Wasted drug wars

re: "Anti-alcohol drive 'a success'" (BP, December 28)

Dear editor,
The Thai Health Promotion Foundation is right: the facts, some of which are included in the article, solidly establish alcohol as the most serious drug of addiction causing harm to Thai society, just as it is the most destructive drug elsewhere. It follows that this toxic drug should be the one most harshly treated by the law, which means that the current drug laws regarding marijuana, yaa baa, heroin and the like are not only irrational in their refusal to acknowledge long known facts, but are grossly immoral since any justification for interfering in the personal sale and use by adults of these illegal drugs applies with even greater force to the more harmful alcohol. Heroin users do not commit rape: they nod off. Marijuana does not tend to induce violence, and so on.

But this is not a reason to criminalize alcohol to bring it into line with the other highly popular recreational drugs beloved of so many Thais and other adults, as the tediously regular massive seizures attest. The prohibition approach was tried in the US between 1920 and 1933, a legal move which effectively granted a generous monopoly to mafia scum and their loyal public officials, including the police, the courts and the law makers who all profited mightily through their corruption at the expense of society. We see, with no surprise, exactly the same results of criminalizing personal choices in drugs in the spectacular failure of the wars on drugs that have so greatly enriched mafia scum and corrupt officials for decades now. Meanwhile, these same failed polices waste massive budgetary and human resources whilst contributing nothing of value to society, merely creating greater opportunities for corruption, creating a class of criminals from decent citizens who do not harm others, and not even reducing drug use.

There is no lack of compelling evidence from the before and after experiences of decriminalizing popular drugs. Apart from the well-known case of alcohol prohibition of alcohol in the US, the before and after statistics for states that have decriminalized marijuana are consistent and favourable. Even more compelling is the example of Portugal, where decriminalizing all drugs, even heroin, has greatly reduced the harm, and the actual use, of drugs since it was introduced in 2001, thereby freeing vast resources that could then be usefully spent actually helping society.

 Felix Qui

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The above letter to the editor is the text as submitted by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post.

The text as edited was published in PostBag on December 28, 2017, under the title "Wasted drug wars" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/news/general/1386902/anti-alcohol-drive-a-success