Drugs policy, what a bed of nails. Bill C-15 is stalled (thankfully), now the United Nations seems to argue for shifting drug policy foci from punishing users to more crackdowns on traffickers and more treatment. At the same time, Canada is revealed as a meth warehouse.
Let's state the obvious: you own your body and are free to destroy it as you please. The notion of being slapped on the wrist if you break the law should be just as obvious to proponents of the former, for you can't have one without the other.
Drugs exist and circulate as long as there is a route from producer to consumer, and are susceptible to demand and supply dynamics as any other exchangeable good. Efforts so far have focused on combating trafficking, which should cut supply and drive up prices. In Britain (at least), this resulted in greater cocaine "cutting" instead, with the country still being the cokehead of Europe.
Penalties for trafficking should reach into the highest locally imposable punishments, and I for one applaud the harshness of Colombian, Laotian and Cambodian (among others) justice systems. The Colombian one-year-per-gram is definitely a fantastic deterrent, if only its applications were given more publicity. Consumption, on the other hand, has always been a point of contention.
Boiling the issue down to the transaction itself, buying property obtained through illegal means is illegal in most jurisdictions. Penalties vary, but it lands you with a record. Possession and use of illicit drugs should be, therefore, punishable under that clause. It can be as light as a 1 dollar on-the-spot fine, but unless there is a clear distinction between right and wrong hardly any drug policy will work.
While we may treasure the freedom of taking drugs, we can't dispense with the entire body of law that regulates commerce and exchange. It is wrong to transact with an individual who forwards the proceeds to law-breakers and is not compliant with consumption tax law. On this basis alone the user is eligible for a penalty. I for one believe the offence should be an infraction rather than an indictable crime.
Unless we legalize, regulate and tax the production, import, distribution and safety of illicit substances (a policy I lean toward), possession of them remains abetting a violation of the law. Possession and confirmed use should land you with a fine (however light) and a record expungeable only by reporting to a treatment centre. The most ironic way would be to correlate the fine to local GST and PST, so the State would solely take its due from the transaction.
If I can't buy a stolen bike I won't argue for your right to get high on something that took a dozen broken laws to get in your pocket. But for God's sake don't go with much-trumpeted Bills after the rebel Che-Guevara-shirt-wearing capitalism-bashing daddy's kiddo who keeps a pot plant to delight in the knowledge of giving a finger to Big Brother. That's just potty!
Thursday, 25 June 2009
Tuesday, 23 June 2009
The bitter fruit of theocratic illusion
When the ringmaster of the circus comes out saying a ballot is valid and the opposition should stop protesting, your gut usually reminds you it's rubbish. Over the past week I've heard from many whose knowledge of Iran and regional affairs far exceeds mine, and it's clear that the ballot is stolen and the ayatollahs have dropped their mask and merely made explicit what has been the truth all along: there's no such thing as a theocratic democracy.
My hopes rest on the demonstrators and the combination of courage and resolve I stereotypically associate with anyone Persian. They put the fundamentalists in power in the first place, it's their duty to throw them into the dustbin of history. No foreign power should do it on their behalf, as we've so catastrophically tried and bungled in Iraq.
The buzzword I heard most in the first days after the election was stolen was "shock". The shock horror of being denied the freedom to choose your country's number 2 and denied the regime-approved President you actually wanted. Yet with the political system Iran gave itself, this was simply waiting to happen. From an ignorant's viewpoint, a key lesson of people power was tragically left at the scene of the 1979 Revolution: if you trust yourself to discern right and wrong, you should never yield that power to anyone, let alone an unelected mullah. If you do, expect to be trampled.
Today, Iran is at a crossroads (duh!). Whatever direction it takes, the world in its entirety won't be the same again. With the myth of theocracy-democracy coexisting demolished, mainstream political Islam will look for another model order. What this order shapes up to be will determine the course of the next five decades. If it veers to Mosque-State dialectic rather than fusion the paradigm shift will be comparable to Reformation.
In the meantime, we will have to sit and wait for the turmoil to conclude.
My hopes rest on the demonstrators and the combination of courage and resolve I stereotypically associate with anyone Persian. They put the fundamentalists in power in the first place, it's their duty to throw them into the dustbin of history. No foreign power should do it on their behalf, as we've so catastrophically tried and bungled in Iraq.
The buzzword I heard most in the first days after the election was stolen was "shock". The shock horror of being denied the freedom to choose your country's number 2 and denied the regime-approved President you actually wanted. Yet with the political system Iran gave itself, this was simply waiting to happen. From an ignorant's viewpoint, a key lesson of people power was tragically left at the scene of the 1979 Revolution: if you trust yourself to discern right and wrong, you should never yield that power to anyone, let alone an unelected mullah. If you do, expect to be trampled.
Today, Iran is at a crossroads (duh!). Whatever direction it takes, the world in its entirety won't be the same again. With the myth of theocracy-democracy coexisting demolished, mainstream political Islam will look for another model order. What this order shapes up to be will determine the course of the next five decades. If it veers to Mosque-State dialectic rather than fusion the paradigm shift will be comparable to Reformation.
In the meantime, we will have to sit and wait for the turmoil to conclude.
Tuesday, 9 June 2009
When did abstention become fashionable?
I've never shunned the ballot box in my life, ever. I voted for the Italian and EU Parliaments, all Italian referendums, my Italian local elections if I was in the country, the Greater London Assembly, Camden Council, the UK Conservative leadership and the London Mayor Conservative primary. So it really irks me to hear several parties calling upon the Italian citizenry not to vote in the upcoming electoral law referendums.
Independently of the merits and demerits of the propositions, in Italy any referendum has to have a turnout of 50%+1 to be valid. When special interest groups know they are a minority but hate the proposed change, a "stay at home" campaign is mounted. This is political mediocrity at its finest.
It may sound obvious, but a vote is a duty. Try to come up with a reasoned opinion on an issue you are indifferent to. If you firmly believe you have no opinion, leave the ballot blank. If everyone disgusts you, spoil it. If you sit on your bum, don't complain when things don't go your way or nutcases win seats in your country. The end.
Independently of the merits and demerits of the propositions, in Italy any referendum has to have a turnout of 50%+1 to be valid. When special interest groups know they are a minority but hate the proposed change, a "stay at home" campaign is mounted. This is political mediocrity at its finest.
It may sound obvious, but a vote is a duty. Try to come up with a reasoned opinion on an issue you are indifferent to. If you firmly believe you have no opinion, leave the ballot blank. If everyone disgusts you, spoil it. If you sit on your bum, don't complain when things don't go your way or nutcases win seats in your country. The end.
Friday, 5 June 2009
An announced and expected wipeout
Labour is toast. They have been wiped off the county council map and so far (with many wards still to declare) it has lost 200 of the 450 council seats it was defending.
In Bristol, the minority Labour administration was kicked out earlier, and the city now obtained a Liberal-Democrat majority, with Labour holding on only to two of the ten seats it was defending in this round. The fortresses of Nottinghamshire, Lancashire and Staffordshire have fallen. With 11 wards to declare at the time of writing, the Tories needed only one win to secure a majority on the county council. In Cumbria, usually very Labourite, the Conservatives are the largest party in the council without holding an outright majority.
The Tories also snatched Devon and Somerset from the Liberal Democrats.
Combined with the wave of resignations by junior and senior ministers, Brown's position is rocky indeed. When even the Guardian says there's a problem with Labour and it's time to cut Gordon loose, you know things are bad. The Times also had a series of scathing comments, including "Vote Labour, vote mayhem". Although I cannot retrieve the article, The Sun strongly endorsed the Tories in this round of local and European elections as well.
On Monday the Labour Party caucus will meet after taking the European ballot drubbing. If Gordon Brown is Prime Minister on Tuesday, we will have to conclude that either he is the most tenacious political survivor or the party he leads is spinelessly accepting its fate and delaying the inevitable wipeout. This wouldn't be a problem if a leader with a vision was at the helm. Instead, Britain has a discredited Prime Minister who can't even keep his Cabinet in order. Not good.
In Bristol, the minority Labour administration was kicked out earlier, and the city now obtained a Liberal-Democrat majority, with Labour holding on only to two of the ten seats it was defending in this round. The fortresses of Nottinghamshire, Lancashire and Staffordshire have fallen. With 11 wards to declare at the time of writing, the Tories needed only one win to secure a majority on the county council. In Cumbria, usually very Labourite, the Conservatives are the largest party in the council without holding an outright majority.
The Tories also snatched Devon and Somerset from the Liberal Democrats.
Combined with the wave of resignations by junior and senior ministers, Brown's position is rocky indeed. When even the Guardian says there's a problem with Labour and it's time to cut Gordon loose, you know things are bad. The Times also had a series of scathing comments, including "Vote Labour, vote mayhem". Although I cannot retrieve the article, The Sun strongly endorsed the Tories in this round of local and European elections as well.
On Monday the Labour Party caucus will meet after taking the European ballot drubbing. If Gordon Brown is Prime Minister on Tuesday, we will have to conclude that either he is the most tenacious political survivor or the party he leads is spinelessly accepting its fate and delaying the inevitable wipeout. This wouldn't be a problem if a leader with a vision was at the helm. Instead, Britain has a discredited Prime Minister who can't even keep his Cabinet in order. Not good.
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