I was delighted to find, in the Public Library, a slim volume with the title Legalising Drugs, published in California. It turned out to be a collection of essays, about half urging legalisation and the rest arguing
against it. Pretty grown-up stuff, I thought, particularly now that the Library is filling its shelves with books in large print for people who can scarcely read, and books by Mills and Boon and their colleagues for people who can
scarcely think. Well, maybe I'm being too harsh. The Library should certainly be encouraging people to read. To read anything is better than to read nothing. Perhaps Mills and Boon in large print will change a few non-readers
into readers. I hope so but doubt it.
Anyway, no non-readers will be recruited by Legalising Drugs.
It is far from compulsive reading. What it does show very plainly is two facets of the American public character. One is American modesty - they are happy that half a loaf is better than no bread. The other is their arrogance - their own country is so big and so normal that other countries scarcely matter. Not even if they have coped with their own drug problem. Half of the book shows how nice and kind Americans are. The other half suggests a possible emerging moral toughness, so rare in California. Let me explain.
Supposing America legalises drugs, it seems obvious that drug use will increase, at least for a few years, especially if no extra efforts are made with the aim of treating drug addicts. Both sides of the discussion assume that
major efforts at treating these idiots will be continued and increased.
Little credit is given to the obvious fact that fashion and adolescent rebellion are the major recruiters of druggies, as in the sixties among adults and
near-adults, and nowadays among schoolchildren. You need only look at the remarkable change in cigarette-smoking. Thirty years ago it was men who smoked. Now it is mostly women. Only the length of skirts is more arbitrary. And
whatever length your skirt may be it will never give you cancer.
Another interesting and relevant change has been the current reduction in the consumption of alcohol, at least among richer people, a reduction which seems to be
spreading into poorer communities. Why? Partly, I think, because it is distinctly unpopular to drive when drunk, but also because to be obviously drunk (except in Russia) is generally, nowadays, despised.
I am told that in
academic circles in the US many people at parties don't drink alcohol at all, while those who do drink drink so much that they seem to intend getting drunk. Is this true? The tradition in which I was educated was definitely that a
gentleman should be able to hold his drink, and never drink so much that he appeared to be drunk. A civilised approach, and easier to achieve in recent years when wine is so much more commonly provided.
So I suggest that fashion
is the main driving force in the use of tobacco, alcohol and drugs. And what may be the main deterrent? I suggest it should be the loss of your driving licence, a penalty not even mentioned in Legalising Drugs. To be
unable to drive in the US is almost to be dead, and even in Barbados it is a dreadful penalty, which costs the community nothing at all. Any schoolchild who gets into trouble with the law about drugs should automatically be
prohibited (perhaps for ten years) from applying for a licence. That would teach them something. And maybe change the fashion.
What lessons should we, in Barbados, learrn about drugs. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't see much
evidence of a bad problem here with hard drugs. With marijuana, yes, of course, and especially with its use as a religious mood stimulant. But, on the whole, accepting pot-pixillated holy fools, otherwise known as rastafarians, is
preferable to punishing them. But then should we punish, as we do, tourists found with a couple of spliffs, caught when walking away from a known pot dealer? Of course, if a policeman arrests a known pot dealer the
policeman's wife and family may be endangered, while arresting a tourist carries no penalty for the cop.
But we in the West Indies should do all we can to keep drugs illegal. In St. Vincent a recent estimate suggested that they
may gain 10 million dollars a month from the drug trade, and in Barbados we probably gain four times as much. Do we want to lose all that lovely loot? Long live illegal drugs!
But if those kind Americans really want to abolish
their drug scene why don't they ask Singapore how they managed to do it?
Let me give you a hint. It involved hanging people .
