on us and ours, curse them.
Drug
users dead before they are out of their teens:
This is a particularly silly thing to say to a teenager,
the majority of whom cannot see ahead to their 20s.
Think about the number of pop songs with lyrics in
about dying before I get old.
For
some reason political party's seem to lose all reason
and backbone when this subject is touched on. So I
suppose we should not be surprised by the SF leaderships
mini stampede to defeat the Cannabis motion proposed
by the Galway SF Cumann. I would however end with
this: am I the only one to give pause for thought
on finding out that on this issue, the majority of
the UKs and Ireland's Chief Constables/senior police
officers hold far more progressive and humane views
than the majority of the political party's that regard
themselves as progressive within England, Scotland,
Wales and Ireland (including SF)? These men and women,
whose officers tackle the problems that illegal drugs
throw up daily, call for either the decriminalisation
of certain drugs and in some cases legalisation. Whereas
the leaders of the said political party's go about
spouting ill-informed rubbish, whilst burying their
heads in the sand, hoping the problem of illegal drugs
will be gone by the time next years conference comes
around. In their dreams perhaps!
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