Drug Bill Not About Fighting Crime

BEFORE I start, let me be crystal clear: I do not advocate drug trafficking or drug use.

I have seen what it does and I have seen enough. But there are drugs and there are drugs, just as there are various degrees of breaking the laws against drugs.The world is not black and white.One simply cannot declare a blanket punishment to cover every possible offence.But we did.Worst-case scenario: Picture an 18-year-old boy, still at school, whose youthful curiosity led to one zol too many.By the time he breathes free air again, he will be 38.He won’t have a grade 12 degree or tertiary education, with zero understanding of society and its inner workings.He will have an extremely well-honed insight into all things criminal instead.After costing the taxpayer money for 20 years, without contributing a blue cent to the economy, such a person will be without the necessary skills and means to earn an honest living.So chances are that he will continue doing what he was taught best.Break the law! And where exactly, in all this, did we fight a single crime, or save a single soul? We didn’t even have a criminal to start with! WE CREATED ONE INSTEAD.We couldn’t find the rapist, so we jailed the victim! But fighting crime is not what the Drug Bill is all about, is it? Instead, it is designed to tighten the stranglehold the Government has over its people even more.It grants free access to our homes, without a search warrant.It does not grant, but virtually assures, that this and future governments can remove free thinkers (let’s call them Anon, for the sake of this argument) by planting evidence, which is in abundant and untraceable supply in basically every Police station in the country, in Anon’s house.It guarantees free access to Anon’s hard drive.If “found” in sufficient quantities, Anon may even be forced to further the cause of the Government with his life savings.A lot more convenient than the dungeons of Lubango, I say! It is of course possible that I suffer from conspiracy theory syndrome.But then why does the United Nations convention against illicit drugs of 1998, read in isolation of all supporting documentation, suggest no penal response for users whatsoever, but only for traffickers, manufacturers and dealers.It specifically suggests rehabilitation of users, NOT incarceration.Why would a nation (that does not have a single sniffer dog) want to fight drugs by accessing electronic data of drug users? Why would it want to target nightclub owners who were not even mentioned in the convention? Why would it, if Namibia’s response is the only way to meet its requirements, be underwritten and chaired by the Netherlands? It seems as if our new Drug Bill is an answer to something, but it’s not to the 1998 convention, and certainly not to our drug problem.Some reading suggestions that may help my faithful reader make up his/her own mind: www.unodc.org/pdf/convetion_1988_en.pdf en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Convention_on_Narcotic_Drugs Arthur Goetz WindhoekBut there are drugs and there are drugs, just as there are various degrees of breaking the laws against drugs.The world is not black and white.One simply cannot declare a blanket punishment to cover every possible offence.But we did.Worst-case scenario: Picture an 18-year-old boy, still at school, whose youthful curiosity led to one zol too many.By the time he breathes free air again, he will be 38.He won’t have a grade 12 degree or tertiary education, with zero understanding of society and its inner workings.He will have an extremely well-honed insight into all things criminal instead.After costing the taxpayer money for 20 years, without contributing a blue cent to the economy, such a person will be without the necessary skills and means to earn an honest living.So chances are that he will continue doing what he was taught best.Break the law! And where exactly, in all this, did we fight a single crime, or save a single soul? We didn’t even have a criminal to start with! WE CREATED ONE INSTEAD.We couldn’t find the rapist, so we jailed the victim! But fighting crime is not what the Drug Bill is all about, is it? Instead, it is designed to tighten the stranglehold the Government has over its people even more.It grants free access to our homes, without a search warrant.It does not grant, but virtually assures, that this and future governments can remove free thinkers (let’s call them Anon, for the sake of this argument) by planting evidence, which is in abundant and untraceable supply in basically every Police station in the country, in Anon’s house.It guarantees free access to Anon’s hard drive.If “found” in sufficient quantities, Anon may even be forced to further the cause of the Government with his life savings.A lot more convenient than the dungeons of Lubango, I say! It is of course possible that I suffer from conspiracy theory syndrome.But then why does the United Nations convention against illicit drugs of 1998, read in isolation of all supporting documentation, suggest no penal response for users whatsoever, but only for traffickers, manufacturers and dealers.It specifically suggests rehabilitation of users, NOT incarceration.Why would a nation (that does not have a single sniffer dog) want to fight drugs by accessing electronic data of drug users? Why would it want to target nightclub owners who were not even mentioned in the convention? Why would it, if Namibia’s response is the only way to meet its requirements, be underwritten and chaired by the Netherlands? It seems as if our new Drug Bill is an answer to something, but it’s not to the 1998 convention, and certainly not to our drug problem.Some reading suggestions that may help my faithful reader make up his/her own mind: www.unodc.org/pdf/convetion_1988_en.pdf en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Convention_on_Narcotic_Drugs Arthur Goetz Windhoek