Once apon a time there was a drugs policy which seemed simple: Drugs would be “controlled” by law, that is the law would forbid their use and this would protect everyone from the dangers such drugs were predicted to have. Now of course this was a new idea – in that it had never really been tested before but to the righteous of the time it seemed a solid idea, not least because it was underpinned by good Christian morals.
Of curse, there was one fly in the ointment – the failed experiment of alcohol prohibition in 1920’s America, but that was easy to explain away because alcohol was already so well established amongst “normal” (ie white western) people and drugs were something new so the epidemic could be stopped before they even started. So at a time when the country didn’t have a drug problem, we declared a war on drugs and the end result is we’ve created one.
To describe the present policy as anything less than an abject failure is to deceive, yet for a long time the only people saying so were a few fringe campaigns – most notably the legalise cannabis campaign in its various manifestations and of course the thoroughly professional Transform – but in recent years there has been a whole cascade of government and other reports which have dared to say the emperor was, in fact, totally starkers; the war on drugs doesn’t work.
Not of course that any of this has made any difference – here in the UK or anywhere much else to be honest. Drugs prohibition is global and is perhaps the one bit of UN law to which politicians the world over pay far more than lip service. Strange really that a policy decreed by a known criminal – Richard Milhous Nixon, the president of the USA whose claims to fame includes spraying dioxin over the virgin rainforests of Vietnam, bombing the hell out of defenceless Cambodia and bugging the Democratic party – should be the one international law imposed globally with an iron fist.
Back in 1988 the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) set off on it’s mission to create a drug free world by last year, they really believed they could do it but we know what happened. Instead of having a drug free world, we have more drugs than ever before, countries being ripped apart by efforts to eradicate crops, failed states over run with drug money, near open war on America’s southern flank and all the rest. Drug free world? Don’t make me laugh.
So it was that earlier this year whilst congratulating itself on a job well done despite not coming anywhere near its goals, the UNOPDC executive director, the almost surreal Mr. Antonio Maria Costa came out with the phrase
… the drug control system has created a number of (let’s called them) unintended consequences.
Now whether these “unintended consequences” were actually unforeseeable consequences is another issue, some of us have been trying to point them out for rather a long time now.
So it is that here in the UK the Drug Policy Commission (UKDPC) issued a report which addressed these “unintended consequences” seemingly for the first time. Their conclusions for the future of drug law enforcement here were widely reported in the media as “allow some dealing”because doing this can result in less harm than continuing with full on drug prohibition. The report (Refocusing Drug-Related Law Enforcement to Address Harms.) is quite frankly devastating in its findings right from the start:
Also, it should be noted that a considerable number of studies have shown no impact one way or another on the harms that were sought to be reduced.
In general, the evidence relating to higher level enforcement activities is limited, but what there is fails to provide support for seizures or crop eradication strategies.
Reality check – these are two of the planks upon which our drugs strategy is based.
The evidence review also highlighted the considerable potential for a range of public health and social harms to be generated by drug market enforcement activities, particularly at the street level. An example is the health harms that are associated with injecting drug users rushing their injection to reduce the period at which they are at risk. There is also evidence of increased violence following market disruption caused by enforcement activities.
The report identifies the harms that enforcement can produce, which includes disrupting the supply side, thus encouraging turf wars; making doses uncertain and thus raising the potential for overdose and so on. The thing is, these are the very things used by the police and government as performance indicators – as indicators of “success” for the drugs strategy.
So we have the idea being put around that in order to make the enforcement regime less damaging, the police should operate in such a way as to produce worse performance indicators. You couldn’t make this up, it’s a very real case of being between a rock and a hard place, remember these problems are, like the policy of prohibition, global.
It directly affects us in the UK on another level as well; our involvement in Afghanistan which is showing signs of coming unravelled. Quite how much of a success the recent “operation Panther’s claw” has been is unknown, but we do know that the chaos of Afghanistan is spreading to Pakistan, we do know that the attempts to eradicate opium are forcing the local population into the arms of the Taliban and so on. The only military option is ever deeper involvement, what they call “mission creep”, which is usually followed by a rapid retreat.
The response from politicians has been predictable, with the Tories intent on more of the same hard line prohibition, although they don’t want to call it the “war on drugs” any more. They believe like all drug warriors that the reason it hasn’t worked yet is because we haven’t tried hard enough. We know Labour “believes” it’s policy is the right one, and faith is all they need. Indeed the recent reclassification of cannabis back to B was precisely because the Prime Minister believed that it all works and messages can be sent.
Perhaps it had to be an American – Obama’s new Drug Tsar Gil Kerlikowske – who said with absolutely no sense of irony in the way only an American could:
Legalization is not in mine, nor the President’s vocabulary
Yes, he actually said that. Anyway despite what he says, the “L” word clearly is in his vocabulary, whether he likes it or not and it’s looking ever more likely that politicians will be dragged kicking and screaming into drug law reform little by little. Perhaps, one day they will find a way of describing legalisation as a clamp-down, as stricter law enforcement. That day will come when they realise that only under legalisation can restrictive drug laws actually be made to work.
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August is here…
Which means the UKCIA newsblog takes a break for a few weeks in order to go sit on a beach. Normal service will be resumed at the end of the month. In the meantime, a thought about the “freedom of choice” issue which has always been at the heart of the law reform campaign for some people. Human beings are supposed to be the only creature with free will – the ability to decide things for themselves. Yet the idea of drugs prohibition for any other animal is laughable, only humans assume they can impose their will on others in this way.
By way of illustration here’s what happens when a cat finds a catmint plant
And as for Lemurs…
Guess you’ll just have to stop doing that you guys, it’s illegal.
Have a good summer, what’s left of it.
