[Lazy days]

The esteemed representative from Groot Gouda invited the people of Lazy days to post a draft resolution they feel follows the precedence furthered by the overwhelming vote for international labeling standards. This is not a drug legalization issue because it does not decriminalize or legalize drugs, and, to the best of our knowledge, it does not seem to be addressed by the universal declaration of rights or any other human rights proposal already passed by the UN.

Therefore:

"Freedom For All"

A Draft Proposal to Increase Worldwide Human and Civil Rights

Strength: Strong

Article I: The United Nations hereby recognizes the universal human right to be free.

Article II: Every country has a right to incarcerate individuals who harm other people or the state itself.

Article III: However, many nations incarcerate people for harm they inflict on themselves by using drugs.

Article IV: Therefore, no nation may incarcerate someone for the growth, possession, transport, distribution, or use of recreational or medicinal drugs.

Article V: No nation may extradite or otherwise transfer a person charged with a crime listed under Article IV to another nation whose laws allow for incarceration for the offense.

Article VI: Nothing in this resolution affects the legality of drugs in member nations. It only affects the punishments which nations may apply for drug-related offenses.


As this is a draft that has reached my office through the cooperation of several human rights groups, we would be grateful for the feedback of the IDU.

Also, I will offer thoughts on the most likely objections:

1) "Using drugs is wrong" It is more wrong to deprive people of their freedom. This is a fundamental right, upon which other rights depend. Also, incarceration does not have much of an effect on drug use. Even in prisons, drugs are widely available. Finally, citizens should not be subject to the arbitrary whims of which drugs are wrong.

2) "Telling leaders how to run their country is wrong" It has become clear to Lazy days that the international community completely rejects this principle. The people of Lazy days would prefer to work within that framework and would in fact support the repeal efforts necessary to realize that vision of international relations. Until then, human rights clearly reign supreme.

3) "Drugs make people do bad things" This resolution explicitly allows for the incarceration of people who do bad things. People who do not do bad things should not be deprived of their freedom simply because a few people who use drugs also do bad things.

Again, the people of Lazy days thank you for this opportunity to hear feedback on a fundamental human right.

[Groot Gouda]

By writing about drugs, you should really use the Recreational Drugs category, because this resolution de-facto legalizes them.

I'd add a pre-amble, where you can make clear why you're writing this resolution. There you can sum up some earlier resolutions and explain why this resolutions adds something to them. Then you can continue with the articles you've written now.

Personally, I'm in favour of the standard UN format (ACKNOWLEDGING earlier resolutions, etc etc, The UN hereby RECOGNIZES the universal right to be free, AFFIRMS the right to incarcerate, but EXEMPTS from that right offences involving possession etc,).

That makes a clear distinction to why you're writing this, and what the resolution actually does.

Oh, and as for freedom to do with your body what you want, the Sex Industry Workers Act used that right as well by allowing prostitution (because it's not up to the government what you do with your body).

It's a difficult issue though, because many nations object to forced legalization of what they consider morally wrong.

I hope these comments help you improve your resolution. It's a good start you have though!

[Adam Island]

You can still fine them or shoot them, so its not legalizing, but it should still go in that category. It's hard for me to see this passing, given all the nations that like to incarcerate their drug dealers and how the resolution doesn't deal with international issues other than the extradition part.

[Lazy days]

Thanks to you both for your comments. The fact that many nations object on grounds that they shouldn't be told how to run their countries is precisely why this makes the perfect human rights test case. If the right to freedom cannot pass, how can any other right be sanctioned by the UN? The right to know what is in the food you eat? I mean no offense, but that has less to do with international issues than punishments for drug offenses. Look at RL foreign policy. The main labeling issue on the international agenda is GMO, which isn't even addressed by the resolution. Drug policy and extradition, meanwhile, are both huge issues in foreign affairs. Food labeling is also ridiculously unimportant in relation to not being incarcerated. [As a sidenote, the people of Lazy days have clearly voiced their demand for specific labeling of any good sold in the country. These comments only reflect the act of forcing other countries to establish similar laws.]

As far as being international, the drug trade (both recreational and medicinal) is one of the largest industries in the world. I'm pretty sure it's much much larger than agricultural trade. But regardless of that, the right to be free from unwarranted imprisonment is a much more established and sought after right to enforce on other nations (which is what a NSUN resolution on human rights is, forcing other countries to do something they don't want to do) than is forcing other countries to put the right languages and nutritional information on their products and to not misuse organic and fresh.

I don't want to make this a practical argument about legalization, because that matter is essentially settled. There are plenty of reasons to make certain drugs illegal, but they have nothing to do with making society better. The justification for a law is a lot different than the actual affects of a law. Proponents of criminalization can claim anything they want. It doesn't change the facts; namely, that drug laws are inconsistently applied, hypocritical, ignorant of science, and do more harm than good. They are extremely immoral. Study alcohol prohibition in the United States if you simply refuse to believe the facts.

This resolution does not prevent a country from banning alcohol or Vicadin or whatever. It simply makes it illegal to lock someone up for drinking alcohol or taking Vicadin or growing marijuana and so on.

Respectfully submitted,
Special Commission on Human Rights in Lazy days

[Antrium]

Lazy daysSep 28 2005, 02:06 PM This resolution does not prevent a country from banning alcohol or Vicadin or whatever.  It simply makes it illegal to lock someone up for drinking alcohol or taking Vicadin or growing marijuana and so on. [/quote]
If you're not allowing countries to send people to jail for drugs, then isn't that basically making it legal?
I know that it's not making it totally legal, but if you don't put them in jail, then your only options are fines and the death penalty. Why just specify no jail time? I could be misunderstanding the point of the proposal here but I don't understand why you wouldn't allow jail but you would allow the death penalty.

[Groot Gouda]

Lazy daysSep 28 2005, 09:06 PM As far as being international, the drug trade (both recreational and medicinal) is one of the largest industries in the world. I'm pretty sure it's much much larger than agricultural trade. But regardless of that, the right to be free from unwarranted imprisonment is a much more established and sought after right to enforce on other nations (which is what a NSUN resolution on human rights is, forcing other countries to do something they don't want to do) than is forcing other countries to put the right languages and nutritional information on their products and to not misuse organic and fresh. [/quote]
But that's a different resolution. That's not about drugs specifically. What you are talking about here is about the freedom to do with your body what you want. If you can state that, without any reference to taking drugs, it's Human Rights.

What you're also doing then, in a sneaky way, is pave the way for a legalize recreational drugs resolution. Which you can propose after the first one passes. Then you might actually have a chance to legalize drugs, which would have full support from my nation.

Quote: I don't want to make this a practical argument about legalization, because that matter is essentially settled.  There are plenty of reasons to make certain drugs illegal, but they have nothing to do with making society better.  The justification for a law is a lot different than the actual affects of a law.  Proponents of criminalization can claim anything they want.  It doesn't change the facts; namely, that drug laws are inconsistently applied, hypocritical, ignorant of science, and do more harm than good.  They are extremely immoral.  Study alcohol prohibition in the United States if you simply refuse to believe the facts.[/quote]

True, but that's not the issue here. The issue is that you're trying to pass a legalize-drugs-resolution under the wrong category, and I cannot believe the mods will simply let that happen.

Quote: This resolution does not prevent a country from banning alcohol or Vicadin or whatever.  It simply makes it illegal to lock someone up for drinking alcohol or taking Vicadin or growing marijuana and so on.[/quote]

As I and others said, that's essentially making it illegal. You can't say nations aren't allowed to punish people using drugs, but that they can still make it illegal. What do you propose nations do against (recreational) drugs if they can't lock up people taking or trading them?

[Lawtonia]

This is clearly a national issue and not one for the UN. We decided via our "Issues" what is legal in our nation and what is not. In most Real Life countries it is not illegal to take drugs - it is however illegal to possess, buy or sell them.
I think it is fair that you should be able to do to yourself what ever you like - assuming you don't live in a state where the government has legal possession of you as a citizen.

Governments have a responsibility to protect their citizens - both the drug takers and those who choose not to. This is achieved by progressive drug policies such as rehabilitation and harm minimisation for those not undergoing rehab.

However people have to accept responsibility for their actions. If a person commits a crime whilst under the influence of a recreational drug (or a prescription drug that has been deliberately consumed in a manner contrary to the prescription), they should be incarcerated for that crime or whatever the appropriate penalty for that crime is, just as they would if they killed a person whilst driving under the influence of alcohol.

Article IV is a completely different issue. It is not a public safety issue but a criminal one. The transport and trade of drugs involves high levels of organised crime. I am referring to all drugs not just the illegal ones, even alcohol, tobacco and prescription medications are traded by organised crime to circumvent government taxes to fund anything from illegal weapons manufacture to terrorism. The only way to lessen this would be to make all drugs legal in every nation and have them non-regulated so you could buy them in a supermarket. That way the would be available to everyone at market prices and criminals would no longer be interested in trading them.

Drugs are a very complex issue, don't try to simplify it by putting it into one resolution. If you want international drug reform that every UN member will agree to, break it up into very specific issues and tackle them one at a time. Drugs are not just a human rights issue.

Just remember, although some of us like to indulge in the recreational substance of our choice and should have the right to do so, there are many others out there who choose not to and have a right to go about their lives without it being affected by drugs or by those who take them.

(gets of soapbox)

[Groot Gouda]

LawtoniaOct 1 2005, 03:04 AM This is clearly a national issue and not one for the UN. We decided via our "Issues" what is legal in our nation and what is not. In most Real Life countries it is not illegal to take drugs - it is however illegal to possess, buy or sell them.
[...]
Article IV is a completely different issue. It is not a public safety issue but a criminal one. The transport and trade of drugs involves high levels of organised crime. I am referring to all drugs not just the illegal ones, even alcohol, tobacco and prescription medications are traded by organised crime to circumvent government taxes to fund anything from illegal weapons manufacture to terrorism. The only way to lessen this would be to make all drugs legal in every nation and have them non-regulated so you could buy them in a supermarket. [/quote]
Which is precisely why recreational drugs are not a national issue. Only by legalization in all nations can we remove the criminal element from it. That doesn't mean without regulation, that is still necessary. Minimum ages, places where you can't sell it (near schools for example), instances where you're not allowed to use them (in traffic, etc), that's all regulation.

[Lawtonia]

I agree entirely - I think the overall point I'm trying to make is that this resolution has no chance of passing in its present form

[Lazy days]

The people of Lazy days believe they have successfully demonstrated the gross inconsistency by which the claim to national sovereignty is applied. The essential complaint by respondents about this hypothetical resolution is that it in effect forces countries to legalize drugs (it doesn't, by the way; there are a wide variety of punishments besides jail time, not the least of which is the act of being convicted of a drug crime itself). The very fact that people claim this is really about legalizing drugs reveals just how absurd it is to claim as a human rights issue the right to know what is in the food people eat.

When the people of Lazy days objected to the labeling resolution because it forced some countries to do things they don't want to do, they were politely and not so politely told their place; namely, that they should leave the UN if they wanted to argue something so backward and pass? as the right for national leaders to judge for themselves the best course of action for their country. With a very simple and straightforward resolution, one that addresses a far more important human rights issue than whether something is organic or not, it has been clearly demonstrated that in fact national sovereignty is alive and kickin'.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of preserving NSUN human rights resolutions for important human rights issues,
the People of Lazy days

[Groot Gouda]

Lazy daysOct 8 2005, 10:16 PM The people of Lazy days believe they have successfully demonstrated the gross inconsistency by which the claim to national sovereignty is applied. The essential complaint by respondents about this hypothetical resolution is that it in effect forces countries to legalize drugs (it doesn't, by the way; there are a wide variety of punishments besides jail time, not the least of which is the act of being convicted of a drug crime itself). The very fact that people claim this is really about legalizing drugs reveals just how absurd it is to claim as a human rights issue the right to know what is in the food people eat. [/quote]
No, you're missing the point. We have a category for recreational drugs in the UN, and that's where this resolution belongs in the current way it's written. This is a different issue from whether we agree with the point or not; it's something the mods will punish you for and we're trying to help you prevent that. It also has nothing to do with national sovereignity; in fact, though I doubt a majority will agree with me in the whole NSUN, I'd be for legalizing drugs.

Also, if I follow the reasoning of your explanation, then what's the point of this resolution? People can't be put in jail for drug use etc, but the death penalty is still an option. Or forced treatment. Both worse than jail. So what are you trying to accomplish?

Quote: When the people of Lazy days objected to the labeling resolution because it forced some countries to do things they don't want to do, they were politely and not so politely told their place; namely, that they should leave the UN if they wanted to argue something so backward and pass? as the right for national leaders to judge for themselves the best course of action for their country.  With a very simple and straightforward resolution, one that addresses a far more important human rights issue than whether something is organic or not, it has been clearly demonstrated that in fact national sovereignty is alive and kickin'.[/quote]

Resolutions based purely on National Sovereignity rarely get a majority. This is because it's silly to join up the UN voluntarily and then complain that the UN shouldn't tell you how to run your country. The UN is either pointless or tells you how to run your country. But that's another discussion.

[Lazy days]

We understand there is a category for drugs. But there's also a category for human rights. This proposal addresses incarceration for victimless crimes. Victimless obviously requires definition. As there are already NSUN resolutions addressing sex workers, the other major area of victimless crimes are drug-related; therefore the specific mention of which crimes are forbidden from offering sentences of incarceration. (If it didn't specifically identify drug crimes, then the critique would be that it is too vague.)

The point wasn't to get hypertechnical about whether the mods would actually accept this as a human rights resolution (the lawyers of Lazy days have been restrained from making such a detailed account thus far). The point was to further the discussion about what constitutes a human rights resolution. Are you advocating for the UN to say that anything related to another category can't be considered a human rights issue? If that is the case, there is no way the labeling resolution can be considered a human rights issue. Did you fail to apply the same rigor to that resolution due to its genesis in the IDU, or are you saying that the prison system can't address human rights issues but that the words on a consumer product can?

Regardless, the Special Commission on Human Rights of Lazy days will always advocate that the right to be free is a central, fundamental human right.

Of course there are related issues: the equity of fines for rich and poor in a criminal justice system, access to defense counsel (for countries with due process), disenfranchisement (under political systems that allow voting), the use of public punishments, the use of corporal punishment, court mandated treatment programs, the imposition of the death penalty, and so on, but a resolution can only address so much. People's rights will be better secured after passage of the resolution; that's enough.

Unfortunately, the prison-industrial complex itself has convinced people drug punishments are somehow distinct activities from other human rights issues. Reducing incarceration won't address many of the practical consequences of the criminalization of drug use (organized crime, property theft, international terrorism and drug warlords, chemical impurities, loss of tax revenue, and so forth), but it will help address one of the clearest and most severe infringements of a core human right of any activity of any government in the world. What exactly, the people of Lazy days wonder, is a more pure defense of human rights? (We would argue vigorously that this is a much more pure defense of human rights than anything offered in defense of the right to know what is in the food people eat.)

[Groot Gouda]

Lazy daysOct 11 2005, 06:16 AM We understand there is a category for drugs. But there's also a category for human rights. This proposal addresses incarceration for victimless crimes. Victimless obviously requires definition. [/quote]
If that's what you want, you'll have to remove articles IV-VI and replace them with more generally phrased articles, where you clarify without specific examples that victimless crimes shouldn't be punished with incarceration or physical punishments such as flogging and the death penalty. That would increase the quality of your resolution, improve the chances of getting a majority and make it clear what you really want. And it'd be human rights without a shadow of a doubt.