It’s general election time again, let’s try not to get too excited now! Drugs, and what to do about them, haven’t featured in the campaign as of yet and it’s highly unlikely they will, a debate on this subject is something the politicians absolutely do not want us to have. This despite the fact that the subject has hardly been off the news for the past 15 – 20 years, up to and including last week.
The week before the election featured yet another resignation from the government Advisory Committee on the Misuse of Drugs – the AMCD – this time by Eric Carlin who resigned in part because of the way the Mephadrone ban was rushed through the ACMD simply to satisfy the government’s agenda. He was rightly concerned that no consideration was given to the effects of criminalising the thousands of mostly young users. You can read his resignation letter here
Now Eric is no drug use promoter, as his interview on Radio 4 last week seemed to make clear he supports prohibition as a means to reduce the use of drugs and passed up the chance he was offered to criticise the basic logic of the present policy. As he states in his resignation letter:
My main interest and competence is in the field of prevention and early intervention with young people.
This included from 2000- 2009 being the Executive of Mentor UK, the charity which advertises itself as
Mentor UK continues to increase its profile as the leading UK agency working to prevent drug related harm to children and young people. We are working with government departments and other agencies to influence and effect prevention policy.
Mentor were the organisation that produced the truly dreadful leaflet “Hazy Dayz” back in 2004 which used all the worst stereotypes of cannabis users and seemed to tell kids not to listen to advice given by adults with personal experience of the drug when it came to cannabis use. UKCIA did a short review of this diabolical publication at the time and you can read it here in the “Government on drugs” section.
Eric is no rampant cannabis law reform exponent, so it was particularly interesting that the reasons he gave for resigning from the ACMD also included:
When, as Home Secretary, (Charles Clarke) announced that the entire classification system would be reviewed, I welcomed it and was disappointed when the idea was shelved. This needs urgently to be revisited. We need to review our entire approach to drugs, dumping the idea that legally-sanctioned punishments for drug users should constitute a main part of the armoury in helping to solve our country’s drug problems. We need to stop harming people who need help and support.
It’s hard to understand how Eric can square supporting prohibition having made a statement like that. Prohibition is all or nothing, you can’t have prohibition without “legally-sanctioned punishments for drug users” being at the heart of the policy.
This story was at the main headline all day, and of course occurred at the same time – and in part for the same reason – as the government made Mephadrone a class B uncontrolled drug, alongside cannabis in the Misuse of Drugs Act as one of the last acts of this parliament.
As all this was happening the media has been putting about the assumed “fact” that the present laws on drugs have become “clunky” and need “improving” as BBC radio news amongst others described things. This agenda is the one set by “the usual suspects” of the UK prohibition movement and has been presented as a more or less done deal, with the idea of substances automatically being made illegal until proven safe proposed as the only logical way to develop drugs policy.
Add to all this the powerful Parliamentary Committee of Public Accounts has spilled the beans:
The Government spends £1.2 billion a year on measures aimed at tackling problem drug use, yet does not know what overall effect this spending is having.
This whole issue of course is something Transform have been banging on about for years now and they cover this issue on their blog.
So there you have it, drugs and drugs policy have not only been in the news for years now but in really major headlines in recent weeks. There are huge issues at stake here, issues which go to the heart of our criminal laws, issues which touch every section of society, issues which underpin the very way we are governed. Yet as soon as Gordon Brown blew the starting whistle for the election, all debate stopped dead. It’s a safe bet that any rational debate about drugs will simply not be on the agenda for the next few weeks.
The reason there is and will be no real debate about drug policy is simple: You couldn’t get a rizzla packet between either the Labour or Tory policies. Both are based around hard line prohibition and the refusal to continuance any other approach. Any debate of drugs policy will be firmly based on who is toughest, because the two main parties seem to believe there are only two options for drugs, outright unrestricted free trade or prohibition. There is and can never be any other way. Of course this isn’t true, but the third sensible option of a properly controlled and regulated trade is totally and utterly off the agenda, so there.
So what does that leave us? Of the rest the LibDems are the front runners and they do at least seem to acknowledge there is a problem with the drugs law regime, but it’s not an issue they’re shouting about. A quick google of “Lib dem drugs policy” throws up some really encouraging news results such as Lib Dems back radical drug policy where we’re told
The Liberal Democrats have voted in favour of the legalisation of cannabis – the first main UK party to support such a radical move.
But then you notice the item is dated 2002, it’s hard to find anything more recent. Some lib Dem MP’s have been making the right sort of noises in recent years however, Chris Huhne for example is quoted on the Lib Dem website as saying last year:
“The best way to reduce the harm drugs cause to society is to base policy on facts,” said the Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary. Commenting on today’s comments by the Government’s chief drugs adviser, Professor David Nutt, that ministers ‘devalued’ scientific evidence when considering the classification of cannabis, Chris Huhne said:
“Professor Nutt is right to suggest that there needs to be a full and frank debate about drug abuse without resorting to moral hysteria.
“The best way to reduce the harm drugs cause to society is to base policy on facts, not as a method of political posturing.
“The Government should either listen to its experts or save money by appointing a committee of tabloid newspaper editors instead.”
Of the rest, the Greens have by far the most progressive drugs policy, although it’s showing its age now having been written about 10 years ago. But at least searching the Green website for “drugs” turns up some meaningful policy pages.
Drugs aren’t a big issue for UKIP, although they do apparently favour a Royal Commission as they support individual freedom – which includes opposing the smoking ban.
Of course the National Front would impose hard line prohibition, probably at gunpoint. A search of the BNP website for “drugs” brings up a list of articles such as “What Is Immigration’s Role in the Violent Crime Rate Rise?” and “Tories to Blame for EU Immigration Disaster in Peterborough”, all in all not very informative.
So there we have it, we have a non-choice between Labour and Conservative and at best only the glimmer of hope for a possibly more intelligent approach from the Libdems.
So the advice from UKCIA after one week of this election campaign is:
Please DO vote, but don’t vote Labour or Conservative (or of course the BNP), do consider the Lib Dems or the Greens or even UKIP, but don’t get your hopes up too high, because whatever you vote for the government will always get back in and it’s usually a case of meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
Otherwise that’s about it unless you live in Bristol West where you have the option of voting for Danny Kushlick. Danny is the driving force behind Transform and most impressed Mark Thomas who ran a BBC Radio 4 series to decide the ideal political agenda. He then offered to pay for a candidate and Danny is the choice. Danny’s manifesto has as his main policy the legalisation of all drugs, but also includes the eminently sensible proposals for the introduction of a “Robin Hood tax” on foreign financial transactions and the requirement for the Daily Mail to carry the strapline “This is a fictionalised account of the news and any resemblance to the truth is entirely coincidental.”
So if you live in Bristol West, Vote Danny Kushlick!
Meanwhile, back in the real world a footnote to all this is that while all the mephadrone drugs panic, associated resignations and rabid plans for hardline prohibition froth were getting the newspaper headlines, a study published in “Preventing Cancer Research” (the full text of which is hidden behind a pay wall) went totally unnoticed. A research paper with the snappy title of “A Population-Based Case-Control Study of Marijuana Use and Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma” found, as the abstract reports (deep breath):
After adjusting for potential confounders (including smoking and alcohol drinking), 10 to 20 years of marijuana use was associated with a significantly reduced risk of HNSCC [odds ratio (OR)10-<20 years versus never users, 0.38; 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.22-0.67]. Among marijuana users moderate weekly use was associated with reduced risk (OR0.5-<1.5 times versus <0.5 time, 0.52; 95% CI, 0.32-0.85). The magnitude of reduced risk was more pronounced for those who started use at an older age (OR15-<20 years versus never users, 0.53; 95% CI, 0.30-0.95; OR≥20 years versus never users, 0.39; 95% CI, 0.17-0.90; Ptrend < 0.001). These inverse associations did not depend on human papillomavirus 16 antibody status. However, for the subjects who have the same level of smoking or alcohol drinking, we observed attenuated risk of HNSCC among those who use marijuana compared with those who do not.
Which is summed up at the end by the short sentance
Our study suggests that moderate marijuana use is associated with reduced risk of Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma
Or to put it in plain English the study suggests that moderate cannabis use reduces the risk of head and neck cancers. Yes, cannabis, it seems, actually reduces the risk of these sorts of cancers. Now any other substance that showed that sort of potential would have been front page news, so why not in this case? The simple answer of course is that it’s cannabis and such results are off script, we can’t have issues like this confusing the electorate at such an important time, can we?
Fancy a laugh UKCIA? Have a quote from your favourite website (talking about cannabis!)
“A ‘cannabis personality’ can develop: fixed opinions on things, with fixed answers to questions. Struggling to express themselves, inability to take criticism, deflection and transference of blame for their own mistakes, planning for the immediate and long-term future becomes very difficult.”
Sound familiar? Seems to me its what our politicians suffer from.
Anyway, thankyou for this entry, i’ll be voting lib dem me thinks!
Well that pretty much says what I was thinking all along, unfortunately, at least as far as recent polls go, it looks like my lib dem vote will probably be wasted. That said I’m still making sure that I get my vote in this time round if only so I feel that I have a right to complain about which ever one of the other two do manage to get the top spot.
Check out facebook and support the Cannabis Questions on Democracy UK. You never know. We may get to ask a few questions yet!
I don’t think your analysis is completely fair in relation to Bristol West. I have blogged on drugs issues twice in recent times
http://bristolwestpaul.wordpress.com/2009/10/31/the-scientist/
http://bristolwestpaul.wordpress.com/2009/09/25/the-drugs-dont-work/
You don’t have to be a joke candidate to have a view
Paul Smith
Labour Candidate Bristol West
Bristolwestpaul – apologies for not getting your comment online when you sent it – the spam filter jumped on it because of the links and I didn’t realise it needed approving.
It is refreshing that at least you have taken the time to consider the issues, but I have to say that anyone who uses the phrase “drugs and alcohol” probably doesn’t really understand the issue.
But thanks for posting, feel free to debate these issues further.
I have made a comment on your “drugs don’t work” blog.
Edited to add I’ve just noticed the title of Paul Smith’s blog is “Working for the clampdown“. What an interesting choice for someone who wants to be an MP!
Some one needs to do some serious cost benefit analysis of the alternative approaches to the drugs problems we have. All politicians seem to be looking for a way to save money that is verifiable (ie not just efficiency savings). If the case could be made that £ X million could be saved and society could be made safer and fairer then it would be very hard for politicians not to look at it. It is an issue that no one will campaign on but if we make sure that politicians know the up-side it may quietly happen (A Royal commission whose reccomendations are listened to maybe)
As always money talks