You don't own your body - the government does

Jim Anderton's proud announcement, like big daddy telling off all the children - that it's good for them and they wont be allowed party pills anymore, is utterly sickening. Not PC has so much of this right. It is immoral and it wont work.

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You see the point to me is simple.

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I own my body because I am an adult. As a result of that, I have the right to ingest whatever the hell I like. Think about it for a moment. If I forced you to ingest something, you'd be infuriated. What if I told you that you were not allowed to have that cake, or that drink, or whatever in your own home? Why does anyone else have the right to stop you putting anything into your body?

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Ahhh.... you say, but what if taking that substance makes me reckless and likely to harm others. Well then, you should be responsible for your behaviour under the influence of that substance. Your employer probably has a condition of your employment contract that you don't turn up for work that way for safety reasons. However, it is your risk to take. Remember we allow people to drink alcohol, and taking a lot of sugar can also affect behaviour. You're an ADULT - you know, like Jim Ol Son - Great Commander of your bodily ingestion. Why does HE know better?

Ah.... you say, but this might be bad for me. Indeed, it might. In fact, most things you ingest can be bad for you. Swallow half a kilo of butter everyday and you might find your arteries harden up. Drink 20 litres of water a day and you might end up in hospital. Don't drink anything in a day, and you'll be listless and maybe constipated. Paint a room without opening windows, and you might find yourself feeling faint. The list is endless. Thousands of people have taken party pills and their health remains fine. Do you think you need Jim Anderton to tell you so?

So what IS this about. Quite simply, Anderton is on a personal crusade about drugs besides alcohol because of his family circumstances. He would rather criminalise those who take the substance and distribute it, than deal with the cultural reasons why some people act stupidly with certain drugs.

The National Party, ever the sellout to its principles of less government, more personal responsibility and more freedom, is jumping on this bandwagon because it hasn't the guts to stand up and say - hold on, prohibition doesn't work and it is immoral. Jacqui Dean said "The longer he has delayed, the more young people believe you need to take a pill to have a good time". How fucking patronising and ignorant? So she thinks that banning it will fix it? Nothing like the naive, and the head prefect attitude of wanting to make rules for the bad kids to have to follow or they'll be punished. THIS attitude shows so much that is still wrong with the National Party - no principle, kneejerk populist policy and virtually no objective assessment as to effectiveness, just bandwagon jumping.

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The Greens have opposed this, maybe not entirely on principle, but they do get credit for getting this somewhat right.

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So what will happen?

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The price of BZP will go up substantially after it is banned, it will become a lot cooler and more exciting, and its quality will slip. Less parents will know their kids have taken it, and less people will admit to A & E that they took it, or tell doctors that they have. Some people will have their lives ruined by the Police, courts and prison system penalising them for having a good time or selling the means for others to do so. Oh, and you'll find gangs will get involved in selling it, and it will be sold with cannabis, crystal meth and the like - so BZP will truly become an entrance drug into a wider market of substances.

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Brilliance, such short sighted brilliance.

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I hope the families and friends of those who get ruined because the quality of BZP plummets and becomes more poisonous, or those who fear admitting to doctors they take it for fear of being prosecuted, or those prosecuted for the crime of putting something into their own bodies, go and thank Anderton, Jacqui Dean and the other fascists against personal freedom for repeating a failed policy. Can't the likes of them (and the MPs who will support it like the robots they are) leave peaceful people alone?