when it comes to “drugs”...

…can’t we move past the simplistic, black-and-white pap being doled out by our beloved Prime Minister Howard following the death-penalty verdicts handed down to two of the Bali nine? It’s so tiresome, listening to somebody like Howard – whose views on morality are given disproportionate weight, thanks (for better or worse; I would argue the latter in the case of most things Howard has to say) to our political system – coming out with this “drugs are bad” crap. Surely (SURELY???) the Australian public can cope with something a little more nuanced…? Which drugs are bad? In what circumstances? For whom? Let’s see – booze is OK because it’s legal; marijuana is bad because it’s not. Prescription drugs are OK because they’re legal, but only if a doctor says so. Nicotine is bad, but we let that one go because, well, we’re never going to stamp it out and, after all, the tobacco companies are pretty powerful and do give us lots of taxes. But that argument won’t work with any of the illegal recreational drugs, because they’re evil. And so on. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that there’s a bit more to it all than “drugs are bad"; this is hardly revolutionary thinking. You’d think that considering a few shades of grey wouldn’t be the most radical thing we could ever do.