Alcohol v other drugs - the insanity of NZ's drug laws.
Warning: content will disturb political conservatives, the religious and the terminally stupid.
August 2014
Is there anything more insane than New Zealand's drug laws? (Admittedly, it's not just New Zealand)
I am bringing the subject up again thanks to this piece in today's Herald, pointing out not just how easy it is to get a liquor licence in an already-saturated area, but even worse, how hard it is to stop someone getting one.
These elected officials of the local board are shelling out their own money to try to fight the liquor application, and it seems certain they will fail anyway.
Booze is ubiquitous. In the space of 100 years we have moved from voting for complete prohibition of alcohol through the absurdity of six o'clock closing to today, when alcohol can be bought at dairies, supermarkets and any one of hundreds of liquor stores if you want the hard stuff.
Yet, alcohol is far and away the most dangerous drug known to mankind. Don't believe it? Then read some facts on the subject. Yes, that is only one study, but it is sound and has yet to be challenged. It is accepted internationally as the benchmark for harms caused by drugs, both legal and illegal.
I have long ago mentioned the fact that psilocybin (the active ingredient of magic mushrooms) and LSD have both shown extreme promise in treating depression and other mental illnesses, and it is highly likely that they will become established as medicinal drugs in the near future.
Note that LSD and psilocybin are illegal, yet both feature as the least and 3rd-least harmful drugs, while alcohol reigns supreme, even above heroin and crystal methamphetamine, known as "P".
And not just illegal: have a look at New Zealand's Misuse of Drugs Act and the punishments contained for being caught selling those drugs, noting that all charges relating to psilocybin and LSD hold identical penalties to those for heroin and P.
It is known that some people are sourcing psilocybin to help with their depression. Given the illegality of such a move, it's likely that those people have someone helping them obtain the drugs - this is not stuff you can get at the local tinny house. Now just imagine one of those helpers being caught and charged with possession of psilocybin for supply. For doing a humanitarian act to help a friend, that person would be facing potential life in prison.
Note that the website linked above states that drugs penalties for drug crimes are classified on the basis of "level of risk of harm they pose to people misusing them". Yet we can prove beyond any doubt by looking at countless thousands of records that psilocybin has only ever caused a handful of deaths - and most of those are disputed - while alcohol and tobacco kill just a few people annually.
The law is simply a lie - the penalties for drugs have nothing whatsoever to do with the harms they cause. If that were the case, alcohol would be Class A and psilocybin legal.
Alcohol has the glorious of benefit of being the drug for everyone. Not everyone will enjoy the hallucinations and intensely strange trips of acid or 'shrooms, and not everyone will appreciate the mind-widening properties and euphoria of dope, but more or less everyone will enjoy getting mildly wasted on alcohol. It is the great loosener - of tongues, panties and inhibitions - booze is the party drug. Try having a party where everyone is spiked on acid; you won't have much of a party as people retract into their trips. On the other hand, booze guarantees intercourse - both of the verbal and physical kinds.
The argument that relaxing drug laws would increase drug usage is a nonsense, as is the argument that legalising dope causes more crime. Note the Colorado study which shows that the decrease in crime hasn't been accompanied by an increase in crime.
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Copyright © Alan Charman