Each legalislation proposal will answer these
questions in a somewhat different way.
Facts, figures and examples drive the dialogue,
all applicable to the existing scene in America,
with some of the information irrelevant to Australia,
but in the main, the arguments are universal.
Mr Goode dwells on the tobacco and alcohol issues
and relates them to what may happen if we decriminalise
illicit drugs. He cautions against morality and
ideology playing a central role in matters of
legal and public policy.
Mr Goode interprets the arguments presented sometimes
quite subjectively. In places I detected a `twist
to suit'. There are statements he makes that I
do not agree with, e.g. `most drug abusers are
typically uneducated, unskilled and essentially
unemployable. Being able to obtain drugs legally
will not change the fact that most drug abusers,
now and in the future, are low impulse control,
high-crime perpetrators'.
And in places, he glosses over points that do
not fit his argument, e.g. analyses of less punitive
systems in other countries.
However, for anyone interested in the academics,
doctrinaires, hypotheses and philosophies behind
the legalislation/decriminalisation debate, Between
Politics and Reason is a concise informative read.
