A
war against responsibility
Because I think drug prohibition is just, plain wrong. Since, none of the
other parties seem to want to do anything about it, I've got to put my
life where my mouth is. Isn't it time that Canadians listened to advice
from Milton Friedman, George Soros, The Economist and others of
similar calibre? The war against drugs is really a war against personal
choice and responsibility. If you value your remaining liberties, get out
of your armchairs, get down to the polling station and cast a ballot for
the Marijuana Party.
Let's review some of the arguments:
1)
Prohibition isn't stopping drug usage. Despite gobs of taxes wasted on
enforcement, drugs are easily available.
2)
Prohibition is increasing the role of violence in drug vending. Criminals
can't compete against legal businesses who know how to serve customers
with the best product at the best price. But when a product is declared
illegal, customers can't make legal contracts with legitimate businessmen
and violence begins to have a comparative advantage.
3)
Most importantly, prohibition is destroying the philosophical underpinnings
of a voluntary, cooperative society. In the name of caring for us, the
government jails us, invades our property, body-searches us, monitors our
financial transactions just to root out consenting adults from choosing
an alternative recreational option or to stop voluntary peaceful commercial
transactions between willing buyers and willing sellers.
At public meetings in my riding, I find that I have to keep making the
same points over and over again. First, the freedom to be allowed to use
drugs does not mean that you have to use them. There are many legal activities
in Canada that I would strongly urge you to stay away from: the music (?)
of Madonna, David Suzuki sermons or cabbage. All are harmful to thinking
minds, but I would never advocate making any such distasteful activities
illegal. To each their own. In the same manner, even when drugs are legal,
there will still be many helpful saints who will support addicts trying
to refrain from drug usage. The difference being, if drugs were legal,
these helpers would have to respect the addicts' rights to make their own
decisions about life.
« There are many legal activities in Canada that I would strongly
urge you to stay away from: the music (?) of Madonna, David Suzuki sermons
or cabbage. All are harmful to thinking minds, but I would never advocate
making any such distasteful activities illegal. »
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Second, if we take away from people the right to make a wrong choice, we
give them no credit for making the good choices in life. If drug taking
is about morality, why do so many Canadians think that the flawed characters
who sit in Ottawa should be allowed to make our moral choices for us? And
how can we learn responsibility if the government, like an overbearing
parent, is constantly watching over us to make sure we don t make any unapproved
choices?
Third, I keep having to respond to the claim that marijuana is dangerous.
Well, so what? Many things in life have risks. Anyone who has lived in
BC for the last 10 years, has much stronger scientific evidence that voting
for the NDP is much more dangerous for your health than marijuana could
ever be. Should we lock up all the irresponsible NDP supporters? No. As
with other risky behaviour, we must keep appealing to people's better senses
and hope that they will eventually learn from their past mistakes.
In this election, I want to strike a blow for individual freedom, self-responsibility
and for the virtues of private property and entrepreneurship. Do you want
to support one of the mainstream parties who differ with each other only
in how they want to control your life? Send a real message to Ottawa that
you are tired of politics as usual, and in one part of your life at least,
you just want the traditional politicians to go away. To paraphrase a recently
deceased prime minister: The state should have no role to play in our choice
of peaceful social lubricants and psychological crutches.
Choose freedom! Vote Marijuana!
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