bit_pattern
Ex-Bluelighter
- Joined
- Oct 17, 2008
- Messages
- 8,127
Time to draw the line on cocaine
The issue is not the damage that users may do to themselves, but the effect their drug of choice has on developing countries
If cocaine was legal, I wouldn't mind how much of it you stuffed up your nose. It might turn you into an egocentric tosser, but that's your problem (and your partner's). Nor is it the drug's illegality that bothers me. There is no automatic equation of legality and morality. Plenty of legal activities are immoral (selling derivatives, shutting down post offices, presenting Top Gear) and plenty of illegal ones (sabotaging bomber planes, throwing green custard at Peter Mandelson) are highly moral.
We could argue about whether or not it should be legalised. As the World Health Organisation has shown, the occasional use of pure cocaine causes hardly any physical or social problems. But buying it cut with Ajax from the local pusher can get you into all sorts of trouble. The illegal use of cocaine hurts people in the UK not because it is cocaine but because it is illegal. As I showed in a recent column, there is just one respectable argument against global legalisation: it would open up markets in poorer nations that are less able to cope with the consequences of addiction.
But we are where we are, and right now people's enthusiasm for cocaine is a humanitarian and environmental disaster. The cocaine business as currently constituted is the most immoral trade on Earth. By participating in it, you directly commission murder, torture, displacement and deforestation. According to the Colombian government (not, admittedly, the most trustworthy source on such matters) every gram of cocaine you take destroys four square metres of rainforest. The trade gives that government the excuse to wage an unending war against the peasantry, which is also caught between rightwing paramilitaries and leftwing guerillas, both of which make their money from powder. You might think it's daring and subversive to snort a line or two, but the real risk is run by people thousands of miles from here. You can choose whether or not to participate. They can't.
So it is profoundly depressing to discover from the British Crime Survey that the use of cocaine has boomed here. Though overall drug use has fallen, the number of 16 to 59-year-olds taking cocaine in England and Wales in the past year has grown by 25% since last year (from 2.4% of the population to 3%). Since 1996 the proportion has risen five-fold. Almost all these people (97%) are snorting powder rather than taking crack.
It would be tempting to believe that most of these new users were damned anyway: bankers scorching their sorrows after stiffing the rest of us. But sadly that's not true. The biggest jump (29%) is among the group that professes to be most concerned about deforestation, slavery, war and all the other ills it is commissioning: 16 to 24-year-olds. Almost 7% of them are now taking cocaine. I don't know how they can afford it, but I know that the people of the Andes can't. Do as much damage to yourself as you please, but keep your nose out of other people's lives.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/jul/23/cocaine
The issue is not the damage that users may do to themselves, but the effect their drug of choice has on developing countries
If cocaine was legal, I wouldn't mind how much of it you stuffed up your nose. It might turn you into an egocentric tosser, but that's your problem (and your partner's). Nor is it the drug's illegality that bothers me. There is no automatic equation of legality and morality. Plenty of legal activities are immoral (selling derivatives, shutting down post offices, presenting Top Gear) and plenty of illegal ones (sabotaging bomber planes, throwing green custard at Peter Mandelson) are highly moral.
We could argue about whether or not it should be legalised. As the World Health Organisation has shown, the occasional use of pure cocaine causes hardly any physical or social problems. But buying it cut with Ajax from the local pusher can get you into all sorts of trouble. The illegal use of cocaine hurts people in the UK not because it is cocaine but because it is illegal. As I showed in a recent column, there is just one respectable argument against global legalisation: it would open up markets in poorer nations that are less able to cope with the consequences of addiction.
But we are where we are, and right now people's enthusiasm for cocaine is a humanitarian and environmental disaster. The cocaine business as currently constituted is the most immoral trade on Earth. By participating in it, you directly commission murder, torture, displacement and deforestation. According to the Colombian government (not, admittedly, the most trustworthy source on such matters) every gram of cocaine you take destroys four square metres of rainforest. The trade gives that government the excuse to wage an unending war against the peasantry, which is also caught between rightwing paramilitaries and leftwing guerillas, both of which make their money from powder. You might think it's daring and subversive to snort a line or two, but the real risk is run by people thousands of miles from here. You can choose whether or not to participate. They can't.
So it is profoundly depressing to discover from the British Crime Survey that the use of cocaine has boomed here. Though overall drug use has fallen, the number of 16 to 59-year-olds taking cocaine in England and Wales in the past year has grown by 25% since last year (from 2.4% of the population to 3%). Since 1996 the proportion has risen five-fold. Almost all these people (97%) are snorting powder rather than taking crack.
It would be tempting to believe that most of these new users were damned anyway: bankers scorching their sorrows after stiffing the rest of us. But sadly that's not true. The biggest jump (29%) is among the group that professes to be most concerned about deforestation, slavery, war and all the other ills it is commissioning: 16 to 24-year-olds. Almost 7% of them are now taking cocaine. I don't know how they can afford it, but I know that the people of the Andes can't. Do as much damage to yourself as you please, but keep your nose out of other people's lives.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/jul/23/cocaine
