We should not be helping the government implement ‘softer’ ways by which they can police us – i.e. ‘decriminalisation’.
Instead, we have to take back our privacy – cannabis-users are equal to alcohol-users. Our rights must also equate. No violence for cigarette users? No incarceration for alcohol users? Then equality before the law must extend to us.
No more state interference into peaceful, private activity.
Responsible adults have used cannabis for thousands of years without hurting anyone. Cannabis users aren’t a problem, so it’s off-base to expect us to dream up ways to tax and regulate cannabis users. Our job isn’t to advise government on how they can police and tax us.
The actual problem is this: people with interests in cannabis and other drugs are subjected to search and seizure, physical assault, kidnap and incarceration, their families and careers trampled. These are all types of violence and must stop.
Black marketeers cannot seek restitution through the courts, and so violence is their currency in a market that itself exists only because state violence against drug users forces prices into the stratosphere. The violence must stop.
Our first goal as cannabis users is to demand the state stop hurting us, and then the black market will collapse. The state must end its aggression against ordinary people first. ‘Stop the violence’ is a message all cannabis users can get behind, surely. The violence must stop.
Indeed, users of *any* drug equally or less harmful than tobacco and alcohol can get behind that single demand, so it’s inclusive. Let’s make that our key demand. Stop the violence.
By Edwin Stratton
