Although I tend to think that this sort of thing should be passed by Parliament rather than imposed by executive (or judicial) fiat, I am delighted that methoxetamine has been outlawed, and I fail to see why that ban should be for only 12 months in the first instance.
Apparently, this substance is "used as an alternative to ketamine". An alternative to what end? The tranquillisation of horses?
We need a single class of illegal drug, with a crackdown on the possession of drugs, including a mandatory sentence of three months for a second offence, six months for a third offence, one year for a fourth offence, and so on. Within a context in which each offence carries a minimum sentence of one third of its maximum sentence, or of 15 years for life.
But you can't have any anti-drugs laws in a "free" market. That is why we must not have one. Enacting and enforcing laws against drugs, prostitution and pornography, and regulating alcohol, tobacco and gambling, are clear examples of State intervention in and regulation of the economy. Thank God.
Prohibition isn't working. Prohibition is also immoral. My body my choice.
ReplyDeleteWhy? Why? Why?
ReplyDeleteWhy not? Look for reasons to make something illegal rather than to make it legal. Let the state tax & regulate them for adults as they do alcohol & tobacco.
ReplyDeleteOnly because it's too late culturally to ban them. That is not true of anything that it currently illegal, although the users of cannabis and cocaine, in particular, are scandalously in a position to present those habits as normal. They are not.
ReplyDeleteI thought you stood with working people? You deny them their freedom & set the police & the prison-industrial complex on them. You set up a lucrative, tax-free source of revenue for lads with limited prospects & then laugh at the chaos that these lads cause on the council estates. Prohibitionists are a toxic alliance of middle-class curtain twitchers & rent-seeking big business.
ReplyDeleteDrug prohibition is as utopian as smoking bans & liberal interventionism. Chuck it in the bin.
I stand with and for the people who have to live around these things, and I stand for full, legitimate employment and for our historic civil liberties, with proper punishments for those who, having thus been given every opportunity, nevertheless choose to trangress.
ReplyDeleteWhy are they transgressing? Let adults get stoned as they wish. Why don't you just live & let live. Let the good people have their consumer protection. Let drug use be a source of tax revenue not a cost. Stop thinking that sending people to prison for enjoying a smoke is decent.
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