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| Now cleared for recreation |
According to "US election: California voters approve marijuana for recreational use" (2016), a range of controversial proposition were approved by state voters "alongside the presidential election" that took place on Tuesday, November 8. These include not only the legalization of marijuana for fun by adults in California, but also a law change in Colorado so that its citizens can be given "medication that can be self-administered" to kill themselves if they are fatally sick. In contrast, the citizens of Nebraska approved a law change to restore their death penalty as legal punishment.
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My response
Whatever we might feel about the properly democratic election of Donald Trump as the next US president, I thought that these voter initiatives generally show healthy social and moral evolution. As the BBC's title suggests, they expect the rapid spread of the legalization of the popular drug marijuana to be the change that is most important, or at least the one that most of their readers are likely to think most important, or perhaps most radical. I think marijuana should have been legalized decades ago. In fact, I don't think that there was ever any good reason to make it illegal, and that such laws are contrary to good morals. Since making less harmful drugs such as marijuana, yaa baa and cocaine illegal while leaving the more socially harmful drug of addiction alcohol legal is obviously irrational, that must also bring the law into contempt among rational youth who see the hypocrisy, the dishonesty, of those making up such laws.
But I think the drug battle is becoming old news. How many people still hold the false belief that the sale and use of some popular drugs, but not others, should be criminalized to the harm of all? Well, there are two groups in society who benefit greatly from such laws: mafia scum and the corrupt state officials who work with the mafia to make massive profits by supplying the products that a lot of decent citizens demand.
I thought the move to allow people to kill themselves was more interesting. Again, it seems clear to me that a right to life must also include a right to end your own life. The small progress towards this in the state of Nebraska is again a healthy move in the right direction. Other nations, especially the Netherlands, have gone further in respecting their citizens decisions to die, but these radical changes are probably best done in small, incremental steps. A proposition to allow citizens to direct doctors to kill them on demand would be so radical that it's hard to imagine more than a very small number of votes in its favour. In fact, such a radical proposal would not get enough support to even get on the ballot of voting. As the gradual changes in US drug laws shows, slow and steady change is the pragmatic way to go.
Slow and steady has also worked well for the gay and lesbian community, with the US Supreme Court last year ruling to make same-sex marriage legal in every US state. That is an amazing change towards justice from the ugly situation that existed when I was in school.
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Reference
- US election: California voters approve marijuana for recreational use. (2016, November 10). BBC News. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-37917472
A comfortable 92 words in my summary paragraph. Well below the 135 word limit.
ReplyDeleteI was rather surprised, but pleasantly so, when I was having my afternoon snack (watermelon today) and doing some light news browsing, to see that one of the world's most prestigious academic journals in medicine, the British Medical Journal (BMJ), a couple of days ago published an editorial arguing strongly for the legalization of the sale and use of drugs for adults. "The war on drugs has failed: doctors should lead calls for drug policy reform" was published on November 14.
ReplyDeleteObviously I'm already persuaded, but what surprised me is that as well as the strong practical reasons for legalizing recreational drug use, the BMJ also points out that this is the ethical choice. That is, it says that all current laws that criminalise the sale and use of drugs by adults are morally wrong. Again, this is something that I've known for decades, and it is encouraging to see the awareness spreading so that seriously harmful unjust laws might soon be corrected as they should be everywhere, to the great benefit of society and morals.
I wonder will Trump do the right thing by following up California's example? Will Trump act at the federal level to change the US's long opposition to US citizens (and citizens of other nations!) using drugs for fun? If he does something so radically sensible and right, I might have to revise my opinion of him.
In the meantime, the BMJ's editorial goes very well with my afternoon drug hit - a large, strong black coffee to which I am seriously addicted.
The major problem with legalizing drugs is whether drug users could affect other people. For example, Will they become insane thanks to illusion created by the drugs, harming others surrounding them? If so, it might be safer to keep these drugs in check.
ReplyDeleteI'm quite agree with the idea that we have the right to commit a suicide. Actually there is no law stating that suicide is a crime. Well if you commit suicide within one year after insure your life, you won't get away with insurance claim. Other than this, you can do any thing with your life. Nonetheless, you don't have the right to have someone, including doctors, kill yourself for you. That person won't be free from committing murder. Despite legal issues, I personally agree that we should let the patient decide. Normally in this context, patients are a party who want to die. Conversely, relatives, who doesn't suffer from illness, are the people who want patient to stay.
I see that addictive substances have both advantages and disadvantages. When people take drugs in proper amount, drugs will help to enhance imagination, release stress, alleviate pains and improve blood circulation. In contrast, for people who abuse them, drugs will cause many huge problems such as health problems, financial problems, crimes, absenteeism and loss of national productivity. However, how do we know that we take addictive substances in proper amount? Some drugs can make you addicted to them in few amount. When the number of drugs addicted citizens is increasing, government may have to allocate more budgets in rehabilitation center, safety of its citizens. Unfortunately, those budgets come from citizens' tax! Consequently , I think it is better to promulgate laws illegalizing addictive substances.
ReplyDeleteDen's comment is really interesting; he show me other different perspective, and I agree most drug addicted will become insane because of illusion, and then cause harm to others. Nonetheless, I believe the main reason that government make drugs illegal is that rather than causing harm to other, drugs lead to financial problems. And financial problems contributes to crimes because the need of drug addicted persons are money, money and money to buy more drugs. As a result, the society will be rife with poor robbers, murderers and corruptions.
I agree that patients have right to end their lives, when they are about to die. If I were feel deadly suffered from pains or diseases and I know that I am going to die soon, I would choose to die.
Thank you Karn. It's good to see disagreement with the academic journal of doctors and other medical professionals. I'm hoping a classmate might come to the support of the medical professionals and others who oppose criminalizing personal behaviour that does not harm others without their agreement. I agree that drugs are harmful, especially alcohol - beer, wine, whisky, champagne and so on. It is alcohol, which is legal for adults, that causes the greatest social harm. So I'm guessing that Karn thinks beer, wine and the rest should be illegal, with the sellers and users of this addictive drug put into prison for years.
DeleteDo others agree?
I was hoping someone else might come to the defence of me and the British Medical Journal (BMJ).
DeleteKarn is surely right that people worry about more drugs being used by more people if they are legalized. This fear sounds reasonable, and it is also wrong. The available statistics, going back almost a century, to the prohibition of alcohol in the US, but including modern nations such as the Netherlands and Portugal, which decriminalized all (Yes, all) personal drug use more than ten years ago, show that drug use does not decrease when a drug is made illegal nor does it sharply increase when a drug is made legal again. We see the same thing with opium in China: use increased most after that drug was made illegal by the corrupt Chinese government.
What does increse when a drug is made illegal is corruption, mafia activity, and crime. Violent crime increases because competing mafia groups want to profit, while stealing and other drug related crime increases because government policy, the bad laws, makes the drugs more expensive, so people commit more crimes to pay for their drugs. In all ways, making a drug, any popular drug adults use for fun, illegal greatly increases the crime, corruption and other drug related harms.
I can see no good reason to support any law that so interferes with the personal actions of adults. There are only bad reasons - perhaps the drugs are illegal becasue the corrupt officials like the massive profits their mafia mates make? At least this explanation makes sense.