Citing local Pakistani news reports, "Pakistan: Onion heroin smuggling plot uncovered" (2014) says that when troops in Pakistan, which has a serious heroin problem, raided a home that observation suggested was used for drug trafficking, they discovered a gang who concealed heroin inside onions, which they hoped would "prevent sniffer dogs from detecting the drugs" (para. 3).
With one million heroin users, I would agree that Pakistan has a serious drug problem, just as Thailand has a serious yaa baa problem, as the US has a serious cocaine problem, and so on. Many countries today have serious drug problems, which they appear not to have had one hundred years and more ago. But what the onion story, which I read because the title sounded funny, tells us is that Pakistan's laws against the sale and use of heroin are a failure, just as Thailand's laws against the sale and use of yaa baa are a failure, just as the US's laws against cocaine are a failure, and so on. There is clearly very strong demand in Pakistan for this product, so naturally, people want to supply the demand and make a profit. This is basic market economics. Using onions for shipping shows great creativity on the part of the suppliers of a product that many adults freely choose to purchase.If laws against drug use were only failures, it might not be so bad, but they are extremely expensive failures: it costs a lot of money to pay all those police, and troops and judges and prison officers and so on to keep failing year after year. But it's even worse: when laws criminalize things that many (most?) people think are personal decisions and not wrong, those laws encourage corruption. For example, gamblers don't think they are doing anything wrong or harmful to other people, so they offer police bribes, and the police accept the bribes because they also don't believe in the law. The result is corruption and disrespect for the law generally. And because their drug use is illegal, it's harder for users to get medical and other help, which makes the health problems worse. Also, being illegal makes the price much higher, so addicts commit more crime to get the drugs: the laws against drugs make every problem much worse for society and for drug users!
Could it get any worse? Yes. There is no sound moral argument that applies to drugs such as yaa baa, heroin and marijuana that is not at least as strong for drugs like alcohol (Singha beer, champagne, red wine, and so on), cigarettes and ... even other unhealthy substances like sugar and fat. Even if the drug laws were not total failures, they would still be hypocritical (discriminating for no good reason) and unjust.
Perhaps there were far fewer drug problems more than a century ago because there were no laws interfering in the personal affairs of citizens? Maybe it's the laws against drugs that are the real cause of most of the drug problems in societies today.
__________
Reference
Peter F AUA. (2014, March 5). Less tax, more prison [Blog post]. Retrieved from Class Blog - AEP at AUA website : http://peteraep.blogspot.com/2014/03/less-tax-more-prison.html
I'm happier with the length of this summary.
ReplyDelete