Curbing the Trade in Ivory, Rhhino Horn, and other Illegal Products
An image making the rounds on the Web now shows the last rhino in a South African game preserve lying dead after having its horn sawn off for use as an aphrodisiac in Asian folk medicine. Rhino horn sells for more than gold, so it paid the poachers to rent a helicopter, shoot the rhino, and saw off the horn.
Prohibiting the trade won’t work. What will?
My solution: decriminalize counterfeiting. Flood the market with bogus rhino horn. And people swindled shall have no legal recourse. Make it absolutely impossible for buyers to be sure they have the real stuff. Then we could extend the principle to other illicit trade in endangered materials: ivory, precious coral, furs of endangered species, artifacts. You want tiger fur? You got something soft and fuzzy with stripes. What’s your beef?
Actually, another idea that occurred to me was to get an Internet rumor going that the CIA is lacing rhino horn with something that causes instant and irreversible impotence. Unfortunately, Internet rumors that might actually do some good never seem to gain traction.
Surely the most bizarre thing American law enforcement does is prosecute people who sell fake street drugs. Why? This is an activity that can only benefit society. Snort cream of tartar to your heart’s content, pal. Light up that oregano reefer.
Conflict diamonds are ripe for this approach. Simply eliminate all legal distinctions between natural and synthetic diamonds. Diamond is transparent crystalline carbon - period. When the market for diamonds collapses and diamonds sell for about the same as cubic zirconia, conflict diamonds will lose their value. In fact, I’d like to see all distinctions between natural and synthetic stones eliminated. It sickens me to think of an exquisite natural crystal being turned into a lump of colored glass.
The principle is the same as the long standing idea that the courts will not enforce illegal gambling debts. However, people who want to collect illegal gambling debts have …. other methods. We can assume people who trade in illicit rhino horn, ivory or furs won’t play nice with counterfeiters. Caveat emptor, caveat vendor.
Oh, one last point. I once saw a National Geographic article showing an African game warden armed with an automatic weapon. Someone wrote a simpering letter saying he hoped that didn’t mean we valued the life of an animal more than human life. So let me be perfectly clear. Hell, yes! The life of the last rhino on a game preserve is worth more than the life of the poachers who shot it, the crackpot who makes “medicine” out of it, and the sexually inadequate weenies (pun intended) who buy it.