Bit by bit, we are losing our national virtue. It is incumbent on the government to always keep the moral high ground if it wants to really maintain its authority. There is a natural rhythm to morality in human affairs; it is called ‘natural law’. It is ‘natural' in that everybody is able to grasp it through reason, even those who do not have much schooling or a scholastic background in ethics.

The citizen-for-sale issue is just one of the ways in which, by declaring our most basic rights as a “for sale” commodity, the government is selling our birth-right, and people, in their heart of hearts, grasp this as “cheap”. One can reason that if you can sell that, you can sell anything. Anything goes for a buck! Once a government starts to lose its moral authority, it is downhill all the way and the votes soon start to follow the haemorrhage of virtue. Virtue is a practised habit in man that leads him or her to be a good person. Virtue in government is essential if it is in any way to be perceived as good government. Selling your mother country for a buck is a lack of virtuous government and therefore a lack of good government!

However, I have already written about this subject last week. What I would like to write about today is another issue: the decriminalisation of drugs. Many government pariahs have been heard expressing the belief that it is time to come around to decriminalising the use of drugs for personal use. I suppose that it sounds nice and liberal and may be perceived to win the government votes! However, this is another road to the perdition of national virtue. In effect, the authorities would be saying: “It’s ok if you ruin your health, as long as you don’t sell your drugs to anyone else!” I do not know under what health policy that falls, but it is not ok to have people running around half dazed. It is not ok to have people running around under the influence of drugs, it is not ok having people driving vehicles or turning up for work half inebriated, in the same way that it is not ok for people to attend to personal and social responsibilities half drunk. In effect, the authorities look the other way while individuals ruin their health and that of others as they cause accidents to themselves and others while they are affected by drugs.

There are big issues at stake here. It is well known that the use of soft drugs eventually leads to experimentation with harder drugs, and decriminalisation will send out the general message that it is ok to do drugs for personal use! Do we not already have enough trouble with alcohol? Do we not already have enough trouble with cigarettes? Why do we need to add marijuana to the list of state sanctions? It might not cause much damage in the short term, but it will cause injury in the long term. It will also cause harm in the short term to others, who are affected by the personal performance of an “actor” behind the wheel of a car while high on marijuana!

Anyone attending a wedding lately might have noticed that a trend is coming in whereby the use of cocaine after midnight seems to be an accepted vice. On a visit to the toilet, one is grieved to behold all sorts of people sniffing coke! Rumour has it that this is part of the wedding package and is also known to the hosts. This behaviour needs to be stopped at once, as it is a sign of the creeping acceptability of drugs about which I spoke earlier. Coke is highly addictive psychologically and then there is always heroin, if one wants a physical addiction to boot!

I am against the decriminalisation of any drug. It makes society weak and makes government seem spineless. We should be aiming for a virtuous society, even if in our personal behaviour we may all fall short. Falling short of virtue is what we all do in life at some time or another, but that does not mean that we should not get up and try harder to achieve virtue the next time around. Giving up trying: now that is a non-heroic option to attaining virtue. The government should not take the “If you can’t beat them, join them” attitude. If it does, it will lead to bad habits becoming the norm and then it will have failed in the virtue of fostering good habits! It will also have failed in governing!