Thursday, August 27, 2009

World tide shifting against prohibition

Dr Alex Wodak has an opinion piece in the SMH today neatly summarising how the global tide is changing against prohibition and the War on Drugs.

None of it is new news but it's a good window into the increasing irrelevance of prohibitionist attitudes.
  • Mexico is the latest country to decriminalise. Interestingly, the Obama Administration did not apply pressure to stop the Mexican move like the Bush administration successfully did.
  • Argentina has also now decriminalised possession of small amounts of cannabis, reports The Wall Street Journal. The government praised the move, saying criminalisation had been brought in three decades ago by the then military government at the behest of US President Richard Nixon. A Catholic Church bishop has criticised the move, essentially saying it "sent the wrong message" -- that last defence of those with no valid defence.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Nice work Alex. Good to read a summary of the world's changing attitudes (rather than scattered individual pieces) and to understand that there is a considerable global change in thinking.
Hope Miranda runs her one eye over it.