Roar Mikalsen - HUMAN RISING - radiofri..

taxed accordingly; and – crucially – do not harm other people. Only in the field of drugs
does the Government take a different line.
The case is overwhelming. But I fear that policy will not catch up with the facts any
time soon. It would take a mature society to accept that some individuals may hurt, or
even kill themselves, as a result of a policy change, even if the evidence suggested that
fewer people died or were harmed as a result. It would take a brave government to
face down the tabloid fury in the face of anecdotes about middle-class children who
bought drugs legally and came to grief, and this is not a brave government.
I think what was truly depressing about my time in the civil service was that the
professionals I met from every sector held the same view: the illegality of drugs causes
far more problems for society and the individual than it solves. Yet publicly, all those
people were forced to repeat the mantra that the Government would be ‘tough on
drugs,’ even though they all knew that the policy was causing harm.(…)
The tragedy of our drugs policy is that it is dictated by tabloid irrationality, and not
by evidence.” 45
Forbudsforkjemperne blir ikke uten grunn brydd når de konfronteres
med slike tilfeller som Critchley, for systemrepresentanter som tar et oppgjør
med sin rolle i en korrupt politisk prosess, har en troverdighet som medløpere
ikke har. Det sier nemlig seg selv at man bør lytte til offentlige tjenestemenn
som advarer mot politistaten, langt mer enn man bør lytte til en de
tjenestemennene som anbefaler den, og det er ingen tvil om hva ettertidens
dom i saken vil bli. De aller fleste offentlige tjenestemennene som i dag gjør sin
tjeneste i systemet på forbudstilhengernes premisser, vet derfor innerst inne at
historiens dom over dem vil bli tung å bære. Danny Kushlick skriver i Guardian
den 13. august 2008, dette om saken:
”Critchley is to be congratulated for speaking out with such candour on the issue. I
have met many former and current civil servants who are of the same opinion, but
haven’t gone public. What Critchley makes absolutely clear is that many, if not most of
those working in the drugs field are knowingly colluding with a regime that actively
causes harm. Their silence is not based on ignorance but is tacit support for one of the
great social policy disasters of the last 100 years.(…)
In 2003 at a press conference, I asked the then drugs spokesperson at the Home
Office, Bob Ainsworth MP, whether the government would support a cost benefit
analysis of drug law enforcement. Quick as a flash his reply came back: ‘Why would we
want to do that unless we were going to legalise drugs?’ Does that sound like a man
ignorant of where that audit trail would lead?
46