Drugs & Crime

Drug-related offences are dominated, on the one hand, by income generating non-violent property crime to support drug use, and, on the other hand, by violence associated with drug distribution. There seems to be agreement that there is a link between dependent drug use and crime but that there is no single, causal connection between drug use and crime which means that present policy is demonstrably based on un-evidenced assumptions. A devastating verdict, especially in light of Nutt's (2009) recent comment: "It is very easy to get research money to show that drugs are harmful but it’s very hard to get research funds to show that they may not be so"

So how come that, despite the lack of concrete evidence for a drug-crime link, the established approach is partly based on the argument that there is such a link? One reason is that institutions and policies once in place are difficult to change, the probably more important reason however is that drugs are essentially criminalised for moral reasons. In the words of James Q. Wilson "drug use is wrong because it is immoral and it is immoral because it enslaves the mind and destroys the soul". Or for other reasons (political, cultural etc) that do not respond well to hard factual evidence.

Hans Durrer: A link between drugs and crime?

Problem

Man kann ein Problem nicht mit der Denkweise lösen, die es
erschaffen hat.

You can't solve a problem with the mindset that created it.

Albert Einstein

Alcohol Abuse in Russia

Per capita consumption of alcohol in Russia is among the top ten highest in the world, and the problem continues to grow. The Balashov Narcological Clinic in the Saratov region is one of many scattered all over Russia to treat alcoholics. Many patients have already experienced the terrible torture of delirium tremens but cannot stop drinking, as very often entire families drink habitually, from generation to generation.

The Daily Telegraph, November 2010

Mr. Bad Example

By then, Zevon had been sober for 17 years, sticking to it even after he made the classically Angeleno discovery that his A.A. sponsor was a drug addict.

Tom Carson: Mr. Bad Example
The New York Times Book Review, 6 May 2007

Ein Trinker lebt nicht

Ein Trinker lebt nicht. Was immer er von sich gibt, es ist der Alkohol, der aus ihm spricht. Oder er lebt nur im jeweiligen Augenblick … Und natürlich war sein Trinken eine existenzielle Aussage – wie konnte ich das nur vergessen? Ganz gewiss war es nichts „Metabolisches“. Es gab keine Ursache.

Anne Enright: Das Familientreffen

The Alcohol Industry

Since the second world war the alcohol industry has become one of the most powerful and successful in the UK. Intake has grown steadily, each person on average drinking more than twice that consumed in 1945. Successive governments have often made decisions that increase sales, the most significant being the opening up of alcohol sales in supermarkets; increasing the daily hours that alcohol can be purchased, usually at discounted prices; and the extension of pub drinking hours.

The alcohol industry has successfully grown its market into under-age drinking groups by making available innocent-tasting alcopops; advertising alcohol in a glamorous and cool way with "psychedelic" or stimulant overtones; and increasing the availability of high-strength drinks, the most dangerous of which are the 8-9% ciders and lagers, providing the cheapest way to get drunk.

The alcohol industry, naturally, is denying its role in creating this problem and is making no serious attempt to moderate its contribution to the enormous harms caused. One step that could be taken is for parliament to hold an inquiry into the impact of the alcohol lobby on the legislative process over the past generation.

David Nutt: I am not a prohibitionist, The Guardian, 5 November 2010.

Ich kann nicht!

Ich kann nicht!

Wer das sagt,
setzt sich selbst Grenzen.
Denke an die Hummel!

Die Hummel hat 0.7 cm2 Flügelfläche bei 1,2 g
Gewicht. Nach den bekannten Gesetzen der
Aerodynamik ist es unmöglich, bei diesem
Verhältnis zu fliegen.

Die Hummel weiss das aber
nicht und fliegt einfach!