Commentary:
Where Have
All the Flowers Gone?
by Professor
Dr. Jacob van der Westhuizen
Professor Dr. Jacob van der Westhuizen is a noted criminologist and the
former director of a major South African criminology research institute; he
currently serves as a Research Consultant to the University of South Africa
where he directs the work of postgraduate students of criminal justice and the
science of asset protection and security control. Dr. van der Westhuizen
received his Bachelor of Arts degree, Bachelor of Arts with honors, Master of
Arts cum laude as well as his Ph.D. degree from the University of South Africa.
He is a member of the International Narcotic Enforcement Officers Association,
the International Police Association, and an Associate Member of the
International Association of Chiefs of Police.
Introduction:
Being at the start of a millennium dedicated
to the Child, it is prudent to allege that man’s life is like a candle in the
wind(1; whereas
Likewise: do not ask around to know where the flowers have gone to, because to our utmost horror and shame must we now learn that no less than 75,000 children die in South Africa annually before they reach the age of five.(3
1.0
What
more does the Record tell us about the children?(4
What
the Record is about to
tell us about the children, is based on statistics released in March 2008 by
the National Department of Health, the Medical Research Council, and the
1.1
Annual rate
of survival
We
cringe to hear that 22,000 of the 75,000 children do not survive longer than
one month after birth. This brings
1.2
Daily
rate of non-survival
According
to the report 260 mothers and children die each day in
1.3
Major
causes of death
The major causes of these deaths are HIV-AIDS; undernourishment; diarrhea; poor health facilities; poor health-care to mothers and children; diseases contracted by mother and child at birth; and complications developed during pregnancy and birth.
1.4
The
formidable role of poverty
Poverty plays a very decisive role in mobilizing the various causes and activating their combined destructive mode that terminates in the death of mother and child. Poverty’s formidable presence and fatal decaying of the quality of life cause a freefall into despair and misery from which there is no escape. Its prominence makes intermingling and intimate association with all sorts of low-life characters and criminal elements a foregone conclusion. Another predictable result of poverty is the facile experimentation with prostitution for additional income in order to make ends meet. Allow alcohol and drug abuse and misuse to be introduced prior to pregnancy, and one has a perfect recipe for protracting HIV-AIDS.
1.5
The
formidable role of HIV-AIDS
The Report states that HIV-AIDS is responsible for 35 percent of child deaths while 11 percent of all children die as a result of diarrhea. Both of these fatal causes of death are predictable, preventable, and treatable.
1.6
The
formidable role of drugs in
The formidable role of drugs in combination with the other minor causes mentioned supra, can not be underestimated as a driver in causing and exacerbating poverty and want. Nowadays a number of ‘new’ forms and shapes of drugs have been introduced into the drug market, simply to boost sales and increase demand.
One
such drug is described by Inspector Jaques Oosthuizen of the Wonderboom Police
Services as being sold on the market as nayope in Tshwane; sugar
in Durban; and pinch in Mapumalanga; these drugs are becoming more and
more popular by the day, for they may play a role in causing crime and fueling
violence.(5
Oosthuizen
says that the drugs heroin and
dagga (marijuana) are rolled into a home-made cigarette (slang: zol, bomb,
gasper, snout, reefer, fag, spliff) after pure heroin has been blended with
baking soda and dental powder.
He says that users usually carry a small mirror and razor-blade with them. This
drug is very popular with youngsters because it is readily available and cheap.
It sells between R20 (2.5 USD) and R50 (6.25 USD) per gram. There are definite
indications and evidence that the drug is used prior to the execution of
crimes. The abuse of this drug has increased since the past year, especially in
northern
1.7 Some
other things that could have been done
Some other things that could have been done to save lives are voiced by one of the reporters as follows: ‘more than 40,000 of these 75,000 mothers and children that die annually, can be saved in the event of improving conditions in the rural and other parts of the country. This simply means that more than half of the mothers and children die each year quite unnecessarily.
1.8
Other
shocking findings by the panel
Other shocking findings by the panel are given below.
q Part of the reason for this phenomenon is that our medical technology and resources do not reach the flash points in time; therefore policy strategies are not at all or very poorly applied.
q Another failure is the lack and shortage of medical services and in transit facilities.
q One third of the children who die early deaths have suffered from undernourishment and more than sixty percent were underweight for their age.
q
More or less 294,000 children who are still alive suffer from HIV-AIDS
currently in
2.0 The
formidable role of drugs in the poverty trap world-wide
2.1 Attempts to glamorize the use of cocaine in
the
According
to Camilla Cavendish, who writes an eye-opening report for The Times,
2.2 Cavendish’s resolve to the drug problem
Cavendish propagates the legalization of drugs by asserting that ‘(as) the celebrity glamorization of drugs is irrelevant, there would be huge benefits from legalization.’{8
She informed and insisted that . . .
q
draconian laws may have fuelled the
q cocaine addicts ‘would not be forced into associating with criminals’ if the drugs trade were legalized;
q there is a thin line between drugs and thugs;
q the most powerful role models are dealers, not celebrities: all over Britain school children encounter men in gold jewelry, flaunting their wealth at school gates, enticing children to enter a career where £1 000 a day can be made.
q Drugs Inc is one of the most profitable, successful enterprises of all time. The UN values it at $330 billion, which is almost as big as the Defense Industry.
q motivation of the sales force is done with what Van der Westhuizen has previously been defined as the silver bullet approach: silver (free samples, discounts for trading up to harder substances) and the bullet (threats of assault, rape, death);
q drugs are currently the second largest revenue earner for organized crime;
q it is estimated that their profit margins are higher than those on luxury
goods, and best of all for the drug lords, they pay no taxes;
q as a direct result of their success in the field rival gangs and syndicates have entered the scene and compete with those in charge on a violent scale and in a war-like manner.
2.3 Cavendish’s bottom line to solve the drug
problem
‘The only way to take back our streets is to wrest back control of the drugs from the criminals, by legalizing and regulating their trade.’(9
2.4 The crunch
¸ Cavendish admits that legalization would make drugs cheaper, but this must be done to undercut the dealers;
¸ she also admits that usage might increase, but she says perhaps not much because usage is already widespread;
¸ she says that the benefits of legalization could be enormous: a) overcrowded prisons would be relieved of convicts in need of treatment rather than punishment; and b) addicts would not be in a position to associate with criminals, in stead children would once more be safe and sound in the schools’ playgrounds.
2.5 Repealed Prohibition(10
6
Cavendish refers to 1933 when the
6 Cavendish follows this up with a nasty knock-out blow by stating that this is a direct result of Drugs Inc, which makes more money from pushing harder substances. Then she delivers another two sharp blows to the falling body by alleging that (11 ‘. . . our laws have created crack, a concentrated form of cocaine, and skunk, a concentrated form of cannabis (marijuana), both of which are devastating’.
6 She further criticize the US for failing to distinguish between recreational and problem users, alleging that the vast majority of people stick to recreational use of cocaine, ecstasy, and substances that even the Strategy Unit has classified as low-risk. She admits that there are of course tragic cases, but they are often caused by impure supply.
6 Annual deaths from drug use (about 2,000) Cavendish regards as
miniscule compared with those related to alcohol and tobacco (about 160,000).
She sounds a warning note that these figures may not be accurate, because of
abuse by some people. However, it is arguable that the violence associated with
the illegal drugs trade does more harm than the drugs themselves. Her appeal
then is to choose the lesser of two evils.
6
Ultimately Cavendish comes to the nitty-gritty of the issue under discussion
when she blames The United Nations for being the biggest barrier to progress.
She says it is an irony to experience how their ideological war on drugs makes
it almost impossible for countries to be pragmatic. For example, the UN has
demanded that
6
In the final analysis the only way to make the streets safe, says Cavendish, is
to wipe Drugs Inc off the map. And the only way to accomplish just that is to
legalize drugs. That would be the most effective way to redraw the production
map, because drug bosses from
3.0 The road ahead
3.1 The Cavendish bottom line encourages
private drug production
To the Cavendish bottom line we can add that legalization would certainly see how marijuana and other drugs would be cultivated and manufactured in each and every backyard to supplement the income of citizens. This would of course, call for legislation to regulate the production, distribution and trade of a unknown number of straight and mixed adulterated and contaminated substances that could be bought along different legalized routes which have been out of bounds for a long time.
3.2 More taboos, prescriptions, criminal
offenders, and fatalities
We might end up with more taboos and prescriptions and also with more offenders of criminal laws, patients, and fatalities that have to be investigated or treated for overindulgence than we have had before. One sultry and alarming consequence of the legalization of drugs is the expectation that thousands of school-going children and perhaps as many pre-school youths would begin to experiment with drugs across the board, ingesting fatal drugs, such as LSD and Crack Cocaine. But even if they decide on starting off with marijuana or any one of the lesser evils on the drug list, their brain capacity and learning motivation will fall by the roadside.
3.3 A major type of threat generated through victim-criminal interaction(13
This major type of threat generated through
victim-criminal interaction has been explained in a paper called ‘A globalized
drug-free world’ by the author as follows:
The most appropriate example of a widespread, general victimization type of the third kind (the first kind being reflected by the routes followed from the demand to supply of drugs along legal and illegal means and pathways)
is given below.
3.4 Legal and illegal demand and supply of drugs on a micro (personal)
level and on a macro (commercial) level
3.5 A brief description of the various pathways
Micro-path One: from legal supply to legal demand
Legal doctor’s and pharmacist’s prescriptions are used by patients to procure drugs in a legal way.
Micro-path Two: from illegal supply to illegal demand
Drug lords, drug peddlers, and drug mules are contacted to procure drugs in an illegal way.
Micro-path Three: from legal supply to illegal demand
Drug addicts (even those who got addicted by using legal prescriptions) bribe or force doctors or pharmacists at gunpoint or by other means to supply them with drugs. (Note: in fact, it is not legally supplied, because the so-called legal suppliers of drugs succumb to illegal demands, thus becoming illegal suppliers.) Alternatively, illegal demands may lead to burglary, theft, corruption, extortion, blackmail, bribery, or robbery to satisfy the craving for drugs and the avoidance of withdrawal symptoms.
Micro-path Four: from illegal supply to legal demand
Legal demands for drugs by desperately-ill patients can sometimes go awry when a doctor or pharmacist refuses to supply the drugs; whereupon the patient may decide to procure the drugs by a) holding up the suppliers at gunpoint; or b) buying the drugs from a drug peddler.
3.6 A brief description of two pathways on the macro level
Macro-path One: from illegal supply to legal demand
Recent media reports exposed a macro-path by means of which stolen medicines find their way to pharmacies (i.e. following an illegal path from a supply store to a legal demand store) from where they are distributed legally to patients, despite being long past their shelf-life.
Macro-path Two: from illegal demand to legal supply
Recent conjectures have it that illegal macro-paths had been created in the past by means of which medicines find their way from unspecified legal suppliers to the demand stores of unspecified illegal suppliers of drugs from where they were distributed legally to ‘customers’ and to retail outlets.
3.7 Need to preserve route one for
conventional patients
Route one would still be open for patients who suffer from conventional complaints and illnesses assisted by medical doctors and specialists to get the necessary prescribed medication.
3.8 Re-definition of other routes
Routes two, three, and four will have to be re-defined and authorized for entry by thousands of addicts. It would not be a viable proposition to allow them to join current medical schemes before an impact study has been made to gauge all the various consequences involved.
4.0 In
conclusion
In conclusion one feels desperate to state that whatever government-sanctioned drug policy would adopt the Cavendish line of reasoning, is sure to bring on more problems than answers to the current drug conundrum. Although the world at large has allowed our children the luxury of taking the rap for their actions and reactions and for the acts they do not commit, it would be unfair, at this stage at least, to push them overboard into the deep end of the drug-infested pool and to expect them from coming through the ordeal unscathed.
We are still responsible for their health, well-being, and performance. Let it not be said one day that we were too lazy, too careless, and too lenient to guarantee a happy life for them.
5.0 References
1.0 Chinese proverb quoted by Rosalind Fergusson 1983-1995 in The Penguin
Dictionary of Proverbs.
Paraphrase of a song by Elton
Madonna, but afterwards to Princess Diana upon her tragic death
2.0
Quotations.
3.0 Record Moot. Friday March 21 , 2008. p.5 : statistics released in March 2008
by the National Department of Health, the Medical Research Council, and
the
4.0 ibid
5.0 Jacques Oosthuizen, quoted by Werner
Wapenaar. ‘ This drug becomes
more and more popular by the day, for it may play a role in causing crime.’
Beeld, Wednesday April 2, 2008. p. 4
6.0 ibid
7.0 Camilla Cavendish: ‘Cocaine from the
chemist’ in The Times,
by Sunday Times, Lifestyle, March 16 , 2008. p. 10.
8.0 ibid
9.0 ibid
10.0 ibid
11.0 ibid
12.0 ibid
13.0 Van der Westhuizen, Jacob. ‘A Globalized Drug-Free World’ 2007 The BWW
Society: Bibliotheque World Wide. pp. 2-4
Jacob van der
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