Phoney War

Martha's friends mourn at the site of her death

The mother of a 15-year-old Oxford girl, Martha Fernback, who died after taking ecstasy says she forgives the pusher who sold her daughter the class A drug.  Anne-Marie Cockburn said that the dealer, Alex Williams, 17, “is still young enough to make amends in his life”.

She also felt that “the ‘war on drugs’ is not working. I think as a nation we need to look at it and be more realistic about it.”

What being “more realistic” about drugs amounts to Ms Cockburn made clear by expressing her hope that the dealer who supplied the lethal drug to her daughter, would work with her to “raise awareness” and change people’s minds about legalising and regulating drugs.

The war on drugs has failed according to Ms Cockburn because, “Martha was a middle-class girl in a north Oxford school and look what happened.”

Whilst I keenly sympathise with Ms Cockburn’s loss, her proposed solution is both morally repugnant and preposterous.

War on drugs

Not least of the reasons for the unpopularity of the ‘war on drugs’ is that the phrase was first used by that darling of the left, Richard Nixon, in 1971.  Backed by the outrage of the “moral majority,” Nixon finally called time on 60s’ hedonism with a dramatic expansion of federal drug control agencies and tougher sentencing.

The image the left conjures up four decades later with their trope that “the war on drugs has failed” is that of a cruel relentless attack on the innocent victims of drugs who are more in need of treatment and support than prison time.

But the tragic case of Martha Fernback illustrates the fact that far from waging a war on drugs the British state could scarcely be more accommodating to illegal drug suppliers and addicts.

Martha bought a class A drug, the possession of which is supposedly punishable by a maximum sentence of seven years. She was then so fearful of this terrible prospect that she decided to take the drug in the company of numerous friends and then to go for a walk through a park in the centre of Oxford. She was, of course, well aware that the chance of anybody challenging her life-choice on moral grounds or punishing her for it was virtually nil.

Then consider the experience of her pusher, who with a previous drug offence, was caught supplying a class A drug (maximum sentence life), and had caused the death of a 15-year-old school girl. If the war on drugs were being fought on any level at all he would have been trembling in his tracksuit bottoms at the prospect of substantial prison time. But Williams was only too aware of the sham that is UK anti-drug policy. So, far from an abject desire to insinuate himself with the authorities in the hope of a slightly reduced sentence he actually refused to tell the police who else he had supplied his particularly dangerous batch of MDMA to despite the their pleading for his assistance.

This is what the 'war on drugs' amounts to these days. For supplying a class A drug, and after the death of one of his customers, and after his evil refusal to assist the police in preventing another tragedy, Alex Williams was spared prison. He was given a youth rehabilitation order and his activities including some charity work will be monitored for 18 months. Oh, and he has to wear an electronic tag for 90 days. War on drugs? What war?
                     

In her sentencing speech judge Mowat empathises with the terrible grief expressed by Martha’s deluded mother in her victim impact statement. It turns out that she is well qualified to do so as she herself also has an only daughter. The judge then very delicately alludes to Williams’ crime with the remark that: “There is no escaping the fact that, in part, because of your actions a bright young girl aged 15 lost her life.” But finally having dealt with those peripheral matters the judge reveals the main factor behind her sentencing decision. Outweighing his serious crime, and the tragic death of a schoolgirl and his evil refusal to assist the police, judge Mowat found that she agreed with Williams defence counsel that he “would not benefit from prison”.

Really? Does anybody? Is that what it’s for?

But we all know where she’s coming from. What’s the good of punishing this 17-year-old? It won’t bring Martha back. And as all enlightened people know the war on drugs has failed.

But has it?

Maybe the war on drugs, like the war on theft, the war on corruption, and the war on murder can only be fought, not won.

Does anybody suggest we legalise theft, corruption and murder because we have been unable for thousands of years to eradicate them?

According to the BBC, ecstasy kills about 20 young people a year, and that’s just the headline grabbing cost. Like cannabis it also causes a long list of psychological and physiological costs including anxiety, depression, impaired attention span, exhaustion, insomnia, liver and kidney failure and strokes. Like cannabis it could be described as an “anti good-citizen drug because it seems almost designed to increase the disengaged and dependent population. Perhaps that’s why leftists are so keen on legalising it.  

But to any member of the ever diminishing “moral majority” these costs are a convincing case for ecstasy’s place on the class A drugs list and an excellent reason for fighting drugs with the same energy as all those other unwinnable wars against theft, corruption and murder.

Drugs are far from being a victimless crime. But unlike theft, corruption and murder the victims are not simply those individuals whose lives are ruined. The biggest victim will be our still relatively civilised, democratic society.

The phoney war on drugs has failed!

It’s time to end the phoney war.

And start a real one.