Oh dear, another bad week for the defenders of prohibition. First someone who worked in a senior position in the government anti drug unit spills the beans, then the latest drug use figures came out.
First, of course, it was Julian Critchley who did the bean spilling which even the Daily Mail managed to report fairly accurately, despite wheeling out a few prohibition quotes from the usual suspects at the end.
Julian was the director of the UK Anti-Drug Co-Ordination Unit around the time of the widely discredited so-called “Drug Tsar” Keith Hellawell. To summarise his position I hope fairly; the present policy simply doesn’t work, it’s failed, in his words “it’s pointless”. He claims that most people involved in the execution of the policy know it doesn’t work, but for whatever reason are reluctant to speak out.
It is now clear that enforcement and supply-side interventions are largely pointless. They haven’t worked. There is evidence that this (legalisation) works.
and on the subject of cannabis classification he was quite blunt:
Unfortunately, evidence is still not a major component in our policy. Take cannabis. When I was in the Anti-Drug Unit, the moves towards making it a class C drug began, and I hoped that our position on drugs was finally moving in a rational direction. But then Gordon Brown ignored his scientific advisers to make it a class B again. It was a decision that pandered to the instincts of the tabloids, and it made no sense whatsoever.
As regards the law being a deterrent, which is central to the idea of moving cannabis to a class B drug
The idea that many people are holding back solely because of a law which they know is already unenforceable is simply ridiculous
It’s times like this one could almost (but not quite) start to feel sorry for Gordon Brown. When he decided to announce his “crack down” on cannabis he judged it was going to be a vote winner, plain and simple he had the Daily Mail on his side, so it was a sure fire winner. It’s starting to look a little less certain now, with the steady trickle of criticism that had been coming from apparently (according to rags like The Daily Mail) “marginalised” sources like the Chief Constable of North Wales slowly turning into a steady stream of official reports and highly critical admissions from people centrally involved in the workings of the policy.
At one time it was only organisations like Transform (along with UKCIA and a few others) making these claims but slowly, step by step, it’s becoming common knowledge that our drugs policy is in crisis. How much longer can the dam of ignorance promoted by politicians like Brown continue?
The case for real drugs law reform isn’t coming from people who want to get high though, it’s coming from people who know and understand that prohibition not only fails to contain or deter drug use it and is totally unable to control or restrict the trade. Demands for law reform are coming from people who want to reduce the damaging effects of illegal drug use and to protect society. Up to very recently, this law and order platform has been the ground claimed by prohibitionists. We are seeing a very real sea change at last, long may it continue.
So what of the actual achievements of the present drugs policy then? Remember we are now at the end of the last 10 year strategy, a strategy which focused the enforcement effort on the “drugs that cause most harm” – heroin and cocaine and in particular their use by children and young people. Remember how the prohibition lobby criticised it for “going soft” on cannabis. If prohibition worked and the strategy had been a success, we would now see big falls in the use of class A drugs, especially amongst the young and critics would be lampooning the increase in cannabis use due to the lack of enforcement.
Away from the real world and any consideration of reporting actual facts as usual, this is how the Sun reported things on 15th August 2008
THE terrible toll on Britain’s youngsters of mind-bending drugs is exposed in a shocking NHS report today.
Far more kids are needing help for drug-related mental disorders.
One in four secondary pupils – 700,000 children – has tried drugs.
The message could not be clearer.
Drugs are a deadly menace. The Government is right to reverse its policy of being soft on cannabis.
The police and courts MUST stop pussyfooting around the likes of Kate Moss, Pete Doherty and Amy Winehouse.
Junkie celebs send out the message that drugs are cool. They are NOT.
Drugs ruin lives. Young lives most of all.
The actual NHS report, which got the Sun so excited, “Statistics of drugs misuse: England 2008” can be found here, a ringing endorsement of success it is not.
The main findings summary:
Overall drug use has fallen in recent years for both adults and children. Hospital admissions with a primary diagnosis of a drug related mental health and behavioural disorder have decreased, while admissions with a primary diagnosis of poisoning by drugs have increased. The number in contact with structured drug treatment services have also increased while the number of drug related deaths shows no overall trend.
More men than women had used drugs in the last year, been in contact with structured drug treatment services and died as a result of drug misuse.
But, of course, that’s not the full story and perhaps the fact that admissions for poisoning by drugs have gone up gives a clue to what’s happened.
Class A drug use in the year prior to interview increased from 2.7% in survey year 1998 to 3.4% in 2006/07. This is mainly due to a comparatively large increase in cocaine powder use between survey years 1998 and 2000. Between survey year 2000 and 2006/07 the use of Class A drugs overall remained stable
So a policy which set out to focus its efforts specifically on cocaine and heroin saw an increase in the use of cocaine and at best can claim overall use of these substances has remained stable in recent years. How much of the apparently “stable” heroin use is due to existing addicts being moved off heroin and onto Methadone whilst being replaced by new users isn’t mentioned.
Remember the need to crack down on cannabis in order to send a message to young people?
Pupils were most likely to have taken cannabis; 9% had done so in the last year, an overall decrease from 13% in 2001.
but
Four per cent of pupils reported using any Class A drug in the last year, a figure that has remained stable since 2001.
So to summarise: During the period of the last drugs strategy which set out to significantly reduce the use of class A drugs especially by children, the use of class C cannabis decreased and the use of class A’s at best stayed about the same. In fact the observed decrease in drugs use is pretty well all explained by the decrease in the use of cannabis and is partly offset by the increase in cocaine use.
Overall this survey – which it has to be said suffers from not being able to properly sample the population due to the workings of prohibition and is thus built on suspect data – makes it quite clear that the drugs policy we’re spending such huge sums of money on is indeed ineffective, and that’s being polite. No wonder people are beginning to speak out.
Has no one ever mentioned to you the possibility of the more you write, the less that’s read?
No, and the blog stats show it’s not the case.
Seems I rattled your cage, pity you couldn’t make a constructive comment though. Ho hum
UKCIA does it again…Well done guys!
When are they going to start printing these in the nationals?!
Prohibition is not & has never been about the health & well being of drug users & the Communities of which they are a marginalised, stigmatised, part.
It is about the creation of ‘covert’ conduits & channels can be created for the projection of Stategic Interests, political objectives, flows of arms & Kapital, power, knowlege & control at trans Global and micro levels.
The ‘War on Drugs’ creates ‘crisis’ & ‘civil war’ conditions which in turn encourage ‘populist’ support for increasingly reppresive & oppresive legislation, policing & security , surveliance, information gathering
& other technologies and appuratus of social power, domination & control.
Indeed, it creates a climate of fear that assists the ‘internalisation of control’as we increasingly ‘suspect thy neigbour’, crimminalise childhood, teenage growth & development’ on class lines.
You are right. It is political fearmongering to appease the Sun’s editors and to promote the “security” and surveillance industries. It is fuelled by voodoo-science disinformation which damages the credibility of real science. For instance “skunk” is not stronger than the hashish that was widely available, in Britain, in the 60s and 70s. Jacqui Smith claims (in a letter to me) that the government has “scientific” evidence that skunk is stronger than previously existing cannabis and that this alleged increase in the strength of cannabis has caused an increase in “psychosis”. Every part of these allegations are false. I have pharmaceutical literature from the 70s which, when compared with recent Home Office figures for the THC content of “skunk”, prove that “skunk” is not stronger. In any case, people usually know how stoned they want to be and when they reach that level they stop consuming the cannabis. Cannabis does not “cause” psychosis although, I believe it is true that people who are psychotic because of other, largely unknown causes, should avoid all psychoactive drugs – especially alcohol and amphetamines. (I suspect christianity, politicians and abusive police officers of being a probable ’cause’ of much psychosis!).