The Barmy Logic of the Drug Legalisers

Sometimes one sees the vast gulf of understanding which lies between oneself and other people brought up in an entirely different world.

'Andrew' writes (on an earlier thread) first quoting me:

'"Anyone who accepts the death of innocents as a possible if unintended consequence of any policy which he supports - any policy - cannot logically advance the 'innocents might die ' argument as a case against any other policy. It is inconsistent." -Peter Hitchens 4 October 2011 '

My reply: So far, so good.  I said that.

He continues 'The first policy that you support is capital punishment. You acknowledge that the death of innocents would be an unintended consequence of this policy - as you still support the policy you must therefore accept the death of innocents as an unintended consequence.'

My reply, so far, so good, though I would say it *might* be an unintended consequence of a death penalty, not that it would be, as it happens.  I also said (and will repeat later) that all conceivable steps should be taken to avoid such innocent deaths. Recognising their inevitability is not the same as being indifferent to them.  It is certainly not an argument for not taking steps that could prevent innocent deaths. The steps that I advocate (to ensure that innocents are not executed) are comparable in aim and effect to the enforcement of the drug laws that I advocate.

There is a multiple misrepresentation of my *purpose* in advancing this argument.  I am not saying that we shouldn't care about innocent deaths, and only a person consumed with furious hostility towards me could imagine that was what I was saying.

I am saying that those who advance the danger of innocent deaths as a sole argument against capital punishment (and there are many Tory and other politicians who do so, while claiming to accept arguments about deterrence) are not restrained from other policies by similar or greater dangers of innocent deaths. Therefore this cannot be their real objection.  Either they have another objection, which they conceal because they are ashamed of it or know it to be feeble. Or they have not thought about it. Or they are avoiding the responsibility which falls on any government, to protect the people from harm.

He continues:'The other policy that you support is keeping illegal drugs illegal, or in other words, not introducing a third poison when we already have two. You advance the "innocents might die" argument as a case for this policy.'

Do I? Where did I advance that argument, precisely? One small part of my argument (in this instance, though I have been conducting it here and elsewhere for many years on many differnet fronts )  is, I rather thought , that people who took such drugs in the belief that they are 'soft' or 'safe' might well fall victim to irreversible mental illness,  thus  ruining their own lives and the lives of those who loved them and/or depended upon them in any way. There are, on occasion, deaths from drug abuse, but these -though avoidable and tragic -  are exceptional and not in themselves the burden of my case. Nor, as it happens, is the question of mental illness. This is just the part of my case which my pro-drug opponents cannot deny or avoid.

They are entirely relaxed about this country's adoption of a third-world pleasure-based morality – of which legalised drugs are a major feature - which will destroy its culture, its society, its freedom and its economy if unchecked. They either think this is a good thing, don't believe it is a problem or don't care. I am not concealing this argument. I make it all the time to anyone who will listen.  I'm just not wasting it this week on morally corrupt cultural revolutionaries (and self-interested drug lobbyists)  whose reaction will be 'So what? I want to join the Third World, provided I can stay rich and comfortable'.  For them, I point out that their selfish pleasure is bought at a high price –the risk to the sanity and happiness of others. I hope that by doing so I will at least make them ashamed of their greedy, self- centred contempt for their fellow humans.

Whereas if there were properly enforced laws against possession, these people, and many others besides,  would in many cases not be so stupid as to ingest a drug which is in truth hugely and unpredictably dangerous. This is a simple policy matter - where a policy reduces damage to innocents. It is not in any way a policy which accepts an increase in innocent deaths as the price of its success, as it happens. Cannabis rarely if ever kills those who use it. A law properly punishing possession of cananbis does not risk innocentt deaths. Worrying about mental harm experienced by guilty deliberate criminals - for cannabis users are by definition criminals under law – is rather different form worrying about deaths among the innocent. It is also not my sole argument

He adds:' In the case of cannabis specifically, whilst innocents would not die, they might suffer from serious mental illness, which is a consequence that you have previously stated to be just as serious. You accept that innocents might die in policy 1, which you support. You then use the "innocents might die (or come to serious harm)" argument to support policy 2. That is, as you say in your own words above, inconsistent.'

No it isn't. I am sorry, this silly-clever stuff is too ingenious for its own good, because it is founded on mischief rather than serious reason, and so misses the fundamental point of what I am saying. That is why I could not when it was first presented, and cannot now, see how anyone could honestly believe it to be a serious point.

I am only dealing with it here because the drug lobbyists are apparently so desperate that they have, pathetically, persuaded themselves that it is a serious point.   To say that the 'innocents might die' argument is generally inconsistent, and therefore useless *as a sole argument against capital punishment* and as a sole argument *advanced  by people who accept innocent deaths as the price of other policies they desire*,  is *not* to say that it is never justifiable to advance the reduction of pain and death as a justification for any policy.

Nor is it to say that the law should be indifferent to the deaths of innocents. Obviously diligent steps should be taken to ensure that innocent persons are not executed, as I have said time without number. Would it then be 'inconsistent' for me to say that diligent steps should be taken to stop people going mad from smoking cannabis. ?

To say that the argument 'innocents might die' does not work as a sole argument against the death penalty is *not* to say that we should not be concerned over reducing the deaths of innocents – indeed, the death penalty itself,  in my view, reduces the deaths of innocents, and that is one of its many purposes.

Finally, my argument concerns the faults in objections to the adoption of a law which might have the consequence of innocents dying.

It does not concern objections to the non-enforcement of a law, whose non-enforcement undoubtedly leads to harm to innocents, if not deaths.

So tell me again, where my alleged 'inconsistency' is.

I note that this absurd diversion has taken the pressure off the drug-legalisers, who until it was introduced were struggling to explain why the existence of two legal poisons could justify the legalisation of a third. I suspect that is the point of it. They are beaten yet again, so rather than admit it, they have changed the subject.