Drugs industry
The current debate around the use of currently illicit drugs in the Northern Territory provides a perfect opportunity for government and the community to look at alternatives to the current approach of prohibition.
Psychedelics, hallucinogens, opiate based substances, solvents and a variety of plants have been used since the birth of humanity and in many cultures around the world. This is unlike prohibition, which is less than a century old, and a complete failure as a response to rising illicit drug use.
Many countries in Europe are starting to see the folly of their ways as they move away from a zero tolerance approach to accepting that drug use is part of human culture and cannot be legislated out of existence.
The NT government could make peace with drugs and end the "war on drug users". The currently illicit drug industry in Australia could be nationalised. In the short term, the NT government could step in and establish some sort of regulatory framework.
Cannabis retailers could be licensed, with Amsterdam style "coffee shops" in the city and major regional centres and a series of suburban dealers could be licensed. The NT government could establish retail outlets for other currently illicit drugs such as cocaine, ecstasy, LSD, magic mushrooms, opium and heroin. These drugs should only be available to people who are over the age of 18 (or 16, but that is another debate.)
The subsequent reduction in the cost of policing and jailing drug users could be used to pay for increased treatment options and improved health services for users. Increased revenue would be of great assistance to help to prop up our ailing public health system.
Or instead, the NT government can push its head further into the sand with more people jailed, more drug overdoses, more HIV and HCV infections, an increase in property crime and more and more money wasted on a pointless exercise.
Gary Meyerhoff
Darwin [Abridged]
Labor for Refugees
The contribution to the campaign to free the refugees by the advent of the group Labor for Refugees in the ACT is a welcome development. However, I want to take up an issue with Nick Martin, the convenor of Labor for Refugees ACT (see GLW #487) on the lack of inclusiveness of this group toward unionists.
The leaflets for Labor for Refugees ACT state that it is "a group of ordinary members of the ALP and Trade Union movement". However, when I approached Martin earlier this year asking whether I could join Labor for Refugees ACT, he stated that it was only open to ALP members and those trade unionists in unions affiliated to the ALP.
The great majority of unions affiliated to the ACT TLC are not affiliated to the ALP. The largest union affiliated to the ACT TLC is the CPSU (public servants), followed by the AEU (public school teachers).
Given that 50% of employment in the ACT is in the government sector, Martin's policy automatically excludes the vast majority of ACT trade unionists from membership of Labor for Refugees ACT. This is in sharp contrast to the more inclusive policy of the Sydney Labor for Refugees group.
Building "an alternative to current refugee policy" is undermined by policies of exclusion in mass movements. This was graphically illustrated by the exclusionary Palm Sunday committee in Sydney only attracting a third of the number of people to its rally in comparison to the Melbourne Palm Sunday pro-refugee rally (organised by an open, inclusive committee).
Paul Oboohov
CPSU delegate
Canberra [Abridged]
Palestine I
I was almost amused to read Shane Bentley's reply to my criticism of GLW's coverage of the Palestinian crisis (Write On, GLW #487). Does what I intended as constructive criticism need to be replied with slander and misrepresentation?
First of all, the anti-Semitic, racist and religiously intolerant nature of many groups involved in the struggle, are very well credentialed, they can not be so easily dismissed as a "Zionist lie". One only has to look at the slogans of Hamas and Hizbollah.
Secondly, your call for a (supposedly) democratic secular state of Palestine. Looks good on paper, but not anywhere else. This is an unrealistic call, as such a state would not guarantee the rights of the Jewish people, that sort of situation would have the same effects as the Israeli state with a Palestinian authority, only with the oppressor and the oppressed swapped.
Only a socialist Palestine next to a socialist Israel, as part of a socialist confederation of the Middle East can truly solve the crisis.
Thirdly, I never suggested that the Israeli state and Palestinian Authority should be condemned equally. I was criticising the disproportionality on the issue which GLW holds. The fact that GLW gives plenty of coverage to petty-bourgeois nationalist armed groups, such as the PFLP, but none to the socialist movement within both Israel and Palestine, also indicates such a weakness on the issue.
As well, there is a bit more to the cause of the crisis than just "Israeli colonialism", US imperialism, the Arab leaders, and the Palestinian Authority. All are to blame for their various roles in the conflict. Not to mention the roles of the militants themselves.
David Murray
Valentine NSW [Abridged]
Palestine II
Shane Bentley (Write On, GLW #487) dismisses the notion that Palestinian militants seek the destruction of the entire state of Israel as "one of Zionism's favourite lies", and "overlooks" it summarily.
Even a cursory analysis of the Arabic media clearly demonstrates that the destruction of Israel is part of the mainstream agenda of the Palestinians.
It is unfortunate that in a rush to "overlook" the issues, Bentley hastens to a flawed conclusion. He argues that an Israeli withdrawal (presumably to the green line) from "occupied territory" will end the violence. The positions of all Palestinian factions outlined above show this to be blatantly incorrect.
In fact, when Israel offered over 90% of these territories at Camp David, no counter-proposal was ever tabled by the Palestinians. Why? Because an agreement would represents a commitment to end the conflict, and from the Palestinian perspective, the conflict ends only when the State of Israel ceases to exist.
The basic premise of the claim that the "occupation" causes terrorism is historically flawed. Arab and Palestinian terrorism against Israel existed prior to the beginning of Israeli control over the West Bank and Gaza as a result of the Six Day War of June 1967, and even prior to the establishment of the State of Israel in May 1948.
Bentley is clearly concerned with notions of freedom and oppression, but real freedom is to be a slave to truth.
Mark Lewkovitz
Sydney [Abridged]
From Green Left Weekly, April 24, 2002.
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