I am acutely aware of the current situation in Egypt. However I know
from experience that once a chain of events such as this have been put
in motion there is very little anyone can do to stop them running their
natural course. So in the meantime I'm going to talk about something
that has been developing in the US and South America recently.
On Monday (12/8/13) the US Attorney General Eric Holder announced that
the Justice Department is going to scale back the use of mandatory
minimum prison sentences for offenders caught in possession of small
amounts of illegal drugs who aren't involved in violence and don't have
links to organised crime gangs. The practice of jailing drug offenders
for mandatory prison terms has been a central policy of the US Justice
system since President Richard Nixon began his "War on Drugs" in the
early 1970's. It is also something that was sadly overlooked in the
national debate over the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin case. While a
succession of prominent black Americans including President Obama spoke
about how they'd experienced non-black Americans cross the street in
fear when they saw them coming no-one bothered to mention that 1 in
every 2 murders in the US is committed by young, black men. In cities
like Chicago that figure rises to 4 out of every 5 murders. Therefore
the majority of people who cross the street when they see a young, black
man approaching them were not doing so out of racism but from an
understanding of the reality that they are twice as likely to be
murdered by a black man then a non-black man.
There are of course a range of reasons why black American men a
disproportionally involved in violent crime including poverty
exacerbated by historical racism that denies them education
opportunities and culture that seems to glamorise a life of crime often
reinforced by musicians who have no real experience of crime. The
College Dropout Kanye West immediately springs to mind. However a very
significant part of the problem is the use of mandatory minimum
sentences for drug offences. Far from being drug addicts, violent
criminals or drug traffickers the majority of people who use drugs,
especially marijuana are simple recreational users who often experiment
for a short time before growing out of it. Therefore the damage they do
to themselves and society as a whole is equivalent to teenagers trying
to buy beer before they are old enough. However while the teenager
buying the beer with the fake ID will at worst get a telling off from a
police officer and their parents if the casual drug user is caught they
will automatically be sent to prison for up to a year. This will
obviously disrupt their education and destroy their future job prospects
because in the US people really dislike employing former prison
inmates. Part of the reason for that is US prisons can be extremely
violent and brutal places so prisoners often have to get involved in
gang activity in order to stay alive. So after being released with very
poor job prospects and links to organised crime the casual drug is
already very far along the road to becoming a drug addict or a violent
criminal. As a result it seems that rather making society safer
mandatory minimum sentences for minor drug offences are actually
increasing violent crime levels. Therefore the decision to review/scrap
them seems like the US taking a very positive step forward in the right
direction.
However rather then being a positive effort to improve US society the
timing of Holder's announcement seems like the US trying to force its
way into the discussion about the liberalisation of attitudes to drug
use across South America large parts of which are being torn apart by
violence connected to the trade in illegal drugs. On July 31st (31/8/13)
the lower house of Uruguay's Parliament voted not only to legalise the
use of marijuana but to allow the government to control the production,
distribution and sale of marijuana. This policy is expected to easily
pass a vote in the upper house and become law. Although it goes much
further than anybody else Uruguay is most certainly not alone amongst
it's neighbours in its relaxed attitude to marijuana use. In 2009
Argentina's Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional for the
state to punish people for personal use of marijuana effectively making
the practice legal. Mexico allows people to possess up to five grams of
marijuana for personal use and in 2012 Columbia's High Court ruled that
people should not be imprisoned for marijuana use.
This change in attitude across South America is sending shock waves
across the developed world primarily because it goes against the long
standing prohibition policy of the United Nations (UN) that prevents any
member state legalising the sale of certain narcotics such as heroin,
cocaine and marijuana. Then there is the worry that liberalisation of
marijuana use to lead to the liberalisation of the use of other drugs.
Although I and most people consider marijuana to be equivalent to
alcohol in terms of the risk it poses to its users South America's main
drug export cocaine is a much more serious proposition that especially
in its processed crack cocaine form is capable of doing very serious
harm to both its users and society as a whole. Finally if you remember
things like the Iran contras western intelligence agencies have in the
past certainly done very well out of the illegal drug trade. An end to
prohibition would certainly hurt their profit margins.
Therefore the US has been trying to enquire about attitudes towards
illegal drugs across South America through things like the review of
mandatory minimum sentences and the news today that infamous Hollywood
madam Hedi Fleiss has been caught growing marijuana plants without a
permit. With the illegal drug trade becoming an increasingly prominent
and apparent aspect of my situation the UK has responded by really
throwing the kitchen sink at the problem. The main part of this has
involved using its links to the international trade in illegal drugs to
set up two British teenagers - Melissa Reid and Michaella McCollum - to
be arrested in Peru for cocaine smuggling.
The fact that Ms Reid is from Scotland while Ms McCollum is from
Northern Ireland brings in about 400 years of political history between
the Republic of Ireland and the UK. Following the British invasion of
Ireland the UK intentionally shipped Protestants from Scotland and
northern England to Ireland in order to change the demographic makeup of
the Catholic nation. During the Irish potato famine a lot of Catholics
fled in the opposite direction settling in Scotland and the north of
England. As a result there are still strong links between Northern
Ireland and Scotland and the north of England. During the Northern Irish
troubles these links became the basis for a lot of drug and gun running
with the UK intelligence services supporting the Protestant/Loyalist
smugglers. That is a very murky period of UK history which you would
think would be difficult for South American governments to unpick.
Beyond that the women's claim that they were acting under duress could
be a reference to any number of people involved in my case and the fact
the women have been arrested allows the UK to exert pressure over UK
nationals who are being held for similar offences in not particularly
pleasant prisons across South America.
Then there is some just weird stuff. For example this drug smuggling
plot seems to have been hatched on the Spanish island of Ibiza before
moving onto Morocco. Rihanna and her marijuana habit of course recently
performed in Morocco and the UK has been trying to get Rihanna to go on
holiday to Ibiza with her friend Cara Delevinge so they can study her
more closely. Today the Royal Navy intercepted a speed boat smuggling
cocaine off the coast of Puerto Rico where Rihanna is scheduled to
perform during the next portion of her tour. Also today a US Airlines
flight from the UK to the US was diverted to the Republic of Ireland due
to smoke in the cockpit because I don't think I was meant to have
worked all this out quite so quickly especially when I was stoned.
(Originally Posted) 16:55 on 14/8/13
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