02.10.1997

Drugs campaign goes respectable

One of the great absurdities of our time is the ‘war against drugs’. This endless, but always futile battle is fought day and night by the establishment and the bourgeois state - whether it be on the streets by the police, or by silly hacks in newspapers. The more hopeless the ‘war’ becomes, the greater becomes the cry from some for a further escalation of hostilities.

This irrationality becomes immediately transparent if you confine your investigation just to one drug - namely, cannabis. We all know that millions take it, or at least have experimented with it to some degree or another, even if it is only to decide that they do not really like it - and prefer some other form of drug instead (ie, alcohol).

Cannabis accounts for more than 80% of police charges concerning drug offences (40,000 in 1991). Indeed, those receiving cautions for cannabis possession have risen from one percent of cases in 1981 to 45% in 1992 - a dramatic increase. It certainly comes as no surprise to discover (in a new study by the Schools’ Education Unit at Exeter University) that almost one in three 14 and 15-year olds have tried cannabis at least once. The study also showed that 70% of these youngsters said they knew at least one dealer.

Given the sheer scale of the ‘problem’ - as it is viewed by many - it is only to be expected that we sporadically hear calls for the decriminalisation, if not the full  legalisation, of cannabis. Also, many of those from the 60s generation’ are now in prominent positions - especially media journalists - and hardly regard themselves as ‘criminals’ or sad drug addicts. Sir Paul McCartney, Richard Branson and Anita Roddick OBE all puffed the evil weed in their youth, and look at them now - eminently respectable. The sheer ludicrousness of the present situation is becoming steadily more apparent.

One of these ex-hippies, if you can call her that, wrote on Sunday: “I rolled my first joint on a hot June day in Hyde Park. Summer of ’68. Just 17. Desperate to be a grown-up ... Oh, the illicit thrill of the banal vocabulary - a deal, a joint, a spliff”, and so on. But this was not the fond reminisces of just some nostalgic 60s child. These words were penned by Rosie Boycott, editor of the Independent on Sunday. 

More significantly, they were not just her own views. She was expressing the collective views of the paper. Boycott’s article was entitled, ‘Why we believe it is time to decriminalise cannabis’, and the front page boldly proclaimed, “The time is right to decriminalise cannabis”(September 28). The newspaper made great play of the fact that it was “supported by strong arguments from a leading policeman and a consultant psychiatrist” - not to mention a whole host of the ‘great and good’, including the three illustrious figures named above.

Of course, the immediate response is to ask, ‘When wasn’t the time right?’ Why should we have to wait for experts, celebrities and establishment figures to bless the decriminalisation campaign and give it an air of respectability?

However, it is still significant that a major mainstream bourgeois paper has nailed its ‘anti-drugs war’ colours so openly to the mast. Normally such opinions are restricted to individual, not editorial, viewpoints. But there is nothing elliptical or Delphic about the Independent on Sunday’s stance: “The paper’s campaign will continue until the law is changed and the possession of marijuana for personal use is no longer an offence.”

This is an extremely un-Blairite position to take, of course. It is also reported in the Independent on Sunday that Blair is ready to appoint his first “drugs tsar” - apparently, interviews for the post took place last Tuesday.

Jack Straw - another ex-long-hair and ex-communist sympathiser, according to M15 - has come in hard on drugs and all talk of decriminalisation, stating: “It would lead to a huge increase in consumption, make law enforcement much more difficult and would be a betrayal of the futures of many young people.” What foul words indeed. It is capitalism itself, and the alienation produced by it, which leads to the “betrayal” of youth - not cannabis. This from the man who wants to impose a curfew on young children and launched a crusade against ‘squeegee merchants’.

But we must not welcome with open arms Rosie Boycott, the ex-alcoholic, into the camp of rationality and progress because she thinks the ‘time is right’ to decriminalise cannabis. She is a very inconsistent champion. Part of her argument lies with the fact that decriminalising cannabis would ‘free’ police resources to deal with harder drugs. For her, that makes it all okay.

The communist approach is utterly different. We argue for the immediate legalisation of all drugs, ‘hard’ or ‘soft’. This is not because we want people to be bombed out of their heads all the time, but in order for drugs, and drug-taking, to be socialised and integrated into the functioning of society. This is the only way to have real drugs education and a sane approach to this question. Criminalising such an activity is barbaric and belongs to the Stone Age - along with capitalism.

We must reject the ‘great and good’ approach of the Independent on Sunday - which is a bit like appealing to ‘public opinion’ during a strike. Such allies can be fickle. While we welcome anyone who calls for the legalisation of drugs - Tariq Ali, Brian Eno, Marquess of Bath, Max Clifford, etc - this is a struggle that must be fought from below. We must win the argument politically in the workers’ movement and fight for working class hegemony over the drugs question, not leave it to wayward aristocrats, has-been rebels and popstars.

Paul Greenaway