Ronnie - I agree with you that we should be trying to imbue our children with morals but the idea that this will happen from a crime and punishment perspective is just not in accordance with reality. You appear to be confusing "legal" and "moral." There are things in this country which are legal - ie, writing to the IAG share registry and offering people below-market prices for their shares, hoping that enough clueless pensioners will sign up to your rip-off scheme - a la David Tweed, the morally bankrupt disgrace that he is. This does not make them moral. By the same token, I will be teaching my children why they shouldn't take certain drugs, and why they need to be careful - NOT so they won't get arrested but so they don't damage themselves irreparably. This idea that people can be prevented from taking/dealing drugs by law enforcement has been proven wrong for generations, nay THOUSANDS of years and it will always be that way -the dopamine reward pathways in the brain will always be more powerful than any legislation.

The very illegality that you champion provides the means by which dealers can profit - decriminalise heroin and their living would disappear overnight. Or keep mouthing the same old "tough on drugs" platitudes that have clearly been utterly ineffective rather than try something else. Bollocks.

Ronnie Peters,

Let me respond directly to each of your arguments.

1. Link between mental illness and drugs. Please show me how prohibition actually improves this? It is proven fact that prohibition massively increases the likelihood and severity of mental illness through poor quality product, social pressures and contact with the law to name a few. More liberal laws have “proven” to reduce mental problems (i.e. Dutch experience)

2. Ice = meth = really strong = really bad… Again please explain how prohibition has improved the potency of ice? Ice has become a problem under prohibition. It was never a commonly used prior to prohibition. It is a “proven” fact that prohibition leads to the creation of stronger and stronger drugs. (e.g. during 1930’s alcohol prohibition use spirits increased massively)

3. Evidence of your skin crawling… Well you do seem pretty wound up Ronnie boy.

4. Evidence of my/others positive experiences of drugs. Where do I start? I have had some of the most wonderful experiences of my life on drugs (mainly ecstasy and cocaine). Go to any dance event in any major city in the western world and you will see thousands of people having the time of their lives. I have personally known many people to whom drugs have enabled them to become much more confident and open and be able to express feelings they never could before.

5. 65% of the Australian public. It is estimated that 65% of the entire Australian population (up to 80% of 16-40 year olds) have taken an “illicit” substance. Somehow Ronnie I don’t see 65% of people mugging old grannies and ending up drug addicted junkies. The overwhelming majority of drug use is great fun and poses little to no negative effect on anyone.

Continued...

6. You think you are more educated the Alex Wodak… et al. Riiiiiight.

7. The law is a guide to morals. By that logic it is OK to rape women so long as you live in Iran? Well its legal there – must be morally acceptable then hey? And I suppose it was morally correct to exclude indigenous people from citizenship and the vote in Australia prior to 1967? Or that it was morally right to beat women back in the day? Seriously Ronnie this the weakest most ridiculous part of your whole argument.

8. Drinking beer, yet condemning the use of much safer drugs is not hypocritical. Mmmm Ronnie you obviously know how to use the internet Google the pharmacology of many commonly used “illicit” drugs and you will see that many (especially Ecstasy and Marijuana) are massively, hugely, unbelievably safer, less addictive, less harmful to society than alcohol. (hands down a million times over any day of the week.)

I ask you this question Ronnie. Show me one expert, one study, one piece of evidence which proves that prohibition in anyway shape or form is successful. Just one… best of luck.

Daniel06. "Drug treatments and policy must be research based and driven by scientific research." So the reason you haven't supplied any conclusive evidence is because more research is clearly needed. So the experts realise this but you apparently know more.

Stickman how are going to tell your children that it is wrong to take certain drugs if they are legal.

Your point seven actually backs up my argument Daniel06 and blows Stickman away. If you make drugs legal here, then you are saying it is morally acceptable to harm oneself. Daniel06 it wasn’t and isn’t morally acceptable to rape or exclude indigenous people from citizenship that is why indigenous people now vote and it is illegal to rape here. Just because Iran laws are morally corrupt doesn’t mean ours must be. Also, you didn’t bring ethics into it either. I can see why.

I think you both misrepresented my arguments. For instance: Stickman goes on about crime and punishment but I made it clear that users must not be punished. However, I do believe pushers of dangerous drugs should be jailed.

Also Daniel06 I clearly stated that I was more educated “in certain aspects”. A lot of people who do even soft drugs end up mentally ill. A number of people I know and know of are now very ill because of supposed “soft drugs”. I’ve spent enough time in visiting people in a mental institution to know that there is a link.

Maybe you should take more notice of Wodak. I agree with a lot of his ten point plan but remain unconvinced and your attitude and elitist carry on isn't helping. My opinions may be regarded as ridiculous to you but you haven't presented anything sensible yourself.

Now Daniel06 given that drugs aren’t legal in Australia how can we know the long term effects of the legalisation of these drugs. You haven’t got a proper research based and scientific basis to make such firm conclusions. And even Wodak has acknowledged this.

Daniel06 says: ” 65% of the Australian public. It is estimated that 65% of the entire Australian population (up to 80% of 16-40 year olds) have taken an “illicit” substance. Somehow Ronnie I don’t see 65% of people mugging old grannies and ending up drug addicted junkies. The overwhelming majority of drug use is great fun and poses little to no negative effect on anyone.”

Daniel06. You are not serious here surely. So what if yuppie Jill puffed on some marijuana once and ticked the box. It is only “estimated” Daniel06. The seriously addicted people I see aren’t too well off. If you look at the QPS web site there is info there on how drug addiction and crime is a problem. And you may be correct that drug addicts wouldn’t need to resort to theft but that is what drugs do to good men and women. Addiction, I think should be treated as mental illness. And pushers dealt with the full force of the law. Just as we prohibit alcohol and cigarette smoking in certain instances we should prohibit drugs because there is no way of governing and ensuring moderation of usage and we’ve enough problems and disrespect for good and sensible laws in society now.

The one thing I do have tension with prohibition- that as individuals what we do to ourselves is our own business. Then again that I have to join the army to blow things up is annoying. I’ve read the Democrats site and still remain unconvinced.

Ronnie. I think you are completely missing MY point so I will keep this brief.

You ask "Stickman how are going to tell your children that it is wrong to take certain drugs if they are legal."

As I tried to point out previously, something's being legal does not make it moral or sensible (David Tweed). I will be telling my kids they shouldn't smoke cigarettes (legal) and taking them down to the respiratory ward at the hospital to show them emphysema patients. Get it? Legal but still stupid. Besides, morality is a difficult thing to argue. Whose morality? I prefer more of a consequentialist philosophy but that is a topic for another day.

Your thing about punishing dealers but not users (which is not that different really from the status quo, as punishment is skewed that way, anyway) ignores the reality that the only reason dealers exist is because:
1. the brain's dopamine pathways ensure that drugs of dependence will ALWAYS be with us to a greater or lesser extent
2. the current crime-and-punishment based framework means that supernormal profits accrue to those who are prepared to take the risk to deal (risk premium). In what way exactly is the drug user any less morally culpable in your mind than the dealer anyway? They are just servicing a demand - take away the criminality of the drug use and their living disappears overnight.

You say "If you make drugs legal here, then you are saying it is morally acceptable to harm oneself."

Cigarettes and alcohol harm WAY more people than any illicit drugs do in this country mate, if you have half a brain you will acknowledge that. They are both legal. Are smokers and heavy drinkers immoral? There is, after all, no safe level of consumption of cigarettes.