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Sun, Jun. 15th, 2008, 02:11 pm
Tories to crack down on anything enjoyable
That David Cameron, eh? Changing the Tories into a nicy, cuddly bunch of socially-liberal types who are happy to live and let live when it comes to peoples' lifestyle. Oh wait, looks like they're back to their old authoritarian hang-em-and-flog-em ways, because the Tories have decided they want to ban khat. Apparently it has health risks and is causing problems in the Somaali community because unemployed Somali guys sit around chewing khat all day. Of course, they don't want to ban alcohol, tobacco or caffeine, which also have health risks and also can wind up being used excessively by people when they're unemployed. Just khat, which will become another banned substance like cannabis, because cannabis became so difficult to get hold of since it became illegal, didn't it? Just what is this supposed to achieve, other than criminalising large numbers of Somalis? Still, working on the principle that anything the Tories want to ban must be good, perhaps I should get myself some khat.
Sun, Jun. 15th, 2008 03:39 pm (UTC)
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) mrscruff
Bit more complicated than that really, it is virtually an amphetamine & has been banned by many countries for decades. The World Health Commission does recognise it as a harmful drug (insomnia, addiction, liver damage, tiredness, hallucinations, other shit) but allows regional governments to make their own decision. Can't say I've ever come across the stuff, although if they do get around to ban it I'll probably try it 24 hours before it becomes illegal. Sun, Jun. 15th, 2008 05:15 pm (UTC)
spiritof1976
Apparently they sell it in the newsagents in Butetown. Just look for something in the fridges that's wrapped in a leaf. I'm not suggesting it doesn't have harmful effects. Just that banning it would be a complete waste of time, just as banning cannabis, ecstasy - any drug, in fact - was a complete waste of time. Sun, Jun. 15th, 2008 05:53 pm (UTC)
mrscruff
From what I can tell, the deep issue here is that Somali's have a far higher unemployment rate. Partially because a lot of them are cracked out on this stuff (something like 60% of Somalis take this stuff regularly out there) I'm a bit on the fence with the whole drugs legalisation issue, I can't bring myself to condone having them on sale at the newsagents next to cigarettes, but then I don't like to see kids get a criminal record for doing something that is ultimately not harming anyone else. I somewhat feel going to jail & getting a criminal record is a lot more life-destroying than the drugs themselves. BUT ANYWAY. This is probably going to turn into a racial-concern problem which the Daily Mail will wind up, and I wouldn't be surprised if we just ended up with the Australian solution which was to license it to registered users who can claim up to 5kg a year. Sun, Jun. 15th, 2008 06:46 pm (UTC)
spiritof1976
Personally I'm pro-legalisation, though not to the extent of having crack cocaine on sale next to the Rice Krispies. I'm favour of, say, heroin, being legal but only on prescription to people who are already addicted. Some degree of regulation of khat usage strikes me as being a lot more practical than banning it outright. That model you mention of licensing it to registered users sounds like a fairly sensible way of going about it. Sun, Jun. 15th, 2008 09:37 pm (UTC)
zagreb2
The problem with the drugs issue is that, like terrorism, like crime, like Iraq and countless other issues, people like to pretend it's a simple problem with simple solutions and ignore that it's incredibly fvcking complex. You make drugs legal and you make them easier to obtain and increase the numbers of people who suffer the ill-effects; you make them illegal and you, by default, create and increase in crime and a boon for gangsterism. There's no "good" solution, only a way of making one policy work in a way that's least harmful. Like it or not, the current political concensus is that banning the less-popular drugs is the best solution. Personally, I suspect that the reason "declassification" of Cannabis was an experiment by the government to see how the British public and media would react to a liberalising move; the fact is the government got cold feet over the media criticism (Labour are extremely nervous about upsetting the tabloid press in particular) and reversed their policy. And that was a minor reclassification over the least controversial drug. Taking that into account we can forget any serious re-examination of the drug laws in possibly the next two decades or even fifty years; society as a whole simply isn't ready. Sun, Jun. 15th, 2008 04:32 pm (UTC)
_illumina_
Interesting that the article does actually say that it's members of the Somali community asking for it to be banned though. True, banning most drugs does nothing to stop people using it, it just makes it more expensive and forces people in to crime... but that's not necessarily a good reason to allow it to remain legal. Sun, Jun. 15th, 2008 05:08 pm (UTC)
spiritof1976
Technically that article doesn't say that members of the Somali community asked for it to be banned. It just says they're reporting social problems from it. Trouble is, you could say the same thing about alcohol in a lot of other socially-deprived communities, but nobody's suggesting bottles of White Lightning should be banned. True, banning most drugs does nothing to stop people using it, it just makes it more expensive and forces people in to crime... but that's not necessarily a good reason to allow it to remain legal.Erm...isn't that actually an excellent reason to allow it to remain legal? Sun, Jun. 15th, 2008 05:36 pm (UTC)
st_rev
Erm...isn't that actually an excellent reason to allow it to remain legal?Seconded. Sun, Jun. 15th, 2008 05:03 pm (UTC)
evillottie
Banning khat is not going to work, if weed, pills and guns are anything to go by. It will go underground. Sun, Jun. 15th, 2008 05:34 pm (UTC)
st_rev
Tobacco and caffeine get a pass because they make people better workers. Tobacco's status is changing just because the long-term health costs are perceived to be edging out the productivity increase. Alcohol gets a pass because YOU FUCKERS THINK YOU'RE TOUGH YOU WANNA START SOMETHING COME ON I'LL BREAK YOUR FUCKING FACE. Either that or it's because you can't have Christianity without wine. Sun, Jun. 15th, 2008 09:31 pm (UTC)
zagreb2
I don't agree. Those three drugs are legal largely for historical/cultural reasons rather than the net "benefit" they have on productivity or whatever. Alcohol and tobacco are constantly brought-up when discussing the drugs issue because they're classic examples of substances that would be banned if the logic applied to illegal drugs were extended across the board without prejudice. Caffeine tends to get left off the list because it's widely considered "harmless" (actually it isn't, no drug is; personally I avoid the stuff because it makes me ill). Sun, Jun. 15th, 2008 10:05 pm (UTC)
st_rev
Tobacco and coca are both New World crops and were introduced to Europe after the 1500s. Alcohol, opium and hemp all have thousands of years of cultural history and context in Europe and Asia. In the late 1800s, all were legal. I really don't follow you on the "historical/cultural" claim here. Sun, Jun. 15th, 2008 10:20 pm (UTC)
zagreb2
Well, I shouldn't really need to explain the cultural/historical aspect with alcohol. If it turned up tomorrow there's no way in hell any government would approve it for sale to anyone over 18 but otherwise unrestricted. It's become part of our "culture" which innoculates it against any sort of prohibition. Tobacco is the same. It arrived in the 1500s but it quickly spread to become widely popular in all parts of society. This is why, even though it's widely-regarded as extremely-harmful, it's never going to be banned. Government *wants* to ban it, there's been desperate attempts to turn the tide, but it's like trying to empty a lake with a bucket. Caffeine, again, became popular amongst all social classes and moved from the coffee houses to the home. It's part of our "culture" again. It's also relatively harmless so there's no serious movement against it and never has been. Hemp and opium on the other hand, they never penetrated society that widely. Opium was restricted to opium dens and even whilst it was legal it was something its users had to hide from their families. Making it illegal wasn't really that difficult - it had never gone far above ground. It's been argued by revisionist historians (I seem to recall anyway) that cannabis became widely-used in some "secret history" but I've never seen serious evidence that it was being regularly smoked in homes in the way coffee or alcohol was drunk. It strikes me as more likely the situation used to be then as it is now - it was used by a sizable minority but didn't become widely "accepted". If it did then I doubt it would have been possible (or politically desirable) to make it illegal. As a side note there have been two serious, widespread movements against popular legal drugs that have failed to make it illegal. The first was the "temperance movement" in the early 20th century which was an attempt to deal with widespread alcoholism (and which was ultimately probably responsible for the USA's ill-fated experiment in alcohol prohibition), the second is the current charge against tobacco smoking. Despite serious, determined attempts to "stamp out" these vices they haven't worked and won't work because they are simply too widespread. It's for this reason I doubt that hemp and other now-illegal drugs were similarly ever as widespread. Sun, Jun. 15th, 2008 06:54 pm (UTC)
ilikecavein
Most of the Somali community in Bristol happen to live within our catchment area. Almost half of our current service users are Somali men who've chewed far too much khat and made themselves acutely psychotic, but it's hard to make long term plans for their care as khat is readily available in any number of local shops. The "Just Say No" approach doesn't tend to work either. Hard one to crack really, doubt banning it will make a difference, would be just as easy to get hold of. Shrug. Sun, Jun. 15th, 2008 07:01 pm (UTC)
spiritof1976
Perhaps a regulated approach? mrscruff was mentioning in the comments above that Australian has a licensing system where registered users can acquire a limited amount. Edited at 2008-06-15 07:01 pm (UTC) Sun, Jun. 15th, 2008 08:47 pm (UTC)
actionreplay
well, you know what I and most of the rest of Scotland think of the Tories :). They need to have recourse to endangered species legislation up here. |
