The Tyranny of the Administrative State

Asinine Tyrannical Law

The administrative state is one which busies itself organising the lives of its citizens.  Granted, there must be a certain body of administrative law.  Road rules, which prevent accidents, are an excellent example.  But more and more secular Western states seek to administer the lives of their citizens by means of endless administrative regulations.

Breaches of administrative law result in fines and eventual imprisonment.  Note that under administrative law the "criminal" might not have done any actual harm to his neighbour's life or property.  His "crime" was that he transgressed an administrative law which had been promulgated to prevent any harm to his neighbour in the first place.  Administrative law is what we call "cocoon" law.  It is preventative in nature and intent.  But the outcome is a progressive statist tyranny, where, in the end, the only part of the human anatomy not regulated by government rules, regulations, and statutes is the rear end.  For every other human function and activity there are bureaucratically promulgated rules and regulations.

One of the consequences is gross injustice.  Another is that the law progressively becomes an ass.  Yet another is the rise of crime.  Administrative law, by prohibiting certain proscribed activities produces the  unintended consequence of huge opportunities for industrialised criminals and criminal gangs.  There are plenty of laws to be broken which, if done successfully, the fruits of which can result in strong public demand and a rip-roaring business.  Drugs and alcohol and tobacco are apt examples.

A further unintended consequence of administrative law is rising disrespect for the law itself.  The citizenry come to see the law as an ass.  Here is one example.

If one is unfortunate enough to need major surgery, the severe post-op pain can be mitigated by powerful narcotics, such as morphine.  But if the narcotic happens to be cannabis, to take it for pain relief is a crime--according to the vagaries of administrative law--and the medical profession cannot prescribe it.  The following case in point has hit the headlines recently in New Zealand:

Recently the family of a Nelson boy suffering severe seizures won a dispensation from the Government to treat him with cannabis oil, opening the whole discussion about the medical use of cannabis in this country.  But there are plenty of people who believe in the efficacy of cannabis as medicine and who aren't prepared to wait for the law to catch up.

Cancer sufferer Gareth Jones is one of those people. Given three months to live last October, he's survived eight months so far on self-medication with cannabis, and he wants a law change in New Zealand.  Mr Jones is breaking the law, processing cannabis – a fairly large quantity of the illegal plant – and making it into oil.  "Anyone can make it," he says.  Mr Jones is not a drug dealer; he's dying. He has advanced bowel cancer that's spread to his liver, and all up he's battling four large tumours. He says cannabis is his last resort.[3 News]

We have no doubt that when the administrative laws prohibiting the ingestion of narcotics were passed no-one would have foreseen this unexpected outcome.  But that's typical of administrative law.  The unintended consequences are always unanticipated, and they more than not lead to gross injustices and real harm.

But what he's doing, manufacturing a class B drug, carries a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison.  "If it's buying me more time it doesn't really matter," he says. "I'm not too fazed on it."

Imagine the injustice of Gareth Jones being arrested for the crimes of cannabinoid cultivation and ingestion.  In fact the authorities, in this case, just turn a blind eye.  They are too embarrassed to proceed.  Prosecution (and conviction) would "not be in the public interest".  Of course not--and we are thankful that a scintilla of common sense from time to time penetrates the stygian darkness of statist overreach. 

Mr Jones's fight goes on.

His pain is substantial. He's doing his best to manage it with pharmaceutical drugs administered through this "pain patch", but he's adamant the cannabis oil is playing a lead role in fighting the pain and improving his quality of life. He says the benefits are sleeping, pain relief and appetite.

Mr Jones also believes his homemade medicine is extending his life. Last October he was told he had just three months to live. "The way the oncologist was talking it was more like I'd have a month of good and maybe a month or two after that, maybe three months tops, and he was talking six months as the extreme side of it and I'm over that now," says Mr Jones. "It's always good to prove them wrong."

Without fail, every night Mr Jones takes two capsules – a measured combination of his home-cooked cannabis oil mixed with coconut oil.  "Yes [I get high], but that's why I take it at night, so I sleep off the effects, so I don't really feel anything. So that's why I take a good dose at night then wake up in the morning and it's gone and I carry on the day like normal."

But, how did we get into this ridiculous situation in the first place?  It is an inevitable, unexpected--yet entirely predictable--consequence of administrative law promulgated by a nanny state.