Until relatively recently, Big Tobacco appeared invincible. Despite the fact that tobacco smoke was full of known carcinogens that would have had a factory shut down if they came out of the smokestack, and ample evidence that exposure to tobacco smoke caused cancer, not to mention the violation of liberty associated with blowing smoke in public places, Big Tobacco effectively resisted even the mildest restrictions on its activities. It was aided by a team of scientists and other “experts” willing to claim that the hazards of smoking were non-existent or overstated (notable names here include Enstrom & Kabat, Gio Batta Gori, Richard Lindzen, Steve Milloy, Fred Seitz and Fred Singer – Google has details).
Virtually all the main rightwing thinktanks in the US and Australia went along with this fraud (AEI, Cato, Centre for Independent Studies, CEI, Heartland and IPA among many others). While they might legitimately have argued part of their case on strict libertarian grounds, that would not have been sufficient to resist restrictions on passive smoking. So, they published attacks on science which any reasonable assessment would have shown to be false. In doing so, of course, they encouraged people to take risks with their own lives and those of others, while happily accepting money from the merchants of death. Whether they were knowingly lying, or merely recklessly indifferent to the truth, this episode should have discredited them forever (it certainly has with me).
But the tide has turned. US litigation in the 1990s exposed a treasure trove of internal documents which eventually led to racketeering convictions for the main tobacco companies. And now the High Court has rejected Big Tobacco’s (legally preposterous) challenge to plain packaging legislation in Australia, made on the supposed basis that it represented a taking of intellectual ‘property’. Not satisfied with one preposterous claim, the tobacco companies are planning another, having bribed the government of Ukraine to make a WTO accusation of trade restraint. Actually, this is a good thing. This case is such an obvious abuse of process, and the litigants so clearly evil, that the WTO will surely not be crazy enough to support their case. In rejecting it, they will probably be forced to set precedents that make future interference with domestic health policy more difficult.
Coming to the policy merits, the current legal status of tobacco is, in my view, a pretty good model for drugs in general – legally available, but with all kinds of promotion prohibited and with an active public health campaign to give accurate information on the associated risks.
John Quiggin 
A terrible blow against freedom lovers everywhere.
Oh! The humanity.
One bright spot to my day. The cause of the wicked shall not always proposer.
Over at catalepsy they don’t appear to be celebrating.
Oh, dear.
Good that the Ukraine is still fighting on the side of freedom!!
Opium and LSD were legal until they were declared illegal.
Understandable why “big tobacco” brought the case.
I couldn’t give a continental either way. So the stuff now gets sold in generic packaging? Big deal (to me)!
In defence of tobacco: The calming properties of its use have to be seen to be believed. At times I’d issue the stuff to people.
But commerical branding on the packaging is irrelevant for that purpose.
@Steve at the Pub
Irrelevant indeed. It’s just as well the tobacco companies are willing to spend a fortune fighting this health measure that they promise us will have no effect. Such selfless pursuit of principal! If I was a shareholder of these activist companies I would be appalled. Why spend this money instead of paying bigger dividends?
Despite these corporate lackeys absence of scientific credibility they have been remarkable effective at stalling action and they continue to stall action on other areas of liberty inhibiting pollution in pursuit of the corporate dollar.
That’s one of the deep philosophical problems with free-market fundamentalism (aka libertarians).
They don’t deal with the problems/distortions caused by lies (‘marketing’ or ‘propaganda’ when done in industrial strength).
Their ideology has no realistic way of dealing with success obtained through deception – other than to blame the ‘losers’ in the transaction. As an example: the miraculously calmative properties of tobacco would only apply when administered to addicts. Obviously the addict has to be created before there can be any problem needing the remedy. Pure free market genius.
Hard to improve on Blur today.
The coffin nail sellers have another nail in their coffins. The RW Libs cop a slap across their chops. What’s not to like?
I agree with PrQ’s policy prescription re drugs but I would add one more thing- a compulsory trip to a medical or rehab facility for all teens so that they can see smokers with amputated legs and crack addicts looking like anorexic zombies.
PS: It’s not just Ukraine that is dreadfully upset about our unfair laws (passed by our democratically elected – if hopelessly imperfect- sovereign government).
Honduras and the Dominican Republic have also, completely independently and without any external collusion or orchestration, filed complaints with our democratically elected WTO:
http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/cases_e/ds441_e.htm
Pr Q opines:
So Pr Q is in favour of legalising drugs. Would that be just soft drugs like pot and ecstasy? Or hard drugs like heroin and cocaine? Or is he in favour of throwing the whole spice rack into the mix?
No doubt the world could cope with more pot-heads larding their asses on the couch or wall-eyed party ravers running the gauntlet of the clubs. But I have my doubts. As Steve Sailer remarks:
As for legalising hard drugs, I’d be interested to see how he proposes to avoid the kind of bedlam that evolved in the US during the Crack Wars. (Disclosure: I occasionally commuted through Bedford Stuyevesant during the early nineties, a good time and place to lose the last vestiges of liberal illusion.) Buying a kilo of crack down at Bunnings is not my idea of promoting a progressive society.
Over the past century there has been no shortage of “accurate information on the associated risks” on drugs. But that never stopped teenagers and other at=risk groups from doing stupid things. A legal prohibition sends the strongest possible message to diverse social groups that drug abuse is a counter-productive way to elevate their mood.
More generally, hard drug usage is intrinsically immoral, a self-evident truth to your great-aunt but apparently below the radar of the somewhat Aspergy libertarian economists who drive this debate. Hard drugs cause addiction, intoxication and sociopathy. They disable the key moral faculties: free will, a sound mind and a kind heart. Utilitarians, eager to maximise happiness, should be mindful of undermining the moral foundations of happiness.
@ (Father) Jack Strocchi
Lol
Big tobacco say that this will lead to illegal sale of cigarettes by drug traffickers. As opposed to the current legal sal of cigarettes by drug traffickers…
@John Brookes
It’s hard to see how that could be made easier by this measure, but even if it was, so what? We can arrest them for selling contraband. We can’t do that in the case of the legal ones.
It’s hard to imagine the illegal ones would be more harmful than the legal ones, but again, if so, so what? It’s not as if the legal ones are safe.
If this further hurts the profits of leagl companies retailing tobacco then it’s all good AFAIC.
Fran Barlow @ #12
Obviously you haven’t had to administer CPR to enough OD’s. The novelty wears off after the first couple of times.
CUSTOMER: I’d like a kilo of crack please.
BUNNINGS SALES PERSON: Certainly, sir. Here you are. Have a good one.
CUSTOMER: Oh I doubt it. I have to now engage in gang violence over the right to distribute this perfectly legal product I have just purchased. I expect I will have to participate in at least three or four drive by shootings before I finish work today.
There will be illegal sales of cigarettes in non-plain packets, by ‘dealers’. The law change, making it illegal, will simply drive non-plain packet consumption underground.
Ronald Brak @ #16 imagined:
As if legalised drugs, such as alcohol, don’t massively exacerbate street violence. Lets add legal meta amphetamines to the mix and see how that works out.
Have you perchance, spent the better part of your life living on, and frequenting, the low dens of the Upper Esplanade, Darlinghurst Road or Campbell Parade? I thought not.
The trouble with the break-the-business-model-of-the-drug-traffickers rhetoric adopted by Cardinal Strocchi is that there is no logical link between repressive prohibition and actually, ummm, breaking the business model. Prohibition only serves to massively increases the prices that drug traffickers can command. I would think the business model of the legal drug traffickers is doing a lot worse than the business model of the illegal drug traffickers precisely because of the policies His Eminence advocates with such passion.
I would have thought the Crack Wars exemplified why prohibition is a hopeless model. Crack consumption did not decline. The adverse health impacts exploded in terms of the numbers effected. Vast numbers of people were jailed. It’s also fairly alarming that crack, a drug more prevalent in the African-American community attracted penalties far more severe than drugs prevalent in other communities. The prohibition model drives the carceral state in the US and that too falls disproportionately on African-Americans.
Prohibition may give a warm inner glow. It may in fact be policy crack. But it does nothing to reduce drug consumption.
As a denizen of the area, Jack, any opinion on the wisdom of the re-introduction of the six-o-clock swill (repackaged as the midnight swill for King’s Cross) proposed by the NSW Govt?
Strikes me as guaranteed to produce the opposite outcome from the stated purpose.
Your thoughts?
The problem with things like the ‘war on drugs’ is that they concentrated on supply pushing up the price and largely ignore demand. Where users have been targeted the results have been better. I’d put electronic bracelets on users,have them under kerfew take their money and test them regularly until they reformed. No demand. Problem solved.
Yikes. Is there a real world example of your policy of electronic monitoring, curfews and income management? And is the government that applies these policies even vaguely familiar with the concept of human rights?
Another, largely ignored problem, is that the court had to rule without reference to the acknowledged facts regarding health. Are we sure that it is sufficient to argue this issue on the basis of intellectual rights? Big tobacco have hijacked the main argument and have been allowed to focus on the supposed dangers of illegal packets and trade violations. This is a health issue and yet the court could not have thrown this out on the basis that tobacco manufacturers are a bunch of arseholes bereft on conscience or morals.
Freeloader: “Where users have been targeted the results have been better. I’d put electronic bracelets on users,have them under kerfew.”
You sound far more psychotic than any crackhead I’ve ever met.
@Alan
There criminals. You give them a quick judicial process first of course. And its not so much manage their income as confiscate it. All done legally and above board of course. At the moment drug users are simply coddled.
No wonder there’s a problem.
A quick judicial process? Criminals have rights and ‘coddled’ does not belong in a serious discussion. #21 you claimed this rather Chekist approach to the War on Drugs has worked. Where?
I’ll have what Strocchers is having.
@John Brookes
“Big tobacco say that this will lead to illegal sale of cigarettes by drug traffickers. ”
People are going to pay more for pretty packages? Doesn’t work that way in Canada. A lot of our contraband cigarettes are sold in large zip-lock bags.
Not even any colour etc which the marijuana packets have.
@Alan
You should read carefully to see exactly what I claimed (rather than what you thought I claimed).
People don’t have to take illegal drugs so if they think the judicial consequences are a bit harsh they are entirely free not to take them.
The US could rapidly solve its drug problem with a bit more effort on the demand side, and any revenue gained could go toward reducing the deficit.
People scare me in today’s society. Not because they want bad things for themselves, what scares me most is that we think it’s ok to stop someone else from doing something he wants to do, just because we don’t like it.
The smoking issue is not a health issue. It’s couched as one, but it’s a revenue issue. The government makes a lot of money from it. The health issue is also a cost issue. Who pays for the health damage. The smoker should pay for his own health issues. The bar owner should pay for the health issues, or quite simply make his patrons aware of the fact that he allows smoking… Then it’s a patron’s decision whether or not to risk the exposure. The bartender is responsible for his own health issues. He doesn’t have to perform that job, and anyone who says that’s not true is pulling an emotionally charged bait and switch. We refer to hazardous duty pay for jobs that have risk built into them. Then the person deciding whether or not to take the job is in the proper place to decide whether he values the money he receives more than the risks. It’s not my fault, or yours, or the employers fault that someone was willing to take that risk for that amount of money. If no-one is wiling to take the risk at a specific wage rate, then the employer raises his wage. At some point, the pay rises to a level sufficient to convince another man to take that risk. It’s still a risk. Coming back after the fact, after you agreed to the risk, and saying that someone else was responsible for the consequences of the smoke, is a lie. A baldfaced lie. If you argue, you didn’t know the risks, then you are a fool.
We don’t reward foolishness in this society. We don’t reward naivety. Rewarding such negligence on the part of an employee, or a business owner, or a consumer, regardless of the emotional details of the result, will result in an increase in those behaviors.
Fraud is a real thing that does happen, but it’s for courts to decide the boundary between fraud, and willful or avoidable ignorance on the part of the complainant. If you specifically and willfully deceive me shame on you. If you assume I know things that I don’t, then shame on me. I should have done the research.
The libertarian viewpoint is one of respecting the rights of other men, especially if the actions he takes are ones you disagree with… The role of courts in the relationship is to arbitrate and redress where your actions directly harm me or my stuff, and I did not consent to it.
The only way to make an argument that I can prevent you from ingesting any substance you want, is by making an argument that the damage you cause to yourself is also my responsibility.
Any other effect that you cause, other than damage to yourself and your own property, must necessarily be damage to someone else and their property. That’s what courts are for. Civil law centers on restitution for harm.
If you want to argue preemption, then we’re in thought crime land. So, anyone want to justify preventing thought crimes?
Alan @ #19 said:
The aim of the war on drugs is to reduce drug abuse, especially amongst the lower-status (especially minors) who need to be protected from the consequences of their own folly. This goes double in the world that post-modern liberalism “made” where moral authorities such as clergy, sergeant-majors and even fathers are apparently bugs, not features, of the new system.
In fact the authorities have the upper hand in the War on Drugs, as witnessed in the drastic reduction of smoking and more generally in the prohibition of alcohol consumption and growth of drug testing in occupations which are high-risk or high-responsibility. Drug prohibition has reduced or at least kept a lid on chronic addiction rates, especially for hard drugs, which I, AFAIK, stand at about 1-2% of the community.
The state of the drug pushers “business model” (or business, as we used to say in English) is a seperate question. Asian and Arabian governments seem to have that matter well in hand. So far as this country is concerned, Howard as usual, made great progress with the War on Drugs by greatly restricting the import of heroin, especially in the aftermath of 911 when authorities had many more intrusive powers at their disposal. Supply and consumption went down, the price went up, yet crime continued on its secular decline.
Alan said:
Do you have any evidence to support this absurd claim? I thought not. In fact alcohol prohibition reduced alcoholism in the US and had many beneficial health and social effects.
Statistics are sketchy on other social effects but anecdotal evidence indicates that the rates of domestic violence (wife beating and child beating) went down.
Grog prohibition certainly helps in the administration of remote indigenous communities and protects indigenous health from the devastating effects of alcohol on their metabolism. (Have you witnessed these places at first hand? I thought not.)
“Everybody knows” that Prohibition was a failure. But, as Twain once joked, “The trouble with the world is not that people know too little, but that they know so many things that ain’t so.”
Smoking is a health issue, and libertarians ought to support the banning of smoking because smokers impose their smoke on others, and those others include children. But really, libertarianism is the antithesis of personal freedom because libertarians want to impose their political and legal system on everyone else regardless of other’s desires. Libertarianism is just another in a long line of monolithic world views that proponents wish to impose on everyone else, no matter what.
Most people don’t wish to live in a libertarian hell, so libertarians should pack up buy some little island (hopefully about to be flooded due to climate change) and go and create their grotesque Nirvana and live there.
That way they could respect our freedom.
Jack, further side discussion etc to Sandpits, please
Perhaps the folk at Catallaxy could fund their proposed campaigns against the judgment by selling t-shirts with the slogan “I comment at right-wing blogs and I vote”.
@Freelander
I did read carefully what you wrote. Where, I repeat, is that happy country that has adopted your program?
Interesting. Can quote but can’t read what they quote.
Don’t play hard to get. Just tell us where your exciting drug-free utopia is.
Alan, I think you’ll find Freelander was being ironic.
@Alan
If you ask me to clarify claims I never made then you are not detailed response worthy.
As for drug users, just a bit of tough love. And we love them so much.
Seems like the Christian thing to do. After all, God loves as so much that he’s planning to sentence many of us to eternal damnation in the fiery pit of hell. Sadly, don’t love drug users that much.
Give us an example of where users have been targeted and the results have been better. We’re all most interested.
I accept there is nowhere on earth that has adopted your actual proposals. Indeed I accept that there is nowhere on earth that is ever likely to adopt your proposals.
“Coming to the policy merits, the current legal status of tobacco is, in my view, a pretty good model for drugs in general – legally available, but with all kinds of promotion prohibited and with an active public health campaign to give accurate information on the associated risks.”
This is the big hands approach to policy. Which drugs matter – there is no generic “drug” out there. Marijuana seems to be socialisable so as to be tolerable, as does alcohol (with time). Heroin, crack cocaine and ice users get a short stick from their families and communities even where law enforcement or control are effectively nil – because most hard-core users end up anomic or psychotic (and a high proportion of users end up hard-core users). So prohibition is appropriate in some circumstances, regulation in others, socialisation in yet others. How to best do regulation, prohibition etc is another debate.
David B: if governments only cared about revenue, they have been remarkably obtuse. A range of government interventions over three decades have reduced tobacco use from 70% of adults to around 16% today (and still dropping).
@Peter T
The idea of an inherent distinction between crack cocaine and powder has been thoroughly refuted. The difference was that (for complex reasons) one form was used mainly by poor blacks and the other (stereotypically at least) by rich whites. Similarly, when heroin was mainly used by medical professionals, it was at least as manageable as alcohol. So, the aim should be to treat all drugs in a way that discourages excessive use and encourages socialisation.
@Peter T
Quite right concerning revenue as the government is clearly not maximizing revenue, and if that was their desire they wouldn’t ban tobacco companies advertising and fund advertising and campaigns against the product. One of the most important libertarian freedoms is freedom of speech or as they would have it freedom to tell porkies.
The air time given by the mass media to the claim by Big Tobacco that plain packaging will encourage counterfeiters is just free advertising.
The argument is based on an implicit assumption that there would be some genuine difference between, say, real Winfield, and counterfeit Winfield and that assumption gains cerdibility every time the argument is aired without challenge.
The problem for big tobacco is that most smokers wouldn’t be able to tell the difference – I certainly couldn’t distinguish between most brands when I, long ago, was a smoker, and the differences I could detect were mostly trivial.
If the only way a smoker can tell it’s a counterfeit is by the packaging, then surely the argument mounted by Big Tobacco is a tacit admission that the branding is no indication whatsoever of the quality of the product, ie it’s bullsh!t.
More generally it seems to me that one need not try to make a policy covering all mood altering substances. They are, after all, pharmacologically different.
With marijuana — I’d licence people to produce patches or a nasal spray to give a specified dose and retail these through licenced outlets. Same deal with heroin, amphetamines, cocaine and MDMA. This cuts problems with smoking in the case of THC and IV based transmission of blood borne disease via sharps in the case of heroin.
People using excessive amounts of any of the drugs could be contacted and assisted onto programs to moderate their usage or “dry out”. Cocaine, speed, heroin would have fairly low threshholds for intervention.
The packaging would separate out the legal market from the illegal market making it easy to track supply and throttle back non-official supply.
If there were official channels to buy these substances at about the cost of production and handling + medical support and follow up, then it’s hard to imagine anyone would go to a street dealer, especially as there would be sanctions and no comeback for being ripped off.
I’d rather outfit them with ankle bracelets.
John
How addictive a drug is, and what effects it has, are not a matter just of its pharmacology. Form of use, settings and so on matter. For instance, most professionals agree that heroin is no more physically addictive than nicotine – but the two have very different outcomes. Used by professionals firmly embedded in their social lives, heroin is manageable. Used by a wide spectrum of society, it is not (which is why heroin addiction is not socially tolerated in opium-producing areas such as the Shan States or Afghanistan). Ditto cocaine (this is not support for differential sentencing). Likewise, widespread use of ice leads to a high level of violence. Not all drugs can be socialised. Prohibition works to keep the user population small and access difficult – it does not seem to have much effect on price as such.
Saying this after ten years working with drug professionals, including a few years on one of the key intergovernmental committees on drug policy.
Crack is very addictive because it’s designed to give a nice big quick hit into the bloodstream and onto the brain in a way other modes of delivery don’t seem to equal.
I think Freeloader opposes drug legalisation because he is worried it might impact the cash flow of his street corner business. Yoh, is that right homey?!