Prohibiting drugs is not conservative

‘Prohibition undermined respect for the law, corrupted the minions of the law, created a decadent moral climate - but did not stop the consumption of alcohol. Despite this tragic object lesson, we seem bent on repeating precisely the same mistake in the handling of drugs.’

- Milton Friedman, Prohibition and Drugs, NEWSWEEK, May 1, 1972.

‘Economist Milton Friedman predicted in Newsweek nearly 34 years ago that Richard Nixon's ambitious “global war against drugs” would be a failure. Much evidence today suggests that he was right. But the war rages on with little mainstream challenge of its basic weapon, prohibition.’

‘The more the U.S. spends on interdiction, the more incentive it creates for taking the risk of running drugs.’

- George Melloan, Musings about the War on Drugs, Global View opinion column, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, February 21, 2006.

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Last night (Wed 13 Dec 2006), Newsnight covered the current string of murders of prostitutes in Ipswich, followed by an interview. Jeremy Paxman had in the studio Dawn Annadale, a former escort; Fiona MacTaggart, Home Office Minister from 2003-2006; and Tom Lloyd, Chief Constable, Cambridgeshire Police, 2001-05. After some talk about getting prostitutes off the streets, the discussion turned briefly to drug addiction. Most, if not all of the five young women killed in Ipswich were drug-addicts.

Paxman asked Tom Lloyd: “What’s the solution to the drug-addicted woman, who sells herself to feed her habit?” To which he replied: “Well in simple terms: prescribe heroin to reduce crime.” He went on:

“There’s a real problem with the drugs debate: there isn’t one. If people like me say, why don’t we prescribe heroin, because it’s a rational approach that I can argue for, people will say ‘well you’re going soft on drugs.’ I’m not. I’m actually going hard on drugs, because at the moment the drug dealers have a free rein. I’ve been a police officer for over 30 years, and in that time, all of the efforts of police to try to combat illegal drugs were either ineffective or actually counter-productive, and resulted, as we know, in a huge increase in the availability of drugs to everybody. So, what I’m saying, if nothing else, is if the government regulated the supply of drugs you would eliminate the harms caused to the users. People are still dying in our public lavatories because of an overdose; there is 60 to 70 percent of acquisitive crime committed by people desperate for a fix; prostitutes on the streets desperate for a fix. We have got a huge burden on the whole country: up to 12 billion pounds. This is what I was told recently by a Home Office official. It’s a massive problem. It’s being going for 30 to 40 years, and it really is time we started debating it openly and thinking about it imaginatively.” [Emphasis added].

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The more that is spent on interdiction, the more effort is put into seizing drugs, catching dealers, trying to restrict supply, the more incentive it creates for taking the risk of running drugs. Of course, defying such basic economic principles of risk and return is about as sensible as trying, with great moral earnestness, to defy gravity by walking off a cliff.

But the incentive effect goes well beyond the major criminal gangs, right down to the small-time user-dealers on the street. As Tom Lloyd said: ‘I’ve been a police officer for over 30 years, and in that time, all of the efforts of police to try to combat illegal drugs were either ineffective or actually counter-productive, and resulted, as we know, in a huge increase in the availability of drugs to everybody.’ So banning drugs has quite probably contributed to an increase in the use of these substances, relative to what it would otherwise have been.

Stepping onto the bottom rung on the distribution chain is one of the three common methods of financing an illicit drug habit. So the law is, in effect, underwriting the greatest pyramid selling scheme yet devised, with addicted users motivated to create new customers to finance their habit. Wonderful!

And how do users who aren’t dealing finance their habit? Unless they are celebrities or other types with high income occupations (espeically those without demanding schedules requiring regular attendance at the office) they steal or turn to prostitution. Even better! We all pay for the former through our insurance policies and the latter brings the usual social ills. We are usually able to turn away and ignore the prostitution problem. The thin veil has been violently torn away in Ipswich this past fortnight. And, as if driving up the supply of prostitutes wasn’t enough, illegality has made injected drugs a perfect vector for the transmission of infectious diseases, particularly AIDS, but by no means not limited to it. Combine that effect with prostitution and you have the perfect cocktail for multiplication of misery and practical evils.

The evidence is overwhelming. Surely, the burden of proof is on the prohibitionists to justify the continuation of their disastrous policy in the face of an enormous and growing mountain of evidence. It’s a conservative principle to be observant, thoughtful, not to let emotions trump right reason, and to respect and yield to evidence when they contradict one’s views, beliefs and opinions, however long- and dearly-held. It’s another conservative principle that the task of government is not to try to create heaven on earth (which is not only impossible, but has always led to an increase of misery), but to minimise practical evil. This involves being sufficiently discriminating to discern which is the lesser of alternative evils. So what happens to these principles with self-professed conservatives when it comes to the drugs issue?

Conservatives, as a rule, are people who understand that something that appears comforting and generous on the surface (eg: socialism) can actually be simplistic, oppressive, and full of falsehood and evils, both practical and moral. They also understand that what at first seems challenging and harsh, (eg: conservative principles) may actually be inherently compassionate, preferrable and desirable. So it's tragic that so many otherwise sensible and intelligent conservatives, who are usually able to discriminate correctly between liberty and tyranny, between giving people credit and patronising them, seem to have a massive blind spot on drugs.

Only with such a blind spot can such an otherwise sensible conservative write:

‘Few spectacles in politics have distressed me more in recent years than the ridicule heaped on Ann Widdecombe, when she was still Conservative home affairs spokesman, for saying that the laws against the use of drugs needed to be enforced. She was absolutely right. Since drugs crime is the cause not just of most prostitution, but of between 70 and 80 per cent of all crime in this country, she was making a unanswerable point.’

- Simon Heffer, Drugs are the curse of our land and turn women into prostitutes, THE DAILY TELEGRAPH, Wednesday February 13, 2006.

At least the headline to Mr Heffer’s article is a true statement. Unfortunately, what Mr Heffer thinks is ‘blindingly obvious’ is a simplistic falsehood blinding him to the more subtle truth that the present ‘solution’ (prohibition) is actually making the problem worse:

‘Punishing drugs users would also be likely to give the police more information about their suppliers. The prisons cannot be too full for such people, who are the most destructive in society. Can we not see this blindingly obvious truth? Of course, even if drugs use were eliminated, there would still be tarts, and there would still be people who kill tarts. There would probably, though, be gratifyingly fewer of both.’

- Simon Heffer, ibid.

But this is not only a practical issue. The prohibition of narcotics is not only unjustified on the practical evidence, but it is utterly inconsistent with conservative principles. It denies people personal responsibility. I don't need the law to tell me not to use these substances. This law treats us all like children or presumes we are imbeciles. It invades and violates the domain of the family.

Experts may debate the degree of medical harmfulness of various drugs. But it is not the primary responsibility of the state to restrain people from self-harming behaviour. That is the natural responsibility of the individual and their family. Imposing criminal penalties for self-harming behaviour is completely absurd. (We send people to prison, and, in complete mockery of the prohibitionist policy, even the prison authories can’t keep drugs out of these small and supposedly secure and highly controlled environments.) If the behaviour is self-harming, then leave the harm as the natural punishment!

The current situation is far worse than 1920s American alcohol prohibition. The substances are far more potent, more compact and convenient to distribute, as well as being more dangerous to self-administer in unhygienic conditions. Richard Nixon’s “global war against drugs”, America’s failed prohibition experiment is being repeated on an enormous scale and has been imposed on the entire world.

Repealing the prohibition on drugs is not a crazy libertarian policy, but is grounded in classical liberal principles. Even if David Cameron understands this, which appears somewhat unlikely at present, don't expect him to say so. Only a true, unashamed conservative with unquestionable classical liberal credentials would be able to carry it off.

SJW