A story by an ex-prisoner in today's Sydney Morning Herald explains in gory detail the reality of drug use in prisons, where an astounding 50% of prisoners have a history of injecting drug use.
While the story pleads for needle exchanges in jails, it could equally present an eloquent case against prohibition, both because people convicted of drug-related crimes would not be in there in the first place, and because it demonstrates that policing and control simply cannot stop drugs.
In fact, as the story shows, they increase the harms. The tale of one prisoner who bled to death trying to inject himself with an eyedropper is educational to say the least.
The mechanics of full cavity searches are discussed. If prohibitionists imagine a world where each day half the population searched the anal cavities of the other half, the question remains: who searches the searchers? It does not even work in a prison, let alone the wider world.
This is the unpleasant and ludicrous culmination of prohibition. Those people who say "just get rid of the drugs" need to explain how that would be done.
This blog began as an online newspaper about Kings Cross, Sydney. It now focuses on the deep problems of drug prohibition - which are so intrinsic to Kings Cross anyway - and exposes the many flaws in the prohibitionist argument, and the pseudo-science that governments fund to prop up their unjust and ineffective laws. Comments are welcome, but please be polite! Content on this site reflects only the views of the writer and are not necessarily those of the editor or any other organisation.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
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