Drug law reform seems to be on the agenda in a way it has never been before following the sacking of David Nutt and it’s clear the prohibition camp is rattled.
Into this debate the Transform campaign has launched it’s latest publication “After the war on drugs – A blueprint for regulation” (download here) – more about that later, but most of this blog is dedicated to a critique of one well known prohibitionist’s claims.
One of the few articles published in favour of continued cannabis prohibition over the past week or so came from the ever dependable if somewhat rabid Peter Hutchins in the Mail on Sunday. Peter has an interesting take on life, in most respects he opposes repressive laws and champions the right of the individual to make their own way in the world. In most respects, but not when it comes to drugs. Where drugs are concerned – and cannabis in particular – Peter is a staunch supporter of the authoritarian approach embodied in prohibition.
Last week he dedicated his blog to the thoughts of that well known prohibition campaigner Mary Brett and the bulk of this blog will examine her “Arguments against legalising drugs“.
Before we look at her claims however a little background is in order; Mary Brett was a school teacher and her science background is as a teacher in a secondary school. She has been a highly vocal and very influential prohibition supporter for some years now, firstly with her organisation “Europe Against Drugs” (EurAD) which had close links to The National Drug Prevention Alliance (NDPA). More recently Mary Brett was involved with Debra Bell’s “Talking about cannabis”, where she was promoted to the role of an “expert” all all things cannabis. Not so long back however there was a falling out within TAC and she is now a prime mover in “CannSS”, an unfortunate acronym derived from “Cannabis Skunk Support”.
It’s probably fair to say that Mary Brett is the source of much of the misinformation about cannabis being put about at present and Peter Hutchins was kind enough to reproduce it all in his blog. So what of Mary Brett’s “expert” knowledge of cannabis and her reasons for supporting prohibition?
The illegality of drugs deters over 60% of children from using them (2005 survey)
So on her figures, 40% of children are not deterred. Put like this of course shows the reason prohibition is causing so much of a problem because it fails to moderate the behaviour of getting on half of children. The problems is of course, having failed in it’s main goal of deterrence, prohibition has nothing else to offer. Prohibition of course isn’t a policy aimed or originally intended to protect children, it’s supposed to influence the behaviour of adults.
Drugs are illegal because they are dangerous, not dangerous because they are illegal.
We don’t make dangerous activities illegal though, we do allow harm reduction measures and often make such measures compulsory, but we don’t ban dangerous pastimes simply because they are dangerous. However, in making drugs illegal they are undoubtedly made far more dangerous that they would otherwise be through disruption of the trade, indeed that is a prime objective of the law and is used as an indicator of “success” by the government. Prohibition is unique as a policy in that it actually sets out to increase the dangers or the dangerous activity it supposedly aims to protect society from.
At what age would they be legally available if legalised? Surely not under 18 as many are intoxicants like alcohol. Young children (with their undeveloped brains) will still be the targets of dealers. They will also be able to get them easier from older siblings and friends. We have not been very successful in keeping them away from alcohol. The message will come through loud and clear that drugs can’t be too bad or they wouldn’t do this, or at least they must be able to take them ‘safely’. There is no guaranteed safe way to take any drug, including those on prescription.
Lots of unrelated points here. Firstly cannabis is easily available to children under Mary’s preferred regime and an age limit of 18 or so would be integral to any legalised regime. There can be no age limits enforced on an illegal market where the only limit to buying is governed by the ownership of a £10 note. The explosion of use amongst kids was indeed due to them getting hold of their siblings stash and prohibition doesn’t seem very good at stopping that.
Is Mary seriously arguing that alcohol would become less available to children under a regime of prohibition? If so she is very badly informed and should reflect on the campaign to end American Alcohol prohibition which used the slogan “protect our youth, save our children”
This inability – or perhaps it’s a refusal – to learn from history is sadly typical of prohibition campaigners.
Do we teach kids how to respect fire by preventing them learning how to treat it with respect? Of course not. The claim that here is no safe way to use drugs ignores a very basic aspect of the way people learn. It is only through learning what the hazards of something are that we learn the true dangers and encouraging an ethos of safer use amongst users would educate people as to the dangers of that drug. Selling the drugs in packets with clear health warnings is hardly going to encourage reckless behaviour either.
It is irresponsible and stupid to make other harmful drugs freely available to add to the misery and tragic consequences caused by the 2 we already have, alcohol and tobacco (nicotine).
Nothing new is being added, these substances are all here now and easily available due to the uncontrolled nature of the illegal supply side. Do people really only take drugs because the dealers “push” them? Of course not, but they are often tempted by being offered them when their dealer hasn’t got any hash.
All of them would have to be legalised and to all ages, otherwise dealers would simply push the others.
A clear and groundless assumption stated as hard fact. The drugs trade is built on the profits to be made form the illegal trade, which at present are huge. The profits are huge, not because of the market in the school playground but because of the adult market. as Mary Brett acknowledged earlier kids get their drugs in the main from siblings, not directly from dealers.
It would be difficult to justify keeping prescription drugs restricted if all the others were available.
No, it just accepts the reality of recreational use and the need to treat that as an aspect of real life. Indeed it’s very easy to argue that prohibition is creating the trend in the misuse of prescription drugs and the whole emerging concept of the “pharm party”.
In every country where the laws have been relaxed, drug use has increased, Sweden, Holland, America (especially Alaska), South Australia. In countries like Japan and Singapore drug use has been virtually eliminated by tough drug laws and aggressive enforcement.
Actually Holland with its cannabis coffeeshops has done rather well and has low levels of drug use, as does Portugal where drugs of all types were decriminalised in 2001. America on the other hand is perhaps the prime example of a country with both a repressive drugs regime and a spiralling drugs problem.
Of course, Mary Brett is equating drug law reform with a “relaxing” of the drug laws. In fact real drug law reform is all about introducing laws which are effective and, above all, workable. Prohibition is based on tough rhetoric, but has proven to be simply unworkable.
Young people are not being criminalised. Youngsters know the law, they are aware of breaking it, they are criminalising themselves.
There is something very wrong with that logic which probably has its roots in the fact that, to repeat, prohibition is a law aimed at adults, not children. It was never intended to be a deterrent for children. In any case, the end result is indeed that young people are being criminalised because of prohibition and they are being given criminal records.
Anyway very few have ever been jailed for simple possession of cannabis. The law is there for a reason. Is the same thinking applied to other law-breaking activities? E.g. petty pilfering, graffiti spraying or speeding.
No, the same thinking isn’t applied to those other activities because they are not comparable. Again to make the point – the criminal law is not designed to moderate the behaviour of children and to try to use it in such a way is bound to fail. Drug use is seen as a personal thing by many people and thus prohibition is simply not a law which is respected at a very fundamental level by the people it seeks to influence.
Just because everyone who speeds cannot be caught there are no strident calls for removal of the speed limits.
Speeding motorists kill people, Adults getting a bit stoned don’t. That comparison is frankly ludicrous. However, it is a reasonable argument to increase speed limits on some roads and such campaigns do indeed exist.
The laws against drugs haven’t failed. Regular drug use is around 10% of the population. Prohibition has helped to deter the other 90%.
So it’s all a success then? I’d hate to see real failure.
The incidence of smoking is falling. Around 20% of the population now smoke, down from 30% a few years ago, due in no short measure to smoking prohibition in public places. Are we to accept the smoking of cannabis in public places? Cannabis plants contain more of some of the carcinogens that are present in tobacco, and passive smoking does occur.
Tobacco use has indeed fallen, but without the imposition of prohibition, limits to the use of drugs is not even remotely the same as prohibition. What has worked and is working with tobacco is education, restrictions on places where one can smoke and better enforcement of age limits for sales. These are all measures which could be applied to legal drugs. A word of caution though, if the tobacco trade is clamped down to much a black market will emerge and may already be doing so, there are limits to the restrictions.
A huge amount of violence is connected with drug taking especially stimulants like cocaine and crack. About 17% of violent crimes are committed by people under the influence of drugs.
To some extent this is true and it’s always a good idea to remember that the word “drugs” covers a wide range of substances and therefore it’s highly unlikely that one regime will work for everything. However, there is very little evidence that prohibition does much to reduce the crime levels associated with drug use and very much to suggest that it increases it. It doesn’t really make sense to prohibit cannabis use because crack make people violent in any case.
Even if legal, drugs won’t be free. Addicts are often unemployable so will still have to get money to fund their habit, mugging and thefts will continue.
“Addicts are often unemployable”, actually addicts are employable, “Junkies” – a sad concept born of the chaotic nature of addictive drug use created by prohibition – may not be. Many tobacco addicts work of course as do people addicted to medical drugs, so addiction in and of itself clearly doesn’t prevent employment. Indeed, many heroin addicts on maintenance programmes get work and hold jobs down.
Young people will no longer be brought before the courts. They will no longer be steered into treatment and rehabilitation. Who will they turn to for help?
The courts are providing the only form of support for drug users, is that really the only option?
Dealers will not simply become upright citizens overnight. They are criminals. The Mafia didn’t disband after prohibition in the USA.
Alcohol prohibition virtually created the mob and the Mafia moved into drug running as it became the source of easy money, they didn’t stay in alcohol bootlegging. The local off-licence or pub isn’t controlled by organised crime as it would have been during alcohol prohibition. Organised crime will go wherever there is easy money to be made.
Incidentally prohibition saw a 50% reduction in consumption of alcohol resulting in fewer alcohol-related diseases and psychosis.
How interesting Mary Brett claims that alcohol is such a major cause of psychosis, this isn’t a claim she is well known for making.
Sure the overall level of alcohol consumption dropped, but the level of alcohol abuse didn’t and over the years grew to frightening proportions. The resulting physical and mental harm from bath tub gin and moonshine is well known; the legend of the blind blues player comes from this period for example. The simplistic level of drug use is not the issue, of far more importance is the nature of the drug use: 1000 men drinking beer in a pub is far less destructive than 10 kids swigging vodka from a bottle in a derelict building, to continue the analogy prohibition reduced the number of alcohol users by stopping the men in the pub, it did nothing to stop the kids swigging the vodka, only the vodka had become moonshine.
The incidence of child neglect and delinquency halved.
And then increased massively. Children became ensnared in the illegal trade, hence to “Protect our youth” slogan
Dealers will turn to theft, people trafficking etc.
Criminals will be attracted to anything that makes money, if society provides the opportunity, the gangs will move in. Actually, any such opportunity is being exploited now.
Also they will always be able to undercut the official price especially if drugs are taxed.
There is a limit to how much tax can be imposed on any drug. A good example of this happened a few years ago with wine which could be bought for far less money in France which caused am explosion in “grey market” tax evasion. But people will pay for quality and the existing alcohol trade demonstrates that. Fighting illegal markets is an economic battle as much as anything though.
Alternatively they may turn to smuggling drugs, around 20% of the tobacco used in the UK is smuggled. The Times 25/04/08 reported about £2.5 billion annually in unpaid tax lost to the treasury (10 billion cigarettes).
And this will increase if taxes are raised too high. It is, in reality, the job of government to ensure the trading conditions do not encourage black markets to develop,
Libertarians say that people have the right to do what they like with their own bodies. Fine! If it doesn’t interfere with others, but it always does. Drugs cause car accidents, crimes are committed, families are destroyed, some become violent and attack people, addicts need treatment at public expense, passive smoking occurs. With liberty must come responsibility, too often liberty is confused with licence.
Of course there have to be limits, but limits that have the support of the consumer and of society are both possible and easy to enforce. Also, to return to Mary Brett’s point about safer use – would cannabis be a drug which is smoked if it were to be legalised? It could well become something which is eaten or drunk, or perhaps vaporised. In any case, it would almost certainly become the norm not to smoke it in tobacco, which generate far less smoke.
Cannabis users who are drivers are still affected up to at least 24 hours after a joint. Anyone with a job as a driver should not be allowed to smoke the drug at all. Even more important with airline pilots!
The claim that smoking one joint makes someone unfit to drive for 24 hours is over egging the situation to a great extent and the claims of cannabis producing mayhem on the motorways have not really stood up to examination. However, greater restrictions on the use of cars might not be such a bad thing in general.
Drug-taking is not a victimless crime: parents, siblings and friends are all affected: children of users can be neglected when parents are under the influence, even killed, cocaine and crack using parents have killed young children: where are the rights of the unborn children of drug users? Employers will suffer lost production, poor workmanship and unreliability.
It’s interesting how Mary Brett equates work performance with child neglect. Again, she is using the specific fears surrounding crack to argue against law reform.
In the case of cannabis: Will people be allowed to grow it? Will they be restricted to a specified number of plants? Will they be allowed to grow skunk? Will children have access to these plants and seeds? How will it be monitored and policed?
How is home brewing regulated? What problems does it produce? It isn’t and it doesn’t are the answers. Of course, if a commercial supply of cannabis is allowed, why would anyone other than an enthusiast grow their own?
Once the ‘genie is out of the bottle’ it would be extremely difficult to put it back.
Ah yes, the real fear of the prohibition campaigners – the “Berlin wall” effect. Open the checkpoint just a little and you get a flood. Actually, they’re right and a crack in the prohibition wall will probably see the whole foul regime come crashing down. That’s generally the fate of hard line authoritarian regimes.
Alcohol can be consumed safely with no harm to the person or others (except in the case of driving). There are well-known safe limits. In fact a small amount daily may even be good for you. Most of the population drink and do not drink to get drunk.
Interesting how prohibition supporters are usually so defensive of the drug they use, alcohol.
Drugs are taken to alter the mind, to get stoned or get high. But we are ‘stuck’ with alcohol. It has been around commonly in the population for centuries, and is socially accepted.
Cannabis has been around human society for 5000 or so years of recorded history.
The consumption of drugs in large quantities is a relatively recent phenomenon and the majority of people do not want to see them legalised.
Actually people have got off their heads for rather a long time, especially with the drug alcohol – Gin lane for example
William Hogarth, 1751 – “Gin Lane” and “beer Street” – two pictures designed to be seen together comparing the moderate use of alcohol through beer drinking with the destructive result of gin. A classic example of how regulation and control was promoted 300 years ago when there was widespread unmoderated drug (alcohol) use. Such issues are far from new.
Currently there are very many strong voices being raised to curb the consumption of alcohol while a very vocal minority clamours for the legalisation of drugs! It defies belief!
Mary Brett’s use of exclamation marks as an expression of outrage is perhaps a sign of desperation. Acutally the debate now, following Professor Nutt’s sacking is for a consistent approach for all drugs, rather than trying to achieve the same end result via two polar opposite methods.
Mary Brett’s main concern however is about cannabis and she has no time for the medical argument:
Cannabis (consisting of 400 chemicals) cannot be licensed as a medicine. Medicines have to be pure single chemicals so their actions are predictable and controllable and have to undergo rigorous clinical tests. Pure THC (or a synthetic variety) is already available as Nabilone in the UK and Marinol in the USA but is not at all popular with doctors due to its side-effects. Purified extracts of other cannabinoids (substances unique to cannabis) are currently being tested. Telling someone to take cannabis for a condition is like saying ‘Go and smoke tobacco to get your weight down’, nicotine suppresses the appetite. Or eat mouldy bread to get your penicillin.
Sativex, the cannabis medicine about to be licenced and which has been available on prescription for some time now is indeed made from whole cannabis. It is precisely because cannabis is a cocktail of active substances that makes it what it is, it is not simply THC – nor is it simply even a THC-CBD mix. The medical use of cannabis has always been denied by prohibitionists of course.
We must ask, ‘Is the chemical relatively safe? Is the chemical beneficial?’ If the answer to both is NO, then there are no reasonable grounds for legalising.
Must we? Actually, one of the strongest arguments for proper controls over drugs is because they can be dangerous, less so with cannabis but it still applies: The reason to legalise drugs is not because they are safe, but because they are dangerous. Illegal drugs are not controlled drugs.
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So to Transform and its far more “real world” approach to the problem. If or when we do scrap prohibition, what should replace it. Transform look at the various options in their latest report “After the war on drugs, blue print for regulation”( download the report here) which they distil down to:
Prescription
* Pharmacy model
* Licensed sales
* Licensed premises
* Unlicensed sales
As is perhaps to be expected, cannabis is placed within the licensed trade bracket.
Despite the obvious differences, the nature and extent of cannabis use means that, more than any other currently illicit drug, it lends itself to the lessons learnt from alcohol and tobacco control. As such, the WHO Framework Convention for Tobacco Control (which could almost be adapted for cannabis merely by switching the words, see: page 106), and the WHO guidance on alcohol regulation, provide a sound basis for cannabis regulation models.
The Transform report reads like a breath of fresh air compared with the stifling ignorance underpinning prohibition.
Some great ideas for where we should be but the tricky bit is how we should get there. I agree that it is too much to change the way we deal with drugs overnight since there is going to have to be a great deal of re-education to accompany this. People need to be convinced of the merits of the ‘regulate and control’ approach – after all it is understandable that people should be cautious since drugs have been portrayed for many years as dangerous to the very fabric of society. If this strategy change is to work popular support must be there from the start and maintained.
The Transform document has some good ideas but it will always be something of a leap in the dark so we need to talk more about the process of change and set some expectations. One problem that needs to be overcome is the idea that less usage is better since a change in the law would probably mean an increased usage of all the substances (apart from alcohol use which may fall as a consequence of people having a choice). Firstly people need to be convinced that harm reduction means safer use for all not less use. We need to tackle all the perceived harms and spell out what regulation will do to reduce them. Also the extra money from taxation and reduced crime and policing is always a good way to measure success since that is something the public and politicians alike understand.
This must be the battle now and Transform have done some good work on this front (in the document linked above) except as always it will only be read by those who already know. Maybe we need some of these benefits as headlines on the UKCIA main page rather than hidden away in a downloadable PDF – it might be a good start. UKCIA has moved the argument from saying what is wrong with prohibition to saying what is right with regulation but we need to take that further.
As always keep up the good work !
Thanks
I think the simplistic idea that drug policy should aim to achieve the lowest level of use really needs challenging more, indeed I don’t think I’ve ever seen it challenged.
It doesn’t help though when the media carries the claims of people like Mary Brett as if they were facts. We really need to grow up with regard to drugs policy.