Who remembers the consultation the government ran on the future of its drugs policy?
The so-called “consultation” was roundly criticised by amongst others, the House of Lords, as Transform reported back in November and again in December. The whole exercise was widely seen as a sham for the frankly dodgy way statistics were presented and the fact the questions it asked were leading and didn’t give the option to give answers at odds with the current strategy.
Tucked away at the end of this so-called “consultation” though were a couple of questions about cannabis reclassification, there, apparently, to gauge public opinion. UKCIA had a bit of a problem with this. Although the whole excercise was clearly a sham, it wasn’t something that could be ignored. So rather than put forward a responce from UKCIA , we asked people to make personal responses and suggested some points they may like to mention.
Now, given the process was billed as the biggest consultation ever carried out, what happened was almost comical. We learned earlier this year what the scale of the public response had been, as we reported on the front page:
The full consultation document contained 52 questions with free-response text boxes. 5,000 copies of this document were issued to key stakeholders throughout the country. In addition to the full document, a shorter set of seven questions was published in leaflet form, aimed at a more general public audience. 300,000 leaflets were printed and distributed through outlets such as doctors’ surgeries, libraries and police stations.
In addition interested parties like UKCIA helped to get the word out. The result was stunning:
All this, including online submissions, produced a stunning 1,020 responses.
Yep, just 1,020 from a UK population of nearly 60,000,000. Unbelievable. That is such a low response rate as to be laughable, it’s almost impossible to see how it could have been so low. Clearly, either this is not an issue anyone much cares about or the great British public saw it for what it was; a con, and had nothing to do with it. To be honest, it’s probably a bit of both.
We knew about this monumental failure a few weeks back, but the real meat of the survey – what people thought about cannabis – was held back. This news was released last Friday and guess what? Most people opposed reclassification and a sizable chunk want legalisation. Now it must be stressed at this point that the option of leglaisation wasn’t presented on the questionnaire, yet people made the case anyway. Had it been presented as an option, the results would have been very different.
Of course this was totally unnoticed by the media, if you want to release a bit of bad news Friday is the best day to do it and given the splash the reclassification announcement had made a few days before, who was going to notice this quietly released detail?
OK. lets be honest. The number of replies to this survey were so small as to be statistically meaningless really, but here they are for your amusement, published proudly by the Home Office.
The respondents can be split into several main camps, broadly: Government agencies, pressure groups and individual replies. There is little surprise for the first two categories really, In the main (but with some notable exceptions) Government agencies gave the “right answers” and backed reclassifiaction and the pressure groups did what it says on their tins, with the Legalise Cannabis Alliance arguing for legalisation and the National Drug Prevention Alliance for stronger prohibition.
The only interesting results really were the individual private replies – people giving their own views. Now make no mistake, had there been a flood of support amongst this group for reclassification we would have been told about it. We weren’t told about it because there wasn’t.
Although as has been said, the numbers involved were pitifully small, they were interesting and certainly “off message” and – bear in mind – the option of legalisation wasn’t given on the questionnaire.
Health professionals
Numbers responding: 19
Number in favour of reclassification: 3 Number against: 7
In favour of full legalisation: 0 Undecided: 9
Statutory Partnerships
Numbers responding: 77
Number in favour of reclassification: 25 Number against: 27
In favour of full legalisation: 0 Undecided: 25
Policing professionals
Numbers responding: 27
Number in favour of reclassification: 19 Number against: 4
In favour of full legalisation: 0 Undecided: 4
Local Authorities
Numbers responding: 50
Number in favour of reclassification: 13 Number against: 22
In favour of full legalisation: 0 Undecided: 15
Drug Service/Treatment providers
Numbers responding: 29
Number in favour of reclassification: 7 Number against: 14
In favour of full legalisation: 2 Undecided: 6
Charity & Voluntary groups
Numbers responding: 23
Number in favour of reclassification: 4 Number against: 9
In favour of full legalisation: 1 Undecided: 9
Lobby/Activist/Pressure Groups
Numbers responding: 15
Number in favour of reclassification: 2 Number against: 7
In favour of full legalisation: 3 Undecided: 3
Personal and anonymous responses
Numbers responding: 399
Number in favour of reclassification: 48 Number against: 188
In favour of full legalisation: 118 Undecided: 45
So of the real people the government actually heard from the vast majority were against reclassification and a sizable proportion want full leglaisation, an option they weren’t asked for. Clearly this is the sort of result to be buried.
Perhaps the biggest message to be taken from this debacle though isn’t the actual result of this “consultation” as such, but the amazingly low response to it. Perhaps we should look at what happened and why.
The whole exercise was a con and most people even vaguely interested in the issue knew that. It gave the impression at least of being an exercise in “engineering consent” organised by a bunch of amateurs, perhaps that was enough to persuade people to have nothing to do with it. But perhaps it indicates something more important, in that people are simply not interested in the development of drugs policy, it’s not an issue to get people worked up with. If the latter is true, then its doubtful if the great “clampdown on cannabis” will garnish the government with a great deal of of public appreciation, especially when they’re told how much it’s going to cost them.
But honestly, to run an exercise on this scale and to get such a pathetic response is almost beyond belief. A clear lack of ability to organise a toking session in a dope plantation.
The way cannabis legislation has been handled seems and object lesson in putting people off politics for good. The hypocrisy, cherry picking of findings which suit them, ignoring what is inconvenient, pandering to ignorance and the worst elements of the media. A dirty business.
“Drugs, the consultation con” had it parallel in New Zealand when the Ministry of Health revisited the “national drug policy” for its ten year review. It was described by one addiction specialist attending, and member of our Expert Advisory Commitee on Drugs (EACD) as an “embarrasment to the Ministry”.
It was conducted as if there was no views in dissent with the policy base despite it diverging from the policy development documents that precedded its application (now) 12 years ago.
It was a case of evidence base fits the politics… now where have I heard that recently?
Having taken part in a number of these exercises, and scrutinized the difference between ‘draft’ and ‘final’ policy, I have concluded that consultation NEVER substantially affects the foregone conclusions and therefore consultation is little more than a pointless distraction.
The fact is the public have NEVER been effectively consulted on their drug policy, tax policy, immigration policy or foreign policy etc etc. We are ruled be a series of brief dictatorships described as liberal democracy because, if nothing else, we have a relatively free press (so we can write this stuff).
Just as there is confusion over the classification of cannabis, so there is equal confusion over the role of consultation. The current Government (or any other) do not consult with the public in order to take heed of their answers, they only consult to fulfill their legal & moral obligation to consult – i.e. so they can tick the box to say that they have done so; and then ‘cherry-pick’ the responses that concur with their intentions (that’s then re-badged as research). Dissent within statutory bodies simply isn’t tolerated, let alone heeded. It is simply unrealistic to view consultation in any other way.
However, this may not be a bad thing. If the whole of the public were actually consulted and their views heeded we run the risk of automatic execution for heroin and crack dealers (and those who are HIV+ ?), for example. And if you tolerate that, your children will be next.
Taking a global perspective we have a moderate government and drugs policy. One meaning of that is that the government moderate public opinion.
Be thankful for small mercies and don’t get distracted by the bullshit.
I’m (strangely) proud to say that I was one of the 1020 that submitted a response to this farce of a survey.
Whilst I still find it strange that so few responded, I thank ukcia.org for alerting it to me in the first place!
“we have a relatively free press (so we can write this stuff).”
We can write stuff in blogs. We can develop expertise. But the “consultation” that the government has carried out for this reclassification was by reading uninformed Daily Mail headliines.
Richard Elliott wrote:
Maybe. However this was a case of the government making a great thing of consulting the population. As far as the cannabis issue goes public opinion was supposed to be at the root of their concern.
Now, it’s true a lot of people – UKCIA included – were unhappy about that. Since when has government policy been decided by public opinion indeed? This was alarming especially given the string of tabloid stories over the previous year which not doubt they had hoped would have formed that public opinion.
As you say, this would be a very bad development had it worked the way the government intended. We can be happy, perhaps, that it failed so badly, but we shouldn’t just let it pass.
Thanks to everyone who did respond to the “consultation” following UKCIA’s appeal to do that though. Perhaps, just perhaps, we helped to sink it!