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UK Home Secretary Theresa May is continuing a trend of ignoring science advisers when it comes to drug policy:
Home Secretary Theresa May and her statutory advisers on drug policy look to be heading for a showdown over government plans to deal with so-called "legal highs". Some members of The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) are understood to be furious that they were not consulted on proposed legislation for a blanket ban on psychoactive substances. The relationship between the ACMD and ministers in various governments has long been strained. There have been sackings and mass resignations in the last few years, amid claims that expert scientists were being bullied and ignored because their advice didn't coincide with government policy.
Questions are now being asked as to whether the ACMD is being edged out of the drugs debate - 44 years after a Conservative government set it up to ensure science rather than politics dictated policy. In the House of Lords yesterday, a number of peers demanded to know why ministers had not asked the ACMD's opinion before drawing up the controversial Psychoactive Substances Bill.
"It is actually a legal requirement set out in the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 that the ACMD must be consulted before alterations to the Act or new legislation is brought in," Labour peer Lord Rea told the House. "Instead, a specially appointed expert panel was set up by the Home Office. I can only suggest that this was done because the opinion of the ACMD is often not exactly welcomed by the Home Office".
The principle which underpinned the drugs debate in the UK at that time [in 1971] was the longstanding and broadly accepted view that addicts were ill and required treatment rather than punishment. Known as the "British system", ministers felt a medical science-led approach was preferable to US-style prohibition. Roll the clock forward four decades and the government view seems to have turned around entirely in responding to the threat from so-called "legal highs". The bill to outlaw NPS prohibits everything "capable of producing a psychoactive effect" unless it is specifically exempted - and there are concerns that the proposals are being introduced without proper consultation with health experts.
A blanket ban on psychoactive legal highs with prison sentences of up to seven years was featured in the Conservative Party's election manifesto and the Queen's Speech.
Original Submission
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 12 2015, @11:39PM
Because psychoactive drugs numb the mind and make people idle and more willing to accept the present state of things. If protecting those people --and their families-- (and yes, government does act as a paternal instrument) means a few people willing to commit illegal activity have to go to prison, then that's a worthy trade-off. Paint this as fascism, or whatever you want, but making drugs even more easily available will lead to the opposite of a politically-engaged, intelligent, independent public. Once something like cannabis becomes legal, once the realities sink in of having a large section of the public be a bunch of retarded, perma-fried stoners, it will be virtually impossible to make it illegal again.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by kurenai.tsubasa on Saturday June 13 2015, @12:14AM
…making drugs even more easily available will lead to the opposite of a politically-engaged, intelligent, independent public. Once something like cannabis becomes legal, once the realities sink in of having a large section of the public be a bunch of retarded, perma-fried stoners, it will be virtually impossible to make it illegal again.
I vehemently disagree. I think the establishment (i.e. status quo) is convinced that legalizing cannabis will lead to mass complacency. I probaby should not be making this comment, but the opposite is true.
Fascism has always been about a puritan ideal. A pure race, a pure economic theory, purity.
Cannabis is among a class of drugs that leads to questioning authority. This is the antithesis of fascism, so yes, your comment represents fascism. And what is up with this “perma-fried” thing? Many people consume cannabis on a regular basis and fare far more well than their alcoholic bretheren professionally.
In fact, cannabis appears to have a neuro-protective property, whereas alcohol is readily documented as neuro-destructive. I would not recommend pushing code made while high into production (my high code is shit at least), but we have to consider the properties of legal drugs, such as alcohol, in comparision to the properties of illegal drugs, such as cannabis.
Let's face it. The scrambled eggs model of “all drugs” (whatever that means) is broken and intellectually dishonest. Alcohol can fry one's brain. Cannabis? Not so much.
Those of us who want cannabis and other drugs legal are asking society to consider the hypocrisy of allowing such desctructive substances as alcohol and nicotine and denying potentially helpful substances such as cannabis and other drugs (in a professional setting) as LSD-25, psylocibe mushrooms, iboga root, etc.
I would not mind if the other drugs I mentioned, particularly iboga root, were scheduled class II. These have a medical use, and yet, they are most properly administered by a medicine woman or priestess in a controlled environment (or medicine man—I admit I'm more familiar with Amazon lore).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 13 2015, @12:40AM
I think you've confused the personalities types of people who smoke weed, and the effects of weed.
We all known "rebel without causes" types in uni/college. They smoked weed because they saw it as an outlet for the rebellion (i.e. because it's illegal and there's a sort of pseudo-scientific, homoeopathic mysticism surrounding it); it didn't cause their rebelliousness. Maybe being in that stoner environment brought about some of that rebelliousness, but it definitely wasn't the drug itself.
Fascism just a form of extremism, so is communism; they're an attempt at forcing the production of an ideology's utopia by any means. If banning harmful substances is fascism, then banning guns or 8oz sodas is fascism. Unless you're a Libertarian, you're probably all right with at least the former.
In regards to your other comments (i.e. perma-fried), I was referring to drugs in general, especially harder drugs than weed. I obviously wasn't clear enough. I would be for banning alcohol and tobacco if they were new to society, so this isn't hypocrisy. I'm also for legalising cannabis/LCD, etc in a controlled medical professional setting, and studying them for their therapeutic effects.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 13 2015, @12:48AM
*LCD = LSD
I'm using an old CRT monitor at work, so...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 13 2015, @05:00PM
Communism is not extremism, its an economic model based on the public co-owning the means of production, nothing extreme about it. Every "extremist implementation of communism" was totalitarian state capitalism, not communism.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 13 2015, @08:08PM
To take it 1 step further, there is a reason that the words Communism and community look so much alike.
Re: Leninism, Stalinism, Maoism, Kimism (top-down systems)
Entities (especially authoritarian entities) can call themselves whatever they choose.
It doesn't make that label ("Communism") true.
As an example, the USA calls itself a Democracy--meanwhile, 80 percent of its people (a supermajoriy by any count) want universal single-payer healthcare (Medicare for all) and can't get that.
Clearly, the USA is not a Democracy but is instead a plutocracy/oligarchy.
Now, want to see -actual- Communism?
Go to the autonomous region of Andalusia in Spain and take a look at the village of Marinaleda. [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [jacobinmag.com]
Everyone there has affordable housing and a good-paying job[1].
In addition, the community abolished its police department because there was no need for it.
[1] In the meantime, the Capitalist parts of Spain have 27 percent unemployment--50 percent for young people.
-- gewg_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 14 2015, @02:54PM
If they use money, that doesn't sound much like communism.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 14 2015, @07:07PM
Your concept of a cashless society was the final stage that Marx described, where everyone's needs would be filled from the extensive commons (assets which under Capitalism tend to become controlled by fewer and fewer individuals and are used to exploit the workers).
The cult of personality in Marinaleda isn't all that Marxist either.
Again, the purity of the system isn't perfection yet, but it works well for the people there.
So, the people there have a comfortable, civilized life unlike the exploited, often desperate masses of the rest of Capitalist Spain.
So, what happens when the money-based system doesn't meet the needs of the people?
Such an incident is described on this page. [spookmagazine.com]
Look for the word "supermarket".
From each according to his abilities; to each according to his needs.
.
Keep an eye on Madrid and Barcelona as well.
They recently elected Lefty anti-austerity mayors.
To those, add the Mondragon employee-owned cooperative in the Basque country, consisting of about 100,000 workers.
Spain is a very interesting experiment these days.
-- gewg_
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anal Pumpernickel on Saturday June 13 2015, @03:27AM
Paint this as fascism, or whatever you want
I'll paint you as an authoritarian scumbag who desires 'safety' more than allowing people to exercise their fundamental liberties; to me, you're no different or less cowardly from people who support mass surveillance because they're afraid of terrorists. Your priorities indicate you'd be better off in North Korea than in any country that claims to be free.
(Score: 1) by KGIII on Saturday June 13 2015, @04:11AM
I think you have been trolled. I am not sure that it is possible for a thinking person (and they must be to reach this site - it is not popular) to reach those conclusions with today's readily available information. I do not even think that the politicians who seek to enact prohibition legislation believe their own comments about this. I suspect, strongly, that they say those things because their goal is control.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 13 2015, @12:58PM
Sadly, no. Please read this book to understand why: Bob Altemeyer - The Authoritarians (free download)
Drugs that make you afraid or aggressive, such as alcohol in many cases, are useful: the political leaders in a police state are adept at channelling that fear and agression to their own means and ends. They are much more skilled in this type of manipulation than you'll ever understand. Not everyone is as smart as you!
Drugs that make you relaxed or contemplative, are dangerous: a population that wonders "is that policy really necessary? why can't our leaders chill out a bit?" is a danger to a fascist police state. Besides, who's going to do the fighting for the "right cause"?
There once was a Loesje poem (Loesje poems are usually 1-2 lines long and used to be posters made by an art collective in Arnhem) about war:
"What if it became war
and no-one wanted to go?"
Now THAT's a nightmare for fascists. Both leaders and their followers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 13 2015, @01:25PM
KGIII I misread your comment and will shut up now.
That'll teach me to stay off the chocolate..
(Score: 1) by KGIII on Sunday June 14 2015, @08:32AM
I was wondering why you were mostly agreeing with me but had started with the premise that I was incorrect. It is all good. I make mistakes - usually enough for the both of us. If it helps we can blame it on my writing style and the resulting lack of clarity.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 13 2015, @12:33PM
A population drug-idled and addicted is hardly a population able to take advantage of fundamental liberties. If you believe in some kind of Randian "freedom", I'm surprised you have gotten through life.
Wrt mass surveillance -- how does drug prohibition --ie policing dangerous substances-- equate with it? The government (especially the UK government) bans things all the time-- guns, media that offends people, types of alcohol, etc. I'd hazard a guess you're all right with banning at least one of those in practice.
And, wrt to the other guy saying "troll": are you that encapsulated in a bubble/hugbox, you can't imagine anyone legitimately has a differing point of view to you? I think all those gewg posts have given you a false impression of the world.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anal Pumpernickel on Saturday June 13 2015, @04:33PM
A population drug-idled and addicted is hardly a population able to take advantage of fundamental liberties.
That's their choice. It isn't your place to send government thugs to take away their liberties whilst claiming to be protecting their liberties.
And that's nonsense, anyway. Can drug addicts exercise freedom of speech? Yes. The freedom to control their own bodies? Yes. Privacy rights? Yes. There are no rights that drugs stop you from exercising, and even if there were, it's ultimately your choice whether or not you want to take advantage of them.
Wrt mass surveillance -- how does drug prohibition --ie policing dangerous substances-- equate with it?
It's the same mentality that safety is more important than freedom; that we should act like worthless cowards and surrender our liberties in order to be more 'safe'.
I'd hazard a guess you're all right with banning at least one of those in practice.
I'm not fine with banning any of those, because I'm not a freedom-hating authoritarian.