Drugs revisited nature will not be denied.
Those who have read the series about why drugs should be legalised will be in no doubt as to my views (against drugs, but in favour of legalisation for a whole host of practical reasons). I had not intended to return to this topic, but a recent breakthrough on a Caribbean island, Carriacou, means that this must be revisited.
The breakthrough was made by Quetta Kaye (University College London) and Scott Fitzpatrick (North Carolina State University). They found ancient equipment used to prepare hallucinogenic drugs for sniffing. This included ceramic bowls for mixing and tubes for inhaling. The equipment seems to have come from South America at some stage between 100 and 400 years before Christ, and then to have been transported to the Caribbean. Archaeologists believe that humans were using mind altering drugs as long as 5000 years ago although the proof is not yet been found.
Even setting aside the irony of some form of drug trafficking from South America to the Caribbean occurring in ancient times, it is plain (as with alcohol) that there is a deep and long tradition of use of mind altering drugs. It may well be that the first use of the drugs was to do with religious ceremonies (putting people into states where they were supposedly able to see or report back from another world: the ancient equivalent of someone on an LSD trip reporting back the hallucinations as if they were a religious experience). This does not alter the deep-seated and longstanding use of drugs in one form or another as part of the human condition.
I do not for one moment suggest that instincts however deep-rooted should never be thwarted by the law. There are all sorts of sexual offences and offences against property which impose criminal sanctions for some people doing what they would regard as natural (taking what they want either sexually or as regards property). However it is a very different matter to prohibit conduct which involves either consenting adults, or individual adults of full age and understanding. That should only be undertaken on strong public policy grounds coupled with pragmatic reasons. So for example serious injury even if consensual (imposed for example during sex by a willing sadist upon a willing masochist) is forbidden. It is actual injury not purely the risk of injury, and in practical terms it would be all too easy for a whole host of serious assaults to be sought be justified on the basis that the victim really wanted it. Therefore in such an instance practicality and common sense as well as the need to protect people from themselves coincide to suggest that that should be unlawful.
Drugs are very different. It is plain that the urge to take drugs will not be suppressed. Drug use will be widespread whether the drugs are illegal or not. So far from preventing harm, illegality exacerbates it. It is easier to monitor people and the drugs they use, as well as to ensure that the drugs they use of a consistent strength and purity, if the drug taking is legal. Can we stop drug taking? There is absolutely no chance of that happening. Therefore the present law is impracticable and in preventing or purporting to prevent drug use by adults it does nothing to help them and has the potential to harm them.
The fact that drug use is now certified as having occurred for a couple of thousand years, and probably for a few thousand years beyond that, shows that this is a deep-seated trait which is not just going to go away because of laws being passed. Canute knew that it was useless to order the tide to turn. Legislators need to realise that they can no more stop the use of drugs than Canute could stop the waves.