Liberal Vision

Lib Dems lead on drug policy but need to be more radical

At their party conference last month, the Liberal Democrats emphatically supported a motion to decriminalise the use of all drugs. Once again the Lib Dems have shown that they are light years ahead of both Labour and the Conservatives when it comes to pursuing a sensible drugs policy. This will be music to the ears of any classical liberal and it has also received the support of the UK drugs Policy Commission. Their chief executive, Roger Howard, has pointed out that empirically, decriminalisation does not lead to increased drug use. In Portugal, a country that decriminalised the personal possession of all drugs in 2001, usage rates have actually fallen. The Portuguese model has also had a positive impact on public health, with a decrease in overdoses and a drop in rates of HIV and Hepatitis C.

The Liberal Democrat motion, called ‘Protecting Individuals and Communities from Drug Harms’ is also consistent with what the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) have been saying for years. Just last week they once again argued that it would be better to treat drug use as a health issue rather than a criminal one – this is even after Professor Nutt was sacked from the council and many other members resigned. No wonder the Tories are so keen to limit the number of scientists on the council.

Unsurprisingly, the Home Office has quickly rejected the wisdom of their own advisory council. Their response was that they have “no intention of liberalising our drug laws. Drugs are illegal because they are harmful – they destroy lives and cause untold misery to families and communities.” They say this as if those who advocate decriminalisation don’t realise that drugs are harmful. We all know people get addicted to drugs: I’ve seen it myself. We also know drugs can kill: I’ve seen that for myself too. But prohibition often causes more harm than the drugs themselves. Supplied by criminals on the black market, drugs are usually adulterated, making overdoses far more likely as users can’t accurately gauge how much they are taking.

Besides the Home Office refusing to accept the overwhelming evidence that reform is needed, there are other reasons that we shouldn’t get too excited about this motion passing. It still remains to be seen whether this is a cause that leading Liberal Democrats will support or even be willing to discuss openly.

Even if they did, there are problems with the motion itself. First of all, it merely seeks to establish an independent panel that will consider decriminalisation as an option. They would also consider the option of forcing those who are caught with drugs to go through education, health and social interventions. Now, this would undoubtedly be a step up from throwing people into jail and giving them a criminal record for using drugs, but it still doesn’t sit well with me as a libertarian. The implication remains that taking drugs is wrong and that the state knows best and should intervene. Most people who take drugs do so responsibly and in moderation; they just never make it on the news. I’m sure this silent majority of drug users wouldn’t appreciate being forced to undergo various ‘interventions’ to ‘correct’ their behaviour.

Another flaw with this plan is that decriminalisation does nothing to address the problems on the supply side of the drug war. Admittedly the motion does support heroin maintenance clinics, but the sad reality is that those who are addicted to heroin will often want to supplement this with heroin bought from drug dealers. The supply of non-addictive drugs such as LSD, magic mushrooms or MDMA isn’t discussed: would these, too, still have to be bought from drug dealers? If this is the case, drugs will still be sold on the black market, giving profits to drug cartels that engage in violent activity and extortion. The drugs produced and distributed by these criminals would still be adulterated and would still cause unnecessary deaths. Only the full legalisation of drugs would eliminate all of the problems associated with prohibition and this is what the Liberal Democrats should advocate.

Ben Lodge is an intern at the Transform Drug Policy Foundation. He recently graduated from the University of Exeter and spent the summer in Washington DC interning at the Drug Policy Alliance.

Occupy The Street

It Is Not ‘Mission Accomplished’ In Libya

We can all rejoice that the Arab world has lost another brutal tyrant despite the grizzly manner of his downfall. But only the most politically jejune would say ‘freedom’ has arrived in Libya.  

Drawing on his experiences in Bosnia, Lord Ashdown has stated that the rule of law is the most important factor for building the peace in Libya:

“The establishment of the rule of law – perhaps even martial law at first – which then develops over time into a reliable legal, judicial and prosecutorial structure based on the cultural norms of the country, is the essential framework for the security people need and for economic activity.”

And as he says, “elections can wait.”

There is far more to democracy than the mere act of placing a cross in a box. Unbelievably for a tribal country that has no history for democracy, Mahmoud Jibril believes Libyans should be able to vote within eight months.

A sustainable democratic future not only requires the rule of law but a sizeable propertied middle class, a free press, political pluralism, an open market economy and a flourishing civil society. That will take decades to come to fruition. Libya won’t be transformed into the Norway of North Africa anytime soon.

It’s hardly ‘Mission Accomplished’ in Libya.

A Liberal Tolerant Nation?

For much of my life I have had frequent cause to feel proud to be part of a nation with a liberal tradition, famed for its ability to compromise and with a long history of standing against tyranny and oppression. The 2006 Health Act has helped to shatter my illusions. Not because I feel that it is wrong to protect people from breathing unwanted smoke but because the legislation goes far beyond what might reasonably be considered necessary and in effect turns millions of people into second class citizens.

If we temporarily ignore the debate over the health impact of passive smoking and accept that even if that case is not proven it is still reasonable in a civilised society for the majority who don’t smoke not to be subjected to detrimental effect from the minority who do, then it is possible to justify legislation and perhaps, by using the broadest definition of “harm”, to claim that such legislation is consistent with liberal values.

However, in a civilised society that claims to value liberty and democracy, legislation to protect the majority might also be reasonably expected to do so without unnecessary detrimental impact on the minority, especially when the minority is otherwise behaving within the law.

Travelling around Europe, I have noticed the ingenious solutions that many countries have adopted in order to provide smoke free environments for the majority whilst accommodating the sizeable minority who choose to smoke. This is especially noticeable in public spaces such as airports where technology has provided one answer. Indoor smoking facilities are provided at many European airports and as a non-smoker I can attest to their effectiveness. Only those who preach the anti-science doctrine of “no safe minimum exposure” could possibly argue against this approach on health grounds.

The contrast with the UK is striking. Most airports do not offer any smoking facilities airside and when facilities do exist, they take the form of a draughty open air cage.

I believe that the solutions arrived at by our more enlightened and more liberal neighbours are aligned with the majority viewpoint and are compatible with the British traditions of tolerance and fairness. They are not possible in the UK however because the 2006 Health Act intentionally goes beyond what is reasonably necessary to protect non-smokers. Apologists for this illiberal piece of legislation effectively penned by pressure groups and enacted at the expense of a broken manifesto pledge, refuse to consider provision for those who smoke even when this can evidently be achieved without significant impact on those who prefer not to be exposed to second hand smoke. This is hardly surprising as they also appear to advocate state bullying, intimidation and coercion on the basis that, in the case of public health statistics, “the end justifies the means”.

We might expect the social engineers of the far left or right to make that argument, but parliamentarians who support this legislation in its current form while claiming to espouse liberal values should hang their heads in shame. I just feel shame for my country.

Written by Chris Oakely. All photographs are the authors own.

 

Tags: 2006 Health Act, liberalism, public places, smoking

The Stupid 100%

99% are angry. Well, actually, we don’t know how they feel but a minuscule percentage of them are giving up their weekends to vent what they claim is the anger of the rest of us. They’re angry about greed – the greed of the bankers and the policy makers they are blaming for this long economic storm. The last time the global economy seemed so dire, it was the greed of the investors and manufacturers that was blamed for it all. So what are the protesters trying to say? 1% of us are greedy and the other 99% aren’t? After all, if self-interest is such a destructive thing, how else could civilisation have taken off?

This greed of the few idea seems to be shared by Ed Miliband, who recently used his conference speech to set out a new economic doctrine that will appeal to his innately anti-business supporters while accounting for the clear fact that capitalism has served most of us pretty damn well. Ed intends the new dichotomy in the Labour narrative to be the merits of (benevolent) ‘producers’ against (greedy) ‘predators’ in business practice:

Predators are just interested in the fast buck, taking what they can out of the business. … It’s about different ways of doing business, ways that the rules of our economy can favour or discourage.

This is far more momentous than his detractors are currently giving him credit for as, with such language, the Ed formerly known as ‘Red’ has hit upon language that encapsulates the zeitgeist of the economic crisis; his parlance expresses the popular understanding of business – popular in that it is emotive, widely-held and, regrettably, almost entirely without substance.

I recently attended a talk where Dr Eamonn Butler of the Adam Smith Institute very succinctly expressed the antithesis to this: that trade in a capitalist system is entered into voluntarily, and neither party would enter into an exchange unless it is of benefit to them both. As an example, he gave an anecdote of overcoming linguistic and cultural barriers to get his trousers repaired in a Chinese market. Perhaps he paid above normal price for the exchange or the seamstress could have asked for more, yet “my trousers were repaired,” he explained, “and she got paid for her time.” Where then is there room for destructive self-interest in a free market system?

The problem is that we all enter into transactions we come to regret. We have always experienced hotels less grand than first they appear or the cowboy builders whose services we realise all too late should never have been engaged. Having lived myself in China, I can recount numerous situations where a service or product I purchased turn out to be of substandard quality, with little available recourse in a country where stifling bureaucracy does not extend to consumer rights.

And how did I respond? I learned to rely upon recommendations and previous experiences, or I purchased goods online from reputable Western companies. As time went on, I learned from my mistakes. And oddly enough, those companies I turned to were richer than those who had exploited my naivety.

It is not selflessness that achieves long term success but mutual self-interest; nor is it predatory capitalism that causes economic woes but what I would coin stupid capitalism. All around us are the foolish traders: from the idiots in the financial world whose belief they could profit from bad debt saw their wealth and reputation wiped out, to the morons who lost their homes because they took out mortgages they could ill-afford; from the arrogant slum landlords, recently exposed by Channel Four, who thought they’d never get caught, to the tenants ignorant of tenancy law who never reported the criminal behaviour; from the drug user who buys talcum powder from a stranger in the street, to that same dealer who exposes himself to violence and arrest night after night and misses the repeat custom reputation brings with it.

The sad fact is that free exchange does not occur on the terms most favourable to both parties when either party has insufficient foreknowledge of the benefits and risks of the exchange. Often this takes the form of the consumer having false security over the quality of the goods they wish to buy. Very often it is likely that the trader does not realise that the goods are unsuitable or of unacceptable quality as, over the long-term, a poor reputation and legal challenges are likely to run their business to the ground.

In the above cases, government regulation has not only failed to prevent poor exchange, it has facilitated them, by creating black-markets for drugs, a shortage of truly affordable housing or a false sense of security in the financial world. Instead the solution is, naturally, a liberal one: informing choice.

Kite-marks, labelling and ratings are an excellent way of informing the consumer of the quality and negative externalities involved in a trade. From energy efficiency labels on fridges, to the units of alcohol in beer and the sell-by-dates on food, labelling serves to empower consumer decisions and rewards businesses who best fulfil our desires with higher sales. Wherever you are in the world, staying at a hostel branded by non-profit organisation Hostelling International usually avoids the danger of having your travel experience ruined by the slummy accommodation that proliferates the cheap end of the market; so too does Hostel Bookers, whose website allows you to read the ratings and comments of others before you book.

The information given by such media is not always perfect. Amazon’s seller-rating system, for example, allows users to rate only the efficient delivery of the trader and not the quality of the electronic goods many of them sell; while Sushil Mohan’s Fair Trade Without the Froth expose how the Fairtrade Foundation implements a subjective understanding of ‘fairness’, backed up with an expensive regime of demands on its members, which serves to benefit producers in developing countries at the possible expense of subsistence farmers in the Third World.

But whatever the details of its implementation, consumer knowledge is economic power. The narrative that free exchange is always and everywhere mutually beneficial is unlikely to win over many of the 99%. If we are to protect capitalism from popular punitive measures which only make matters worse, a new narrative is needed: it’s not a greedy 1% that must be combated, it’s the ignorance of the 100%.

David M Gibson is a classical liberal and a member of the Liberal Democrats. He is currently interning at Lib Dem HQ for the campaigns team. A collection of his writings can be found at davethedystopian.blogspot.com, as well as on the Freedom Association website.

Tags: Capitalism, protestors st pauls