Reefer madness

Nick Fredman

The NSW Labor premier, Morris Iemma, seems to be on a scapegoating rampage.

In recent times he has set up a police task force specifically designed to harass people from Middle Eastern backgrounds, made it easier for the state to seize the children of parents who are having difficulties, set up a new “riot” squad, and given the latter taser guns to electrocute anyone foolish enough to complain.

All these moves were apparently knee-jerk reactions to howls from the reactionary media, and from the increasingly rabid Liberal opposition leader Peter Debnam, to “solve” deep-seated social problems with the same old brute force and moral panic.

Iemma’s latest public enemy is a herb. On February 1 he announced massive new penalties for the hydroponic cultivation of cannabis — a $220,000 fine and/or five years’ jail for growing as few as five plants, and a $550,000 fine and/or 20 years’ jail for the cultivation of at least 200 plants. Iemma also called for a review of the current system of cautioning first-time, small possession offences.

Iemma claimed that there is new evidence showing cannabis exacerbates mental illness. Given the harshness of the new penalties, his evidence seems to be derived from the unintentionally hilarious 1930s film Reefer Madness, in which a few puffs of the demon weed turned innocent white youths into psychotic killers.

Iemma was probably referring to two recent medical journal articles that suggested that heavy cannabis use in teenage years by those already genetically predisposed to mental illness does increase the risk of psychosis. But the report on these studies in the January 28 Sydney Morning Herald noted, “The absolute risk of cannabis users developing schizophrenia was low, at about 2 per cent [it’s around 1% for the general population], and the added risk from smoking marijuana was small compared with the risk of contracting lung cancer from smoking cigarettes”.

One could add that no-one would be very surprised by a study finding that heavy drinking by teenagers exacerbated a whole range of physical, mental and social problems, nor would anyone be likely to call for the total prohibition of alcohol because of such a study.

Hydroponic cultivation of cannabis does sometimes result in a more potent and impure product. But conditions of illegality often encourage more dangerous methods of production and abusive patterns of consumption of a drug.

Under US alcohol prohibition in the 1920s, production and consumption switched from wine and beer to powerful moonshine. Heroin is not particularly harmful in and of itself; however, cut with toxic material and available in uncertain doses, it can be deadly.

All human societies have used drugs. Generally, their use is safest when openly regulated by social norms, customs and rituals, and more dangerous when driven underground.

Alienation caused by capitalism also strongly contributes to the abuse of drugs. Neoliberal governments like Iemma’s have strongly exacerbated these problems, not least by cutting mental health services. The illegality of some drugs suits not only the fully criminal fraction of the capitalist class, but also numerous corrupt cops and officials, and the ruling class as a whole and their political agents, for whom moral panics are a handy diversion.

Unfortunately, the Australian Greens, at their national conference last November, dropped their principled position in favour of the legalisation of cannabis and the decriminalisation of other drugs.

A progressive approach to the drug question should not ignore the potential dangers of the abuse of different drugs, but it should be based on the democratic right of everyone to social well-being and decent health care, and for consenting adults to control their own bodies whenever no-one else is harmed.

The Socialist Alliance therefore stands for: legalisation and licensed sale of cannabis; decriminalisation of all other illegal drugs; freely available testing kits; funding for advice and education rather than wasting money on huge scare campaigns; a complete ban on tobacco and alcohol advertising; major resources to help addicts break their heroin addiction, including making pharmaceutical heroin freely available on prescription to registered addicts, and expansion of free detox, rehabilitation and counselling services staffed by trained drugs workers; a radical social program to tackle the roots of drug abuse including a huge expansion of cultural and sporting facilities at the community level; and for drug workers, addicts, ex-addicts and users to work with communities and schools in providing effective drug education.

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