Friday, March 03, 2023

Queensland drug law surprise

What, I go away for a week or so, and when I return my home state has gone all Euro tolerant on drug use?  

Well, not exactly, according to this Vice article looking at the changes, although it does seem to me that the number of chances given to users found with a small amount is one too many.   

It's a bit weird to be seeing this when I have just returned from a trip which went via Singapore on a Singaporean airline, as on arrival at Hanoi, the pilot actually reminded people that under Singaporean law, it's an offence to consume drugs in other countries.   I guess the point is, if they test someone for drug use back at Changi, a Singaporean cannot use the excuse that they hadn't actually taken the drug within Singaporean jurisdiction.

Given my fondness for the Asian countries that have no illicit drug problem to speak of (Singapore, Japan), I have my usual misgivings about being too tolerant of personal use, while at the same time, agreeing that American criminalisation approaches have been at the cost of useful harm reduction  approaches.  

I wonder, incidentally:  has any jurisdiction ever legislated that users who dob in their dealer get a mandatory reduction in sentence (or complete removal of prosecution) for personal use?    I mean, I'm sure that being helpful to the police in that regard is routinely given in sentencing as a reason for leniency, but if you actually legislated that you won't even be prosecuted would seem to be a major incentive for dobbing.

 

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Steve, I wasn't sure if your blog still existed as I haven't been here for years.

FYI, Google rates your blog "unsafe" and warned me about visiting so I had run the gauntlet of the woke Silicon Valley mafia to get here!

Tom.

Steve said...

Hi Tom. I have no idea what the Google thing is about. I think Sinclair Davidson said something similar once, some years ago, when he tried to view it while overseas.

I guess it's about time I tried to work out what the problem is.

However, the ways of Google are mysterious and not always comprehensible by us mere beings of flesh and blood. Perhaps I need to get ChatGTP onto it!

Steve said...

I have done some quick googling, and see that there was one setting change within Blogger that is recommended to try to deal with the problem, which is not an unknown one for many using Blogger, by the looks.

I have made the change, but it also seems it doesn't work for everyone...