Comment: Lying to kids is the first lesson of politics
Skunk: considered more powerful than normal cannabis
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Thursday, 29, Oct 2009 12:00
The government's lies about drugs have one big upside: they teach our children to be suspicious of power.
By Ian Dunt
The government's drug policy, like that of most states in the western world, causes death and suffering on an unimaginable scale. It pumps money into the black market, and kills thousands by opening the door for dealers to add pollutants to their product. It robs people of their personal freedom, lies to the public, and operates on a level of dogma and calculation rather than ethics or harm reduction. It is, basically, a hideous, immoral and idiotic way to go about the business of government.
But it does have its upside. It gives many British youths their first lesson in British government: don't believe anything they tell you.
There is a gap in politics, between what is discussed and what is known. Most political issues force the public to select the source from which they trust the evidence. Take the debate on equipment for our armed forces in Afghanistan. When David Cameron stands up in the Commons and says our troops are not sufficiently equipped, and Gordon Brown insists they are, most of us have no way of discovering for ourselves which is true, unless a friend or family member is fighting.
This holds true for most issues. Is Royal Mail or the Communications Workers Union telling the truth about working conditions and the state of the industry? Is there any way to split the banks? The data required to make those judgement is generally unavailable to someone who has to work nine to five. So we find sources we trust – from media outlets, or individual journalists, or experts. And then we take their assessment into account.
For young people, the debate on drugs is not like that. It follows from something they have personal experience of.
The government says skunk is vastly more powerful and dangerous than the normal weed ministers smoked in their youth. It says ecstasy is a perilous drug which can cause death at any time. It puts magic mushrooms, a diverting way for many university students to spend an afternoon, in the same class as crack cocaine, which decimates communities. But young people know several things about those propositions.
As Professor David Nutt said at a speech in King's college last night, triggering the latest battle between himself and the Home Office, there has been no marked increase in schizophrenia levels since skunk became prevalent over a decade ago. Most young people know this to be true from personal experience, because their friends smoke this drug with no noticeable psychological damage. The professor, whose wisdom on the subject is quickly turning him into a mascot for those who value evidence and reason above foolishness and political manoeuvring, is similarly considered in his opinion on ecstasy, which he says is less dangerous than riding a horse. This statement, while provocative, is statistically true. That didn't stop former home secretary Jacqui Smith berating him for it in empty moralistic terms. The professor's wisdom is becoming significant enough for me to forget the illogical name of the organisation he heads: the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. It's a mad name, because taking ecstasy and dancing, whatever you might think of it, if not a misuse of the drug MDMA, it is in fact the very use it was intended for.
Young Britons know that ecstasy is not as dangerous as the government says it is. They know this because they have friends who take it every weekend, and then go on to lead perfectly normal lives. They know that magic mushroom have no place in the same class as crack cocaine.
As their first instance of personal knowledge contradicting government pronouncements, this is an instructive lesson in political reasoning. Teenagers and students will have heard many statements from the government, but these will be the first which relate to things they have personal experience of. The lesson they will take from this is that either the government has a wilful disregard for the truth, or it is simply incapable of discovering what the truth is.
In actual fact, the government has no particular interest in the truth. As Professor Nutt said yesterday, the Home Office's decision to upgrade cannabis from Class C to Class B had a far more significant political effect than the error of its imposition. With the experts all telling the government this was the wrong move, and all the data pointing to a reduction in use since the drug was downgraded in 2004, Smith, under orders from the prime minister, upgraded it to class B anyway. The precedent was clear: experts and evidence mean nothing. Tabloid headlines mean everything.
There could be no better lesson upon which to start a politically conscious life: the government is not telling you the truth. With that piece of knowledge you can become a fully active citizen, rather than the passive sponge government wishes you to be. The next time a prime minister tells the public that a country can attack us in 45 minutes in order to justify a war, the kids will be suspicious. The next time politicians throw insults at each other as a means of evading debate, they will be suspicious. The next time a politician justifies taking away British freedoms with reference to the threat of terrorism, they will be suspicious.
Given the damage our deranged attachment to a war of drugs does to our children and third world countries around the world, this is scant reassurance. But it is something. All wise political reasoning comes from a suspicion of power.
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