WASHINGTON, Nov. 28 /PRNewswire/ — Each day, more than 9,000 new driver’s licenses are issued to 16 and 17 year olds nationwide, the very same age group that is at greatest risk for marijuana use, and a 2005 survey reveals that these teens say that cars are the second most popular place for smoking marijuana. The Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) is partnering with driving schools and other leading health, safety and youth-serving organizations to warn parents of the prevalence and dangers of drugged driving and to provide information to help teens “Steer Clear of Pot.”

More than 2.9 million driving-age teens reported lifetime use of marijuana, and last year more than 750,000 16 and 17 year olds reported driving under the influence of illicit drugs. According to the 2004-2005 PRIDE Surveys, when asked where they use, approximately one in seven (14%) high school seniors cited “in a car,” making cars the second most popular location after at “a friend’s house” (20.4%).

“Parents need to realize that drugged driving is nearly as common today among teens as alcohol-impaired driving,” said John P. Walters, Director, National Drug Control Policy. “Marijuana impairs many of the skills required for safe driving, such as concentration, coordination, perception and reaction time, and these effects can last up to 24 hours after smoking the drug.   It is critical that parents know the dangers associated with drugged driving and are vigilant in monitoring their teen drivers, especially young, less experienced drivers.”

Monitoring the Future data shows that approximately one in six (15%) teens reported driving under the influence of marijuana, a number nearly equivalent to those who reported driving under the influence of alcohol (16%). A recent study from a large shock trauma unit found that 19 percent of automobile crash victims under age 18 tested positive for marijuana.

“Getting a driver’s license is a milestone in a teen’s life that goes beyond the road to symbolize independence and freedom,” said Thomas “Buddy” Gleaton, Ed.D., President, PRIDE Surveys. “In the more than 20 years that PRIDE Surveys has been tracking teen drug use, teens consistently report engaging in risky behaviors in cars. Parents need to keep a watchful eye to be effective in reversing these trends.”

ONDCP’s National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign is providing parents and teens with information about the risks of drugged driving through a renewed “Steer Clear of Pot” initiative. The Media Campaign will underscore the harmful effects of teen marijuana use and drugged driving through the promotion of free materials, including a “New Drivers Kit” for teens and parents, available with other new content on the Media Campaign’s Web site for parents, http://www.TheAntiDrug.com .

In addition, “Steer Clear of Pot” partners will distribute drugged driving and marijuana prevention materials to driver’s education teachers, teens, and parents nationwide:

“Driver’s education and behind-the-wheel training are at the foundation for developing safe driving skills,” said Bradley Huspek, President, Driving School Association of the Americas. “Parents and driving instructors play a critical role in educating teens about being responsible drivers and steering clear from drugs.”

Experts say parental supervision and setting clear rules are associated with less risky teen behavior. A recent SADD/Liberty Mutual Group report found that nearly 60 percent of teens who drive say their parents have the most influence on their driving, followed by 27 percent who say their friends are most influential. Parents can take action and help their teen “steer clear of pot” with simple steps such as:

Since its inception in 1998, the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign has conducted outreach to millions of parents, teens and communities to reduce and prevent teen drug use. Counting on an unprecedented blend of public and private partnerships, non-profit community service organizations, volunteerism, and youth-to-youth communications, the Campaign is designed to reach Americans of diverse backgrounds with effective anti-drug messages.

For more information on the ONDCP National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign, visit http://www.MediaCampaign.org .

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Geraldine Silverman,Chairman
Millburn Municipal Alliance for Drug Awareness
NJ Federation for Drug Free Communities
Life Member of the New Jersey PTA’s
23 Audubon Court
Short Hills, NJ 07078-1812 1-973-376-8927

Ms. Anna Weselak, President, National PTA
541 North Fairbanks Court, Suite 1300
Chicago, Illinois 60611-3396

Dear President Weselak:

I am writing to you as Chairman of the Millburn Municipal Alliance, an officer of the New Jersey Federation for Drug Free Communities, a Life Member of the New Jersey State PTA, and a local, state and nationally recognized figure in the field of prevention.

In the May, 1981 issue of PTA Today, Virginia Sparling, then President of the National PTA wrote, “As we review the activities of PTA members in their fight to protect their children from destruction by drugs, marijuana in particular, we see the PTA’s Human Network – a network of people who care about children and have a common commitment to promote the well-being of children in the home, school and community – functioning at its highest potential.”

The New Jersey PTA’s have upheld all these goals and has been recognized as a leader in legislation on “21″ laws, drug paraphernalia laws and seat belts laws. We also pride ourselves for seeing our New Jersey PTA President, Manya Ungar, rise to become the National PTA President in the mid 1980’s, furthering all our goals for all the nation’s children.

The National, State and Local PTA’s have always been dedicated to inform parents, teachers and students as to the dangers of drug use and to oppose the sale of illegal drugs and drug paraphernalia. By uniting with one voice, one consistent “no use” message regarding children, we were successful in dramatically reducing illicit drug use by our children from 1981 to 1992 as documented by the studies and reports from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), PRIDE and the annual Michigan Survey done on youth and drugs.^₁

What changed? We began to see a swing upwards by adolescents using illicit drugs, from 1992 to 2000. There were several reasons among which was the Clinton’s Administration downgrading the Drug Czar’s staff to a mere skeleton, the glamorization of illicit drug use by Hollywood and MTV, an explosion of teen age pregnancies, more single parent homes, more working parents and above all a well financed pro-drug legalization organization came into being, today known as the Drug Policy Alliance which promotes the philosophy that drug use by youth is inevitable and can best be remedied with “harm reduction” programs and attitudes.

As a drug prevention specialist with 27 years of experience, I can state for a fact that drug use is not inevitable. To even suggest that our children can take drugs responsibly without becoming addicted, flies in the face of the reality that no one knows who will or who will not become addicted.

I am very concerned to learn that the National PTA, for the past two years has had Marsha Rosenbaum, a ranking leader in the Drug Policy Alliance, an active proponent of drug legalization and the “harm reduction” philosophy, conduct workshops on “Teens and Drugs.” By having her as a speaker, National PTA has acknowledged her philosophy of “responsible use,” and has set many of us back in our efforts to promote a “no use message.”

I firmly believe that the majority of State PTA’s still believes that our youth have the right to grow up free from drugs and that we must all accept responsibility for making that goal a reality. With every parent, every teacher and every student who is reached, the PTA’s will have moved one step closer to achieving the goal of eradicating drug use among our children. Hopefully, in the future, the National PTA will reconsider having people like Marsha Rosenbaum from the DPA or other pro-legalization organizations, conduct workshops at your annual convention. We need National PTA to once again rejoin the state and local PTA’s in “one voice, one message, no use.”

Sincerely,

Geraldine Silverman, Chairman Millburn Municipal Alliance, NJ Fed. for Drug Free Communities and Life Member NJ State PTA

^_1. The use of all drugs by all ages was reduced in the USA by over 60% between 1979 and 1990 – due mainly to the work of over 8,000 parent groups which spoke out loudly and clearly against ‘responsible use’ drug education programmes.

The NDPA would respectfully suggest to all parents who read this section of our website to visit their local schools and ask to see which drug education materials are being used in the classrooms and to request that so-called harm reduction policies (another term for ‘responsible use’) are abandoned and replaced with genuine drug prevention messages. It is not inevitable or normal for young people to do drugs and the majority of our youth remain drug-free, it is therefore imperative that schools ‘drug education and prevention’ materials s do not give covert acceptance of drug use messages in the classrooms. Please contact the NDPA for further information on drug education.

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The Scottish Drug Misuse Database statistics said the majority of drug users questioned in the region had started injecting under the age of 20.

The figures – for individuals who had injected in the past month – cover the year up to March 2005.

South of Scotland SNP MSP Alasdair Morgan called it “very alarming”.

National concern was raised about the issue when an 11-year-old girl in Glasgow was taken to hospital when she collapsed in school after smoking heroin.

Agencies in Dumfries and Galloway said it was a problem which needed to be faced on a day-to-day basis.

“This has got to be tackled constantly, not just when there are headlines about it,” said Raymond Carvill of Stranraer Against Drugs.

He also raised concerns about the collapse of a drugs information scheme piloted in local primary schools which he said was a great success.

Lead officer for substance misuse for Dumfries and Galloway Council and NHS, Jim Parker, said they were still looking at rolling that project out across the region.

“There are a number of areas we want to develop at the moment,” he confirmed.

“It is utilising the funding we have got against the priorities we have got.”

Mr Morgan has called for serious and sustained investment to tackle the issue.

“These numbers represent an extremely small proportion of those under 19,” he said.

“It is very worrying, however, that any proportion of our young people have so few prospects in their lives that they have turned to the hardest of drugs.”

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First I’m going to tell you a little about me and my family. My name is Jeff. I am a Police Officer for a city in the USA which is known nationwide for its crime rate. We have a lot of gangs and drugs. At one point we were # 2 in the nation in homicides per capita. I also have a police dog named Thor. He was certified in drugs and general duty. He retired at 3 years old because he was shot in the line of duty. He lives with us now and I still train with him because he likes it. I always liked the fact that there was no way to bring drugs into my house. Thor wouldn’t allow it. He would tell on you. The reason I say this is so you understand that I know about drugs. I have taught in schools about drugs. My wife asks all our kids at least once a week if they used any drugs. Makes them promise they wont.

I like building computers occasionally and started building a new one in February 2005. I also was working on some of my older computers. They were full of dust so on one of my trips to the computer store I bought a 3 pack of DUST OFF. Dust Off is a can of compressed air to blow dust off a computer. A few weeks later when I went to use one of them they were all used. I talked to my kids and my two sons both said they had used them on their computer and messing around with them. I yelled at them for wasting the 10 dollars I paid for them. On February 28 I went back to the computer store. They didn’t have the 3 pack which I had bought on sale so I bought a single jumbo can of Dust Off. I went home and set it down beside my computer.

On March 1st, I left for work at 10 PM. Just before midnight my wife went down and kissed Kyle goodnight. At 5.30 am the next morning Kathy went downstairs to wake Kyle up for school, before she left for work. He was propped up in bed with his legs crossed and his head leaning over. She called to him a few times to get up. He didn’t move. He would sometimes tease her like this and pretend he fell back asleep. He was never easy to get up. She went in and shook his arm. He fell over. He was pale white and had the straw from the Dust Off can coming out of his mouth. He had the new can of Dust Off in his hands. Kyle was dead.

I am a police officer and I had never heard of this. My wife is a nurse and she had never heard of this. We later found out from the coroner, after the autopsy, that only the propellant from the can of Dust off was in his system. No other drugs. Kyle had died between midnight and 1 AM

I found out that using Dust Off is being done mostly by kids ages 9 through 15. They even have a name for it. It’s called dusting. A take off from the Dust Off name. It gives them a slight high for about 10 seconds. It makes them dizzy. A boy who lives down the street from us showed Kyle how to do this about a month before. Kyle showed his best friend. Told him it was cool and it couldn’t hurt you. It’s just compressed air. It can’t hurt you. His best friend said no.

Kyle was wrong. It’s not just compressed air. It also contains a propellant called R2. It’s a refrigerant like what is used in your refrigerator. It is a heavy gas. Heavier than air. When you inhale it, it fills your lungs and keeps the good air, with oxygen, out. That’s why you feel dizzy, buzzed. It decreases the oxygen to your brain, to your heart. Kyle was right. It can’t hurt you. IT KILLS YOU. The horrible part about this is there is no warning. There is no level that kills you. It’s not cumulative or an overdose; it can just go randomly, terribly wrong. Roll the dice and if your number comes up you die. IT’S NOT AN OVERDOSE. It’s Russian Roulette. You don’t die later. Or not feel good and say I’ve had too much. You usually die as your breathing it in. If not you die within 2 seconds of finishing “the hit.” That’s why the straw was still in Kyle’s mouth when he died. Why his eyes were still open.

The experts want to call this huffing. The kids don’t believe its huffing. As adults we tend to lump many things together. But it doesn’t fit here. And that’s why its more accepted. There is no chemical reaction. no strong odour. It doesn’t follow the huffing signals. Kyle complained a few days before he died of his tongue hurting. It probably did. The propellant causes frostbite. If I had only known.

Its easy to say hey, its my life and I’ll do what I want. But it isn’t. Others are always affected. This has forever changed our family’s life. I have a hole in my heart and soul that can never be fixed. The pain is so immense I can’t describe it. There’s nowhere to run from it. I cry all the time and I don’t ever cry. I do what I’m supposed to do but I don’t really care. My kids are messed up. One won’t talk about it. The other will only sleep in our room at night. And my wife, I can’t even describe how bad she is taking this. I thought we were safe because of Thor. I thought we were safe because we knew about drugs and talked to our kids about them.

After Kyle died another story came out. A Probation Officer went to the school system next to ours to speak with a student. While there he found a student using Dust Off in the bathroom. This student told him about another student who also had some in his locker. This is a rather affluent school system. They will tell you they don’t have a drug problem there. They don’t even have a DARE or Plus program there. So rather than tell everyone about this “new” way of getting high they found, they hid it. The probation officer told the media after Kyle’s death and they, the school, then admitted to it. I know that if they would have told the media and I had heard, it wouldn’t have been in my house.

We need to get this out of our homes and school computer labs. Using Dust Off isn’t new and some “professionals” do know about. It just isn’t talked about much, except by the kids. They all seem to know about it.

April 2nd was 1 month since Kyle died. April 5th would have been his 15th birthday. And every weekday I catch myself sitting on the living room couch at 2:30 in the afternoon and waiting to see him get off the bus. I know Kyle is in heaven but I can’t help but wonder if I died and went to Hell.

—————-
This Officer is asking for everyone who receives this email to forward it to everyone in their address book, even Law Enforcement Officers.

In the 1980s there was a lot of media coverage about VSA – volatile substance abuse (‘glue sniffing’). Then increased cannabis use and crack hit the headlines – making people believe ‘sniffing’ – or ‘huffing’ as they call it in the USA – had gone away. Sadly, this dangerous practice is still very much around. NDPA print this article in our Parents page because we want you all to know how aware parents need to be. If it is possible to use non-aerosol products in your home (hair sprays, cleaners, polishes etc.) it may be wiser to use the alternatives.

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50 primary pupils ‘are heroin addicts’

JONATHAN LESSWARE AND LAURA ROBERTS

Key points

 

• 50 primary school pupils using heroin in Glasgow, claims SNP politician

• Claim follows collapse of 11-year-old girl in Pollok

• Scale of teenage heroin use in Scotland remains undetermined

Story in full UP TO 50 children of primary school age in Glasgow are regularly using heroin, it was claimed last night.

The shocking figure was revealed as it emerged that an 11-year-old girl had collapsed at a primary school in the city last week after smoking heroin. Yesterday, community leaders, health workers and politicians said the young girl’s case highlighted the need to tackle the drugs problem at an even younger age.

The girl, who has not been identified, was admitted to Glasgow’s Royal Hospital for Sick Children at Yorkhill on Wednesday, where she was reported to have shown severe withdrawal symptoms.

She remained in hospital last night and has been enrolled on an addiction treatment programme, one of the youngest ever to do so in the UK.

The girl admitted to social workers that she bought £10 bags of the class-A drug outside a shopping centre in Pollok, in the south of the city. She told doctors she had been smoking heroin for more than two months. Strathclyde Police and Glasgow City Council have launched separate investigations.

Last night, Stewart Stevenson, the Scottish National Party’s deputy justice spokesman, claimed that charities battling Scotland’s rampant drug problem had told him they were dealing with dozens of children of a similar age taking heroin. He said the youngsters were more likely to smoke the drug, a practice known as “chasing the dragon”, than inject it.

Of the 11-year-old girl, he said: “Unfortunately, she’s far from alone in that there are several dozen identified heroin addicts at primary school age in the Glasgow area. I understand there are probably as many as 50 primary school addicts in Glasgow. The Executive have spent practically nothing on training teachers in primary and early secondary to deal with this … I talk to a lot of people working with drug users and this is what I have been told.”

Gaille McCann, a Glasgow councillor who helped to set up Mothers Against Drugs after Allan Harper, 13, died from a heroin overdose in 1998, agreed that the latest case was not an isolated incident.

She said: “This is the harsh reality of the drug problem today, and it must not just become a seven-day story but instead act as a wake-up call to us all, particularly the policymakers in their ivory towers.”

However, Alistair Ramsay, the director of Scotland Against Drugs (SAD), warned against using anecdotal evidence to gauge the scale of the pre-teenage heroin problem.

He said SAD had trained thousands of teachers and school heads on how to deal with the effects of child or parental drug users.

Mr Ramsay said: “Thankfully, incidents like this are very rare, but when they occur they are truly shocking. Parents should not overreact, but if they know their child well they will spot changes in behaviour very quickly, and this will help with an early identification of a problem.”

Last year, experts at the University of Glasgow found that children as young as ten have experimented with heroin and cocaine. The researchers found that children aged between ten and 12 north of the Border were twice as likely to take drugs as their English counterparts.

Last night, the deputy justice minister, Hugh Henry, said: “Everyone is shocked when they hear about such a young person’s life being put at risk.

“This story gives further reinforcement, if any were needed, that we must keep up our broad approach to tackling drug abuse in society.”

Yesterday, residents in Pollok said they were shocked but not surprised at the case. Marguerita O’Neill, a community health worker, said: “I know there are drugs in every scheme, but this is horrifying. She was only 11 – it terrifies the life out of me.”

Neil Williams, a taxi driver, said: “You can get drugs everywhere, but questions should be asked. Why put a methadone clinic next to a shopping centre? It is only going to attract drug users to the area.”

The Labour MP for Glasgow South West, Ian Davidson, said the girl’s plight showed the importance of “sweeping up” low-level drug-dealing in the community, as well as the high-profile drug cartels.

He said: “Clearly, it’s a great worry to find that any primary school child is using hard drugs.

“We need to identify whether this is a particular issue to this family or, more worryingly, if this is the tip of the iceberg in terms of this sort of drug use among classmates.”

In a statement, Glasgow City Council said: “An 11-year-old child was admitted to hospital on an emergency basis last Wednesday with what appeared to heroin intoxication.

“We are monitoring the situation, and the ongoing case discussion will continue on Monday.”

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COLUMBUS – Since scientific literature shows the use of marijuana to be a major risk factor in the development of addiction and drug use among school children, law enforcement officials are concerned over a new marketing ploy.

“They package this stuff just like it is something a kid can buy off the shelf,” said Columbus Police chief Clare May. “When I look at it, I see candy bar, something I would want to buy if I were a child.”

May was referring to a bag of evidence containing four “candy bars” recently confiscated from a driver during routine checkpoint stop by U.S. Customs and Border Protection on Highway 11, between the village of Columbus and the port of entry. The driver, Jose Antonio Avila, of North Hollywood, California, told the officials he needed the “candy” for medicinal purposes. Avila was cited for possession of less than one ounce of marijuana.

“This stuff is marijuana mixed with chocolate and packaged in the same colors and logo as Kit-Kat or Reese’s peanut butter cups are only it reads ‘Kief-Kat’ and ‘Reefers,’” May said. “There is a warning on a couple of the candy bars that it is for medicinal use only but the warnings are so small and vague that a child wouldn’t read them. “I can see there this is a problem where an illegal business takes advantage of a legal business under the ruse that this is medical marijuana. “I do not agree with the way this stuff is packaged and sold because it is attractive to children,” he said. Under New Mexico law, marijuana is an illegal drug. And even if it was for medicinal purposes, as Avila claimed, he had no prescription on him at the time he was stopped by the authorities. Because the citation is for possession of less than one ounce of marijuana, Columbus Municipal Court will process the case.

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Extract from the Annual Report of the International Narcotics Control Board Focuses on Relationship between Drug Abuse, Crime and Violence at Community Level

 VIENNA, 27 February (UN Information Service) — The impact of drug abuse on crime and violence at the community level is the main focus of the 2003 Annual Report of the Vienna-based International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), released on 3 March 2004.

“At this level, drug abuse is often linked with antisocial behaviour such as delinquency, crime, and violence and has negative consequences for individuals, families, neighbourhoods and communities that need to be addressed by the international community and individual governments,” INCB President Philip O. Emafo points out.

While the Board clarifies that most crime related to drug abuse is non-violent and petty, it stresses that the impact of illicit drugs, crime and violence is highly damaging to local communities at the micro-social level.

“The very fabric of society is challenged by the continued presence in communities of drug-related crime. Communities that suffer disproportionate levels of violent drug-related crime also suffer from higher levels of other criminality and the disruption to civil society associated with it,” says the Board.

The relationship between violence and illicit drug abuse is highly complex and has to be examined keeping a range of factors in mind. The Report maintains that a demonstrable link to violence and crime exists in that some drug addicts resort to violence either to fund their habits or indeed as a result of the psycho-pharmacological impact of some illicit drugs. However, based on controlled laboratory-based experiments, INCB stresses that it is very difficult and misleading to suggest a direct causal link between violence and illicit drug ingestion. This link has to be examined with reference to culturally and socially situated factors, that, in turn, influence an individual’s behaviour.

The INCB calls on Governments to implement comprehensive, community-based drug demand reduction policies, paying special attention to drug abuse prevention in combination with a range of social, economic and law enforcement measures. These should include: creating a local environment that is not conducive to drug dealing and micro-trafficking; supporting local efforts at employment and licit income generation; educational programmes targeting socially marginalized groups; and integrated as well as targeted intervention work with risk groups. The Board also notes that programmes need to be sustainable in the long term in order to generate the desired impact.

Harm Reduction

Harm reduction policies have previously been addressed by the Board. In the current Annual Report the Board once again “calls on Governments which intend to include “harm reduction” measures into their demand reduction strategy, to carefully analyse the overall impact of such measures. These may sometimes be positive for an individual or for a local community while having far-reaching negative consequences at the national and international levels.”

In reaction to specific harm reduction measures such as the establishment and/or operation of drug injection rooms the Board points out that “the operation of such facilities remains a source of grave concern” and “reiterates that they violate the provisions of the international drug control conventions.”

Regional Highlights

Despite the armed intervention and the political change in Afghanistan and the fight against terror, illicit cultivation of and trafficking in opiates has grown which may result in more political instability. Opium cultivation in Afghanistan continued on an even larger scale in 2003.

As a result of two years of bumper crops of opium poppy in Afghanistan, it is expected that heroin trafficking along the Balkan route and through Eastern Europe will continue to increase — this may also lead to the reversal of the declining trends in the abuse of heroin in Western Europe.

More widespread cultivation and abuse of cannabis in Europe combined with a relaxation of controls might counteract required efforts to eradicate illicit cultivation and combat trafficking in Europe and elsewhere in the world.

For further information please contact: INCB Tel: 00-43-1-26060-4163 Web address: www.incb.org

 

Source: ????????? 

 

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The operation was preceded by the arrest in the past two weeks of a dozen drug dealers who were selling ecstasy in the San Antonio district of Ibiza, the haunt of many young British visitors, where the police had recently installed closed circuit television cameras. Ibiza clubs such as Privilege, which is described as “the world’s biggest club”, Amnesia, Es Paradis, Eden, Pacha and Space attract thousands of young British clubbers during the summer, often with special nights hosted by British DJs or clubs. Drugs are formally banned by most clubs but ecstasy is considered to be the Ibiza clubber’s favourite drug.

The island’s drug scene has been linked to the March 11 train bombings in Madrid, which killed 191 people. The mainly Moroccan Islamist bombers who blew up four morning commuter trains financed their operations and the purchase of dynamite with drug money. One of them was Jamal Ahmidan, a known drug trafficker who blew himself up, together with a police officer and six other radical Islamists, when they were surrounded by the police a few weeks after the attacks. Ahmidan had travelled to Ibiza the week before the attacks, apparently to close a trafficking deal. One of his contacts in Ibiza was recently arrested by the judge investigating the Madrid bombings.

The British magazine Mixmag, which is devoted to clubs and dance, reported in a recent edition that Ibiza was coming under pressure from underworld gangs. “If you take drugs in Ibiza this summer, you deserve to know what your money is paying for,” the article said. “More club tourists means more gangsters to supply their drugs, more drug-related crime and more clubbers going to jail than ever.”

Several years ago the British vice-consul on the island, Michael Birkett, resigned, claiming he was increasingly being forced to deal with British “degenerates”. An estimated half a million British people visit Ibiza every year. Some of the local drug trade is reported to be in the hands of British groups.

By TOBY STERLING Associated Press Writer

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) — A broad coalition of political parties unveiled a pilot program Friday to regulate marijuana farming on the model of tobacco, which opponents say would be tantamount to legalizing growing the drug.

Under the test program, to be conducted in the southern city of Maastricht, existing health and safety standards will apply to growers, but they would no longer be the target of police raids or prosecution.

Coffee shops permitted to sell marijuana would be required to provide consumers with information about the health hazards of smoking – similar to tobacco companies – and the chemical content of the marijuana. The shops would also have to say where they bought the marijuana they sell, which proponents say will deter growers from operating dangerous underground greenhouses.

Under current Dutch policy, marijuana and hashish are illegal but police don’t prosecute for possession of less than one ounce. Authorities also look the other way regarding the open sale of cannabis in designated coffee shops.

But commercial growing is outlawed, giving rise to a contradictory system in which shop owners have no legal way to purchase their best-selling product.

Dutch mayors along the country’s borders have lobbied hardest for the change, which they say would make it more difficult for German and Belgian drug tourists to smuggle large quantities of marijuana out of the country.

“It will be possible to trace where cannabis is grown, and where it’s sold,” said conservative lawmaker Frans Weekers.

Opponents, however, have argued that regulation could open the door to outright legalization of marijuana in a country that already has some of Europe’s most lenient drug laws. Prime Minister Jan-Peter Balkenende and his ruling Christian Democrat Party said regulating marijuana cultivation would set the Netherlands another step apart from the rest of the continent.

“This experiment would be at odds with Dutch law, and there’s a legal problem” internationally, as well, Balkenende said.

The Justice Ministry has ordered an investigation into whether the plan would violate international law. The findings are expected within several days.

Weekers said, however, that the current policy is “leading to increasing problems.”

“There comes a moment when you say, ‘Now we have to take the next step,’” he said. “If this pilot program works, and we can show to everyone that it’s an improvement, then you have a good argument to take to foreign governments.”

The coalition of parties gave Balkenende until Dec. 14 to implement the testing program, after which lawmakers said they will introduce a bill in parliament to do it. They said about two-thirds of parliament members support the plan.

Aboard the Mississippi Boat, moored off the banks of the Maas river, the management has suddenly come over publicity-shy. “No interviews in here,” says a burly, long-haired man propping up the bar, “we don’t have anything to do with journalists.”

One of Holland’s most popular, cannabis-selling coffee shops, the Mississippi Boat serves several hundred thousand people each year making its stream of customers the envy of many a Dutch retailer.

But Holland’s famously liberal drug policy is about to confront its biggest challenge in decades. The council in Maastricht plans to make it technically illegal to serve foreigners in the city’s 16 coffee shops, a move that could drive many of them out of business. If the policy is upheld in the courts, it could, eventually, be extended nationwide. The idea is just one of three controversial – and contradictory – schemes designed to curb the social problems produced by Holland’s unique drug laws. Their fate is likely to determine the future of Dutch policy towards cannabis.

The fact that these experiments are taking place in this, historic, city is no coincidence. Within easy driving distance of Belgium, Germany and France, Maastricht has proved a magnet for smokers eager to take advantage of liberal laws. In their wake a trade in illicit cannabis and harder drugs has grown up, accompanied by a rise in crime.

Spurred on by complaints from police and residents, the Mayor of Maastricht, Geerd Leers, has decided that enough is enough. If Mr Leers gets his way, a new by-law will soon require all those who visit coffee shops to show identity cards proving that they are residents. Initially, the law will be enforced only in one coffee shop which will, if necessary, take the case all the way to the European Court of Justice. But, if it loses, foreigners could be banned for all 750 coffee shops in the Netherlands.

In Maastricht’s sprawling modern, municipal, headquarters they have been debating for years how to deal with the special effects of the country’s drugs policy on a border city. Though they still support the principle of legalising limited use of cannabis, they believe bold steps are needed to tackle its unwelcome consequences here.

Ramona Horbach, one of the Mayor’s two drug advisers, argues: “People who visit Maastricht are responsible for a lot of problems, from parking problems to urinating in the streets. There is intimidation, there are efforts to persuade people to buy [hard] drugs. They are trying to sell cocaine, ecstasy or heroin.” Most of the coffee shops are to be found in the relatively small, historic, centre of the city, concentrating the problems in one, compact and highly visible zone.

But a small number are in other neighbourhoods, provoking local opposition.

Ms Horbach’s colleague, Jasperina de Jonge, adds: “Many tourists come to try to buy soft drugs here in the Netherlands that you cannot buy in Germany, France or Belgium.

“Too many people are visiting. Sometimes there is rowdy behaviour. Some of the coffee shops are in residential areas and people no longer like living there.” Parents of young children feel particularly threatened by the combination of rising traffic and a reduced sense of security.

Naturally it was not meant to be like this; the whole point of coffee shops was to bring the use of soft drugs out of the sphere of influence of the criminal gangs.

Though several nations have relaxed their laws on soft drugs, the Netherlands leads the way in regulating their sale. Coffee shops are licensed and no alcohol can be sold or consumed in them. According to the government’s own guide, the policy is a success. “Use of cannabis in the Netherlands is comparable to that in other European countries, whereas in the United States it is substantially higher,” it says.
But this has been achieved through a contradictory law. Technically all drugs are illegal in the Netherlands though coffee shops are permitted to sell a maximum of five grammes of cannabis without facing prosecution.

While it is an offence to produce, possess, sell, import or export hard drugs or cannabis, it is not illegal to use drugs.

That means it is legal for a customer to buy five grammes of cannabis in a coffee shop, but it is illegal for the shop to acquire the stock to sell.

While the law has decriminalised those who use cannabis in small quantities it has not done the same for those who grow it or buy it into their coffee shops.

Maastricht is in the front line because of the massive demand from German, Belgian and French day-trippers. According to the police, the south Limburg region of the Netherlands has an estimated 1.2 million drugs tourists every year.

Peter Tans, head of communications for the Maastricht police, says that, of the estimated 21,000 people charged with crimes this year in south Limburg, 4,500 will be foreigners.

To supply the demand at coffee shops – inflated by foreigners – Maastricht now supports a massive, subterranean cannabis-producing industry.

In the city this year 78kg of cannabis has been seized and 43,000 adult cannabis plants destroyed. Much of this had been farmed out to low-income households under the supervision of gangs. Police raid homes around the city when alerted by the power companies of electricity surges of the type required to run the lamps for cannabis plants (usually power supplies are diverted illegally). According to police calculations, a producer can make €97,640 (£67,000) profit a year by cultivating 18sqm of cannabis plants.

More alarmingly, the police fear that this subculture is making Maastricht fertile territory for gangs dealing in hard drugs. Between January and October 2005, police in the city made 193 arrests in 23 raids, seizing 10kg of heroin, 1.5kg of cocaine, 12,000 ecstasy tablets, €171,000 in cash and 11 firearms.

Mr Tans says: “It can’t go on like it has been for several years now. We hope that [the city's] experiment will be successful because the problems here give us a huge workload. It means 100,000 man-hours every year if 100 policemen are needed just to deal with the drugs problem.” Prompted by mounting complaints, the city authorities, which have extensive powers under Dutch law, have taken several initiatives. The first was to clamp down gradually on the number of coffee shops.

Each one must be licensed and Maastricht has refused new approvals so that, when owners leave or die, their businesses close. In the early to mid-1990s Maastricht boasted 30 coffee shops; it now has just over half that number.

But with that failing to solve the problem, the city is adopting two, radically different, policies in addition to the effort to stop foreigners being served in coffee shops. The Mayor is leading a push to shift some of the coffee shops out of the city centre. Mr Leers wants to create three drive-in centres on main roads away from the heart of Maastricht and from residential areas to service the demand from drug tourists.

Nicknamed “weed boulevard” or “McDope”, this project directly contradicts the policy of barring foreigners from coffee shops because it is designed to serve that non-Dutch demand but keep it away from the city centre.

Nevertheless, the authorities know their residents-only policy on cannabis will not be enforced for at least two years because of the time the legal test case will take.

Moreover they want to start straight away on the drive-in plans in case the bar on non-residents proves to be against European law preventing discrimination against EU citizens.

Finally, and most controversially, the city would like to see a liberal measure adopted to regulate the so-called “back door” coffee shop trade.

Maastricht has offered to host an experiment in cultivating cannabis under strict supervision to supply local coffee shops and put criminal gangs out of business. Though the logic of their policies suggests that the Netherlands should allow legal production of cannabis, ministers have always shrunk from such a step, knowing it would provoke an international storm. Ms De Jonge says: “The problem of the back door has to be solved.

Local government recognises that fact but national government has to see that that is the next step.”

For the coffee shop-owners the city’s policies present an unprecedented challenge. Marc Josemans, who runs the Easy Going coffee shop, accepts that there are difficulties in the city, but says that “the only people who bring problems are the criminals who are being attracted by the stream of cannabis clients on our streets.” Mr Josemans, who is president of the society of official coffee shops in Maastricht, is a fierce opponent of the city’s efforts to bar foreigners and has agreed to be prosecuted so he can contest the case.

He wants to work with the city council to agree a plan for moving some of the coffee shops out of the city. However he points out that persuading owners to relocate is impossible if their shops might later be banned from serving non-residents.

“As long as this pilot [project to ban foreigners] remains in the air it is very hard to persuade people to spread out of the city,” he says, “we hope the city will postpone it by two or three years.” One area of consensus is over the city’s desire to cultivate cannabis legally. Because of the tough police line, “the good growers stop growing”, says Mr Josemans, “they say it is too dangerous for them. Organised crime has big nurseries where they grow lower quality for higher prices. The idealism of our growers has gone. The guys we used to work with for 25 years are drawing back more and more.”

But while local government and the coffee shops agree that this is at the root of their problems, power to permit such an experiment rests in The Hague. Maastricht’s plan to legalise the “backdoor” looks likely to be blocked by national government. And that will leave the city trying to manage the consequences of a flawed drug law with two, contradictory, policies. It will start creating coffee shops for foreigners outside the city centre, while putting in place a law that could ban them from buying.

Just a few yards from the Mississippi Boat at Smoky’s floating coffee shop, half a dozen people are sitting, smoking, sipping soft drinks and listening to loud rock music. Cannabis is on sale for between €4.50 and €15 a gram and there is little support for any crackdown on the trade.

Most of the allegations against the coffee shops are false, says one client, adding: “You’ve heard about bar fights but no one’s ever heard of a coffee shop fight”.

Smoky’s sells less than 8 per cent to clients from Maastricht and places like this know the new law could drive them out of business. The man behind the bar has one word for the city’s plans: “stupid”.

Drug abuse is increasing across the EU, with cocaine and ecstasy becoming the drug of choice for new users, an EU report shows.

“Europe remains a major market for stimulant drugs, and indicators suggest that the trend in amphetamine, ecstasy and cocaine use continues to be upwards,” the 2005 annual study from the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) states.

The report is based on data provided by the 25 EU countries, plus Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey and Norway.

Cocaine is popular with around 9 million Europeans – or 3% of all adults – having used the drug.

Between 3 and 3.5 million are likely to have taken cocaine in the last year, while around 1.5 million are so-called current users, having used it in the last month, the report shows.

Spain, a smugglers’ gateway to the European cocaine market, and Great Britain show the highest numbers of cocaine users with roughly 4% of adult citizens having tried it in the last year

“It is time to realize that cocaine has turned into a simple street drug.

It is no longer a substance for the elite,” said Wolfgang Goetz, director of the EMCDDA while presenting the report in the European Parliament on Thursday (24 November).

Amphetamine-based drug ecstasy ranked second among drugs of choice in several of the participating countries.

Consumption was particularly high in Britain, Spain, France and the Czech Republic.

Joints outclass other drugs

Cannabis is by far the most common drug among the EU’s 460 million citizens, however.

More than 62 million Europeans have smoked cannabis at one point or another in their lives, with consumption growing dramatically since the mid 1990s.

An average of 12% of Europeans used cannabis in 2004, while the rate was 23% among Czechs, 19% among the French and British and 17% among Spaniards, the report said.

Drug-intolerant countries Sweden and Greece showed the lowest numbers in Europe on cannabis use.

A group of politicians and drugs experts is making a new attempt at decriminalising cannabis in Switzerland.

Eighteen months after parliament threw out a similar plan the committee has collected enough signatures to force a nationwide vote on the issue.

“Our aim is to decriminalise cannabis consumption under strict rules, and encourage parliament to draft its own compromise solution,” parliamentarian Ursula Wyss told swissinfo.

She says it makes no sense to treat the estimated 500,000 regular or occasional pot smokers – from all walks of life – like criminals.

The proposal foresees setting age limits for cannabis consumers or a licensing system for shops selling psychoactive hemp.

The people’s initiative with more than 105,000 signatures was handed in to the federal authorities in Bern on Friday.

Wyss said it was not calling for the outright legalisation of the cannabis trade, which is prohibited under an international agreement.

Effective checks and controls of the trade were an essential element to be able to crack down on illegal dealers, Wyss added.

Young consumers

Wyss said it wasn’t possible to say whether a possible liberalisation would have an impact on the number of cannabis consumers.

But she is concerned about recent statistics which show that Switzerland has one of the highest rates of young pot consumers in Europe and that the drug increased in popularity in the 1990s.

“I think very restrictive rules have to be set to protect children and youth. It must be clear that the measures are enforced, for cannabis and alcohol alike.”

Wyss, a member of the centre-left Social Democratic Party, is confident that a broad alliance with the centre-right Radicals and Christian Democrats could clear the air for a viable political compromise.

In June 2004 the House of Representatives refused to follow the Senate in discussing proposed amendments to the law on narcotics.

The Swiss Institute for the Prevention of Alcohol and Drug Abuse has declined to comment on the details on the latest initiative, but it has come out in favour of decriminalising cannabis in principle.

“It also makes it easier to treat addicted pot smokers and the patients in turn don’t face major obstacles when they’re looking for help,” said spokeswoman Janine Messerli.

Hardline

Unimpressed by the overtures from other quarters, the rightwing Swiss People’s Party is standing by its hardline stance on drugs.

“We’re against liberalising cannabis. There is ample scientific proof gathered over the past 40 years to show that pot smoking is not conducive to your health,” said party spokesman Roman Jäggi.

He believes the attitude in society towards drugs has changed in the recent past and people are keen to see more discipline in place.

“Switzerland has been too liberal in its drugs policy. We welcome increased police efforts to close illegal hemp shops. But clearly more needs to be done to stop children as young as 12 smoking cannabis.”

Pioneer

It is likely to take more than two years before the initiative will come to a nationwide ballot.

If it were to win voters’ acceptance Switzerland would become the first country in the world to decriminalise the purchase, possession and consumption of cannabis.

Proponents hope that Switzerland, which is not a member of the European Union, would act as a model for other countries.

Switzerland became notorious for its liberal narcotics policy, notably the public drug scenes in the country’s major cities in the 1980s and 1990s.

In response the government implemented its four-pillar strategy of repression, prevention, therapy and harm reduction. swissinfo, Urs Geiser

Lausanne, June 12, 2006. The French-Swiss Anti-drug Association (Association romande contre Ia drogue, ARCD) vigorously protests at the scandalous interpretation of a study conducted by two Zurich researchers in connection with the evolution of heroin consumption. Contrary to what is misleadingly stated, the reduction in the number of heroin addicts is not due to the “liberal drug policy” applied in Switzerland; actually, the situation has not improved, but it is the narcotic products used that have changed. Less heroin but much more cocaine, such is the disturbing reality of the evolution of drug consumption, not forgetting the ravages of strongly dosed cannabis.

In 1991, the Platzspitz. the first large ‘open drug scene” in Zurich was about to be closed. Although the number of heroin addicts has actually dropped since then, as pointed out by Carlos Nordt and Rudolf Stohler in a study concerning the methadone and heroin substitution treatments administered in Zurich (The Lance, 2 June 2006), it has certainly not been thanks to a “liberal drug policy”. It is simply that the drug consumers switched their preference to cocaine and highly-dosed cannabis rather than heroin, considered a “looser” drug, with the damning results that we see today:

• no other country in Europe has recorded so high a rate of cannabis consumption among the young (and the very young) as has Switzerland: and what makes things even worse is that the rate of psychoactive substance in this cannabis is 7 to 18 times higher than in the nineties;
• the cocaine epidemic. which appeared shortly after the closing of the “open drug scenes”, now concerns over 100.000 consumers: no prevention programme was set up:
• the consumption of synthetic drugs. ecstasy and GHB leading the way, continues to develop:
• the results of this rise in the consumption of drugs are increased violence, depression, psychoses and a fast-rising suicide rate among the young;
• from 1999 to 2005, the number of fatal ODs increased from 181 to 212 throughout Switzerland and from 45 to 63 in the canton of Zurich alone:
• the introduction of a so-called “harm-reduction” policy in the nineties was undertaken to the detriment of prevention. therapy and repression. Over the past six years. 44 detox and rehabilitation centres (25% of the total number) have disappeared. The demand for residential therapies is in free fall.

The ARCD would like to point out some facts concerning the prescription of heroin, which went from the testing stage (1994-1996) to that of a treatment claiming to be therapeutic (1999) and refunded by the health insurance companies (2002). To date. 2,903 drug addicts have gone through the heroin prescription programmes. Some of them (over 200?) have died. The sticking rate of participants in the programmes is barely 50 to 70% according to the duration of the treatment. It is the most marginalized. and hence those who constitute the prime target audience, who drop out of the programmes for lack of support. Of those who remain, rare are those who go for a therapy aimed at abstinence. The 2005 annual report of the Koda heroin prescription centre, in Bern. indicates that 3 drug addicts out of 195, last year. managed to detox. That means that 98% of the participants continue to consume opiates, often in combination with other illegal products. So this approach has contributed to maintaining their dependence.

The social costs related to the consumption oldrugs in Switzerland are evaluated at more than 4 billion francs a year. Over time, the costs of an abstinence-centred treatment appear much less than those of the substitution programmes. With heroin prescription, the taxpayers and persons insured with health insurance companies arc made to assume expenditure which could be avoided.

The ARCD is calling forthe introduction of a new policy to combat illicit drugs based on prevention worthy of the name, a reinforcement of the medical care services, with abstinence as the therapeutic goal. and an appropriate legal response to all infringements, with a firm and systematic repression of narcotic trafficking.

Contact: Claude Ruey, member of the Swiss Federal Parliament, phone 0041 31 311 64 16, e-mail: ciaudertmeva)arl.ch Jean-Philippe Chenaux, phone 0041 21 796 33 00, e-mail: jpçenaux@centrepatronal.ch

Canadian health officials are hoping that heroin addicts, freed from their daily pursuit of the next fix by a prescription-heroin plan, will find time to make positive changes in their lives.

The researcher will begin gathering applications for the program from addicts during the next few weeks. The experiment already is the talk of the streets in communities like Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.

“They should have done this a long time ago,” said Debbie Woelke, a heroin user living in a single-room occupancy hotel in the city’s poorest neighbourhood. “Sometimes you need something just to relax and get your mind together, instead of always being in a state of panic. That’s what’s killing everyone down here. They have to do things they wouldn’t normally do.”

The prescription heroin trial will take place in Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal. Researchers are looking to recruit 428 hard-core addicts, half of whom will receive daily doses of heroin for a year, and half of whom will get methadone.

“What if you could say to an addict, ‘For the next little while, you’re not going to have to get your drugs from Al Capone. You can get your drugs from Marcus Welby,’ ” said Dr. Martin Schechter, lead researcher on the project. “You don’t have to worry about this afternoon and this evening. And therefore, you don’t have to go and break in to cars or be a prostitute. You could actually come and talk to a counsellor … get some skills training.”

The experiment is unique in North America, although similar trials have been tried with some success in Europe. However, critics range from those concerned about lack of abstinence as a goal to those who say it is unfair to give addicts free heroin for a year and then cut them off. Overdoses also are a major ethical worry.

A spokesperson for U.S. drug czar John Walters called the trial an “inhumane medical experiment.

“What you’re doing is making it easier to be a heroin addict,” said policy analyst David Murray. “These people won’t get that much better in the long run. They will still be heroin addicts.”

But Vancouver Mayor Larry Campbell, a former coroner and narcotics officer, said current treatments don’t work for hard-core addicts. “The critical thing is to accept this as a medical condition,” he said. “The side effects of this medical condition is that it forces you to … do things that you would never do, be it work as a sex-trade worker, be a B and E [break-and-enter] artist or a purse snatcher. So if I can mitigate that by putting you on heroin, imagine the changes you could have.”

CITY’S NEW “HARM REDUCTION STRATEGY” THREATENS NEIGHBOURHOODS AND ENABLES DRUG USE – BUT COUNCIL’S POISED TO BACK IT ANYWAY

BY SUE-ANN LEVY, TORONTO SUN

Of all the crackpot schemes to intoxicate City Hall’s leftist contingent, the Toronto Drug Strategy that comes before council this week rates top billing.

I suspect the fix is already in to approve the strategy’s 66 recommendations — which cost $300,000 to create — given Mayor David Miller’s recent habit of discounting opposition to his pet agendas.

(Susan Shepherd, the drug strategy’s project manager, is married to Bruce Scott, one of the mayor’s key aides. Asked whether this might present a potential conflict of interest, Scott said no.)

The drug strategy itself — led by Coun. Kyle Rae and produced by the board of health — was developed supposedly to better co-ordinate drug prevention, treatment and enforcement efforts between agencies, hospitals, addiction treatment facilities, school boards, the police and so on.

“There’s been no comprehensive strategy since crack arrived in Toronto in 1988,” Rae said last week.

To be fair, there are some good proposals in the strategy concerning education, treatment, enforcement and prevention. But they’re few and far between. The rest is heavily skewed towards trendy “harm reduction” schemes, more studies, committees, the need for more city staff and in my view, more reasons to keep the fuzzy-wuzzy enablers in the drug counselling industry thriving.

The strategy advocates distributing more city-funded “safer crack kits” and calls on officials to consider establishing a “safe injection site” modelled on the one opened in Vancouver a year ago. The public health protectors argue that “harm reduction” services — which encourage illegal drug users to continue to inject their poisons in a safe environment using clean equipment — lead to fewer overdoses and less open use of drugs on the streets.

I can’t fathom how the same health board that has banned smoking virtually everywhere in this city can brazenly promote and enable the use of illegal drugs. Do these do-gooders ever think about the harm their strategies could inflict on unsuspecting neighbourhoods?

I recently wrote about how a cache of used needles and “safer crack kit” paraphernalia was found in the Sumach-Shuter park, right across from a community centre and a school. That’s become a regular occurrence, I’m told.

Earlier this month, former Vancouver mayor Larry Campbell, a supporter of safe-injection sites, told Toronto’s executive committee it’s important not to get “hung up” on such facilities — they help police get drug users off the streets.

But a retired nurse from Toronto told me last week she’d just returned from Vancouver and was quite horrified by what she saw in the drug-plagued Downtown Eastside area, where the injection site is located. Asked where the 600-900 people who use the site daily get their drugs (mostly heroin and crack), she said: “The dealers hang around with impunity on the corner of Hastings and Main and the police don’t touch them.”

DANTE’S INFERNO

She described the neighbourhood alleys as a “true Dante’s inferno” with addicts desperately grasping on the ground for a few bits of lost powder. At the referral site for addicts wanting to use the safe-injection facility, she said staff told her they were trying to create an “oasis of calm. But it all made her think of a blindfolded donkey chained to a water wheel and walking in circles.

“It’s no form of treatment whatsoever …I kept thinking it was like making an inexorable death more bearable,” she said.

I wish councillors could see what this woman saw and not simply swallow the health board’s party line.

But on this issue, your city councillors seem drugged into submission.

The Government is echoing alarmist reports of a cannabis and mental health crisis.

Abstinence or harm-minimisation? A clash of values is emerging, writes Bill Bush.

Police coming down hard to solve a health problem? This is just what the Commonwealth Government is calling for to improve mental health.

Even though the use of cannabis has declined by 37 per cent, the Prime Minister asked heads of Government at Friday’s COAG meeting to toughen their laws on the drug.

The signs are that this is the vanguard of steps to reverse Australia’s harm-minimisation drug policy in favour of one that puts a premium on abstinence and stronger law enforcement.

Other indicators of this shift are:

• Financial support for naltrexone implants that focus on abstinence combined with criticism of methadone maintenance therapy that focuses on stabilisation.

• A $600,000 grant over three years to Drug Free Australia to “advocate abstinence-based approaches to drug issues” while cutting the grant of the peak harm reduction focused Alcohol and Other Drugs Council to just one year.

• The enactment of harsh comprehensive Commonwealth criminal drug law overshadowing that of the states. It includes even minor possession offences under the label of serious drug crimes.

Since the Prime Minister vetoed the heroin trial in 1997, the rhetoric of his Government has been unfriendly to harm minimisation. He has said that he does not believe in it and his Government has played language games with the term.

Only last year the Commonwealth reaffirmed its commitment to “the principle of harm minimisation” in a further extension of the National Drug Strategy. This is defined so broadly that its three poorly integrated components of “supply reduction”, “demand reduction” and “harm reduction” allow governments much room to manoeuvre. Only the last component embodies the essence of harm-minimisation as it was originally conceived: “Strategies to reduce drug-related harm to individuals and communities.”

Nevertheless, the Commonwealth continued to support key aspects of harm-minimisation such as the provision of sterile syringes and methadone maintenance. This now seems to be changing.

For example, the Government is echoing alarmist media reports about a cannabis and mental health crisis.

Health Minister Tony Abbott and parliamentary secretary Chris Pyne have expressed alarm. Employment Minister Kevin Andrews wants to “explore its links with welfare dependence”. The PM has warned that “mental illness and homelessness was the price the nation was paying for ‘lax attitude’ towards cannabis”. “The time,” he says, “has arrived for us – legislators and parents – to get tougher.”

“The Government’s whole strategy on cannabis use has been based on misinformation,” said association President Dr Paul Skerritt.

“Law makers never understood the psychological damage done to young people who smoke the drug – and they never listened to doctors who warned cannabis was a pathway drug leading to heroin and more addictive drugs.

“Research is now proving these concerns are valid – and the Government should recognise the truth and change its drug laws accordingly.”

Dr Skerritt said Drug Action Week 2005, launched this week by the Alcohol and Other Dugs Council of Australia with Federal Government funding, was a good opportunity for Health Minister Jim McGinty to address a problem which would continue to grow worse under present State legislation.

“The Government is sending the wrong signal to young people who will ignore the health consequences of cannabis as long as the law implies it’s not such a big deal to be caught in possession of the drug,” he said.

“Yet world research shows that 80 per cent of long term psychiatric patients are regular cannabis users and 39 per cent of kids aged 14 and over have tried the drug.”

Dr Skerritt said it came as no surprise that research in Sweden confirmed that chronic periodic use of cannabis could interfered with brain development and that young people who smoked the drug were more likely to turn to heroin and other addictive drugs.

“Ironically, the WA Government is about to toughen up its road laws regarding motorists caught driving under the influence of drugs,” he said.

“But the message may not get through to young people if being in possession of cannabis only results in a slap on the wrist in many cases.”

Parliamentary secretary for health Christopher Pyne said yesterday five experts would be recruited to the new body, which would review current evidence on the links between cannabis and mental health problems, and identify what could be done.

Mr Pyne said the group – which he will chair – would also report on “what steps the commonwealth Government could take to change the direction of cannabis use”.

Many experts have told The Australian over the past two weeks that the evidence has now become overwhelming that cannabis causes not only psychotic illnesses such as schizophrenia, but also depression and anxiety disorders – particularly when smoked by young people whose brains are still developing.

“There’s a causal link between cannabis and mental health disorders, from recent reports, but there’s resistance from the state attorneys-general and others in the community, who insist in believing that cannabis is no more harmful than alcohol,” Mr Pyne said. He said that although state attorneys-general believed the laws should not be changed, “I feel the commonwealth needs expert advice to give us the weapons to change thinking on cannabis in Australia”.

South Australia and Western Australia, and both territories have removed criminal penalties for possession or use of minor amounts of cannabis.

Although still illegal, these offences now attract parking-offence style “fines” that do not bring a criminal record.

Experts understood to have been asked to join the group include Adelaide public health physician Robert Ali; director of the National Drug and Alcohol Research Council Richard Mattick; former NDARC director Wayne Hall; Professor of adolescent health at the University of Melbourne,  George Patton; and chief executive of the Ted Noffs Foundation Wesley Noffs.

Mr Pyne said the group would meet in Canberra before the end of this year.

While there are no national statistics for new cases of psychotic illnesses such as schizophrenia, figures last month from South Australia show a disturbing link between drug use and mental health problems – and a further association with criminality.

Forensic psychologist Craig Raeside reviewed more than 2000 people facing criminal charges and found more than 75 per cent used marijuana, and 58 per cent amphetamines.

 

The Editor,
The Canberra Times.

Dear Sir,

Wodak’s letter (Canberra Times 24/03/06) confirms that methadone is more than a drug – its followers have raised it to virtually to the status of a religious cultic symbol. Wodak’s recitation is technically true but not the whole truth; his comments appear far-sighted, but are in reality myopic.

The Australian physician attending a conference of the world leading addiction scientists undergoes a professional culture shock far more severe than a mere “learning curve”. When the directors of the NIH openly state that they are worried about the dramatic shortcomings of methadone treatment to suppress the immune system and stimulate HIV infection, to inhibit cell growth and renewal; and straight out increases cell death rates; then not only must one’s thinking undergo a dramatic and radical paradigmatic shift, but the whole Australian style methadone eulogy starts to look as threadbare as the emperor’s new clothes! They are obviously worried sick about imminent class actions.

In his ode Wodak neglects to mention that methadone does everything BUT take people off drugs; rather it indefinitely extends and greatly intensifies addiction. What about the 590 Australian people 1997-2001 to whose deaths methadone contributed? What about the explosion in the use of many drugs which methadone fosters, or the rampant Hepatitis C infestation? What about the thousands of heroin dealers on methadone? What about the 90% male osteoporosis rates or appalling dental destruction? If Wodak is correct that methadone and buprenorphine, the modern “M&B”, have hitherto served us well then let them take their rightful place in history. But to suggest that because this is all medicine has been able to achieve up till now, the great quest to save our children and our streets from the ravages of drugs must be abandoned, is to miss the exciting scientific and technical advances with which leading journals are replete. We dare not surrender our freedoms either to agenda driven academics or the hippies of yesteryear.

(Dr.) Stuart Reece
39 Gladstone Rd.,
Highgate Hill,
QLD, 4101.
Ph.: 07 3844-4000.

 In Brief

• In 2002 and 2003, 21% of persons aged 16 to 20 reported that they had driven in the past year while under the influence of alcohol or illicit drugs

• Among persons aged 16 to 20, whites and American Indians/Alaska Natives were more likely to report DUI than other racial/ethnic groups

• In 2002 and 2003, approximately 4% of persons who reported DUI in the past year had been arrested and booked for DUI in the past year

 Motor vehicle crashes were the leading cause of death among young persons aged 16 to 20 in 2002.(Ref.1).   In that year, 6,327 persons aged 16 to 20 were involved in fatal crashes, representing a 10% increase since 1999. In addition, 29% of drivers aged 15 to 20 who were killed in motor vehicle crashes in 2002 had been drinking alcohol.(Ref.2) The National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) asks persons aged 12 or older if they had driven a vehicle while under the influence of alcohol or illicit drugs in the past year (Ref.3) and if they had been arrested for driving under the influence (DUI).(Ref.4) The survey also asks about the use of alcohol and any illicit drugs in the past year and past month. Alcohol measures used in this report include any past month use, binge use, and heavy use. Binge alcohol use is defined as drinking five or more drinks on the same occasion (i.e., at the same time or within a couple of hours of each other) on at least 1 day in the past 30 days. Heavy alcohol use is defined as drinking five or more drinks on the same occasion on each of 5 or more days in the past 30 days; all heavy alcohol users also are binge alcohol users. NSDUH defines “illicit drugs” to include marijuana/hashish, cocaine (including crack), inhalants, hallucinogens, heroin, or prescription-type drugs used non-medically.

 

In 2002 and 2003, more than 4 million persons (21%) aged 16 to 20 reported DUI involving either alcohol or illicit drugs in the past year (Figure 1). In this age group, 17% reported past year DUI involving alcohol, 14 % reported DUI involving illicit drugs, and 8% reported DUI involving a combination of alcohol and illicit drugs used together.

 

 

 

 

Figure 1. percentages of Persons Aged 16 to 20 Who Reported Driving a Vehicle Under the Influence of Alcohol or Illicit Drugs in the Past Year: 2002 and 2003	Figure 2. percentages of Persons Aged 16 to 20 Who Reported Driving a Vehicle Under the Influence of Alcohol or Illicit Drugs in the Past Year, by Age: 2002 and 2003

 Among persons aged 16 to 20, older persons had a higher reported prevalence of DUI involving alcohol or illicit drugs than those who were younger (Figure 2). For example, persons aged 20 were nearly 3 times more likely to have driven under the influence than persons aged 16 (28 vs. 10%). Among all persons aged 16 to 20, males (24%) were more likely to report DUI involving alcohol or illicit drugs than females (18%). Among racial/ethnic groups, whites (26%) and American Indians/Alaska Natives (28%) were more likely to report DUI involving alcohol or illicit drugs than members of other racial/ethnic groups (Figure 3).

 (25%), followed by persons who lived in small MSAs (23%) and persons who lived in large MSAs
(19%).(Ref.7).

 

 

 

Figure 3. percentages of Persons Aged 16 to 20 Who Reported Driving a Vehicle Under the Influence of Alcohol or Illicit Drugs in the Past Year, by Race/Ethnicity: 2002 and 2003

<!–[if !vml]–> <!–[endif]–>

 

 

2. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. (2003, August). Traffic safety facts 2002: Young drivers.  from http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pdf/nrd-30/NCSA/TSF2002/2002ydrfacts.pdf   Dec.2 2004

3. Respondents were asked, in three different questions, if during the past 12 months they had driven a vehicle while under the influence of (a) alcohol only, (b) illicit drugs only, or (c) a combination of alcohol and illicit drugs used together. Responses to these questions then were recoded to determine the prevalence of DUI involving (a) alcohol, (b) illicit drugs, (c) either alcohol or illicit drugs, or (d) both alcohol and illicit drugs.

4. Respondents were asked if during the past 12 months they had been arrested and booked for DUI involving alcohol or illicit drugs.

5. Persons aged 15 or younger were not included in these analyses because a substantial portion of persons aged 15 or younger are prohibited from driving by State laws.

6. The Midwest has 12 States: IL, IN, IA, KS, MI, MN, MO, NE, ND, OH, SD, and WI. The South has 17 States: AL, AR, DC, DE, FL, GA, KY, LA, MD, MS, NC, OK, SC, TN, TX, VA, and WV. The Northeast has 9 States: CT, MA, ME, NH, NJ, NY, PA, RI, and VT. And the West has 13 States: AK, AZ, CA, CO, HI, ID, MT, NM, NV, OR, UT, WA, and WY.

7. Large metropolitan areas have a population of 1 million or more. Small metropolitan areas have a population of fewer than 1 million. Non-metropolitan areas are outside metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs), as defined by the Office of Management and Budget. See the U.S. Bureau of the Census. (2003, June 12). About metropolitan and micropolitan statistical areas. Retrieved December 1, 2004, from http://www.census.gov/population/www/estimates/aboutmetro.html

8. This excludes an estimated 38,000 persons who reported they had been arrested and booked for DUI in the past year but indicated elsewhere that they had not driven under the influence of alcohol or drugs in the past year.

Figure Note

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Office of Applied Studies. (2004). Results from the 2003 National Survey on Drug Use and Health: National findings (DHHS Publication No. SMA 04–3964, NSDUH Series H–25). Rockville, MD: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

 

 

 

 

 

Each day, more than 9,000 new driver’s licenses are issued to 16- and 17-year-olds nationwide, the very same age group that is at greatest risk for marijuana use, and a 2005 survey reveals that these teens say that cars are the second most popular place for smoking marijuana. The Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) is partnering with driving schools and other leading health, safety and youth-serving organizations to warn parents of the prevalence and dangers of drugged driving and to provide information to help teens “Steer Clear of Pot.”

More than 2.9 million driving-age teens reported lifetime use of marijuana, and last year more than 750,000 16- and 17-year-olds reported driving under the influence of illicit drugs. According to the 2004-2005 PRIDE Surveys, when asked where they use, approximately one in seven (14%) high school seniors cited “in a car,” making cars the second most popular location after at “a friend’s house” (20.4%).

“Parents need to realize that drugged driving is nearly as common today among teens as alcohol-impaired driving,” said John P. Walters, Director, National Drug Control Policy. “Marijuana impairs many of the skills required for safe driving, such as concentration, coordination, perception and reaction time, and these effects can last up to 24 hours after smoking the drug — It is critical that parents know the dangers associated with drugged driving and are vigilant in monitoring their teen drivers, especially young, less experienced drivers.”

Monitoring the Future data shows that approximately one in six (15%) teens reported driving under the influence of marijuana, a number nearly equivalent to those who reported driving under the influence of alcohol (16%). A recent study from a large shock trauma unit found that 19 percent of automobile crash victims under age 18 tested positive for marijuana.

“Getting a driver’s license is a milestone in a teen’s life that goes beyond the road to symbolize independence and freedom,” said Thomas “Buddy” Gleaton, Ed.D., President, PRIDE Surveys. “In the more than 20 years that PRIDE Surveys has been tracking teen drug use, teens consistently report engaging in risky behaviors in cars. Parents need to keep a watchful eye to be effective in reversing these trends.”

ONDCP’s National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign is providing parents and teens with information about the risks of drugged driving through a renewed “Steer Clear of Pot” initiative. The Media Campaign will underscore the harmful effects of teen marijuana use and drugged driving through the promotion of free materials, including a “New Drivers Kit” for teens and parents, available with other new content on the Media Campaign’s Web site for parents, http://www.TheAntiDrug.com .

In addition, “Steer Clear of Pot” partners will distribute drugged driving and marijuana prevention materials to driver’s education teachers, teens, and parents nationwide:

– The American College of Emergency Physicians will inform its nationwide membership base of 15,000 in 49 chapters of “Steer Clear of Pot” resources through its newsletter and Web site;

– The Driving School Association of the Americas will include information about the initiative in its magazine, The Dual News, which is distributed to 8,000 professional driving schools and 50,000 driving school educators, and will promote available resources on the organization’s Web site;

– The Emergency Nurses Association will inform its 28,000 members about available resources through its monthly newsletter; and

– GEICO, the fifth-largest private passenger auto insurer in the United States, has incorporated the Media Campaign’s messages into its existing “Can I Borrow the Car?” teen driving and safety materials and is providing co-branded versions of those materials through the Campaign’s “New Drivers Kit.” The company continues to distribute co-branded “Steer Clear of Pot” materials and promote the Media Campaign’s resources to its 5.5 million policyholders and 22,000 GEICO associates.

“Driver’s education and behind-the-wheel training are at the foundation for developing safe driving skills,” said Bradley Huspek, President, Driving School Association of the Americas. “Parents and driving instructors play a critical role in educating teens about being responsible drivers and steering clear from drugs.”

Experts say parental supervision and setting clear rules are associated with less risky teen behavior. A recent SADD/Liberty Mutual Group report found that nearly 60 percent of teens who drive say their parents have the most influence on their driving, followed by 27 percent who say their friends are most influential. Parents can take action and help their teen “steer clear of pot” with simple steps such as:

– checking the car for signs of drug paraphernalia;

– setting limits on driving in risky conditions;

– knowing where their teen is going and what route they intend to drive; and

– reinforcing safe driving practices by driving together.

Since its inception in 1998, the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign has conducted outreach to millions of parents, teens and communities to reduce and prevent teen drug use. Counting on an unprecedented blend of public and private partnerships, non-profit community service organizations, volunteerism, and youth-to-youth communications, the Campaign is designed to reach Americans of diverse backgrounds with effective anti-drug messages.

For more information on the ONDCP National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign, visit

 

The Road Safety Monitor, a national telephone survey conducted each year involving Canadian drivers indicates that drug impaired driving is seen as second only to alcohol impaired driving as a serious issue and that illicit drugs are seen as a more serious problem than prescription or over the counter drugs. Overall, 17.7%, or 3.7 million Canadian drivers report driving within two hours of using illicit, prescription or over the counter drugs.

Collisions remain a major cause of death and injury in Canada, and concerns about the role of cannabis in road safety in this country date back many years. Much less is known about the impact of cannabis on road safety than the impact of alcohol, in part because of the much greater difficulty involved in measuring the presence and amount of cannabinoids compared to alcohol. However, there is renewed interest in this issue stimulated in part by proposed legislative changes on the part of the Government of Canada to reduce substantially the penalties for possession of small amounts of cannabis.

Objectives

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of available research and evidence on the potential impact of cannabis on road safety in Canada focusing on two areas: 1) research on the prevalence of cannabis use in Canada; and 2) research on the prevalence of driving after cannabis use in Canada.

Prevalence of Cannabis Use in Canada

Little information is available on the prevalence of cannabis use in Canada prior to the 1960s. However, in that decade, cannabis use increased substantially. While a variety of possible sources of information on cannabis in the Canadian population have been used over the years, including such measures as amounts of the drug seized by police and the number of individuals prosecuted by the courts for cannabis offences, the most direct and the most accurate measures of the prevalence of cannabis use are those derived from surveys. Although cannabis is an illegal drug and there are concerns that survey responses may be influenced by its legal status, research demonstrates that respondents to anonymous surveys, where there are no adverse consequences involved, generally provide valid responses.

Smart and Fejer presented one of the very first estimates of the prevalence of cannabis use in a Canadian population, based on a survey of a representative sample of residents of Toronto conducted in 1971. They found that 12.2% of males and 5.5% of females had used cannabis at least once in the preceding year. The prevalence of use differed substantially by age group and gender. Among males, 41.5% of those aged 18-25, 20.8% of those aged 26-30, and 1.8% of those aged 31 and over had used cannabis in the preceding year. Among females, 20.0% of those aged 18-25, 6.3% of those aged 26-30, and 1.8% of those aged 31 and over had used cannabis in the previous year. These data clearly demonstrate that, by the end of the 1960’s, cannabis use had become very common among young people.

Ogborne and Smart reported on cannabis use in the general population of Canada aged 15 and over based on the National Alcohol and Other Drugs Survey conducted in 1994. This survey was the largest representative survey with information on cannabis use ever made in Canada, with a sample size of 12,155. Use of cannabis at that time was relatively uncommon, but not rare. Only 7.3% of respondents reported using cannabis in the preceding year, and 2.0% reported using it as often as once per week. However, nearly a third (29%) reported that they had used cannabis at least once in their lives. Substantial regional differences were observed, with the proportion reporting use at least once in the past year ranging from a low of 4.9% in Ontario to a high of 11.4% in British Columbia.

While these data provide a valuable perspective on the use of cannabis across Canada, unfortunately there is little information on other important issues, such as change in rates of use over time. However, in Ontario a series of surveys has been conducted over the past 20 years that allow a picture of current use and changes in use over time in that part of the country.

The Use of Cannabis in Ontario

Repeated cross-sectional surveys conducted in Ontario by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health provide the most comprehensive picture of the use of cannabis and other drugs use in Canada. These surveys have been conducted among the student population and adult population since the late 1970s.

A summary of recent data on the use of cannabis and other drugs (any use in the past year) among students in grades 7 and 126, and among adults aged 18-29 (young adults), 40-49 (the middle-aged) and 65 and over (seniors) showed cannabis is the most widely used illicit substance. Nearly half of grade 12 students reporting cannabis use at least once in the past year. It is worth noting that by grade 12 most students will have reached the age when they will be eligible to drive. Use of cannabis drops with increasing age, however, and is used by less than 2% of seniors. Use of other illicit drugs is much less common than the use of cannabis, with highest levels occurring for Hallucinogens and Ecstasy among grade 12 students. Not surprisingly, alcohol is the most commonly used substance.

Trends in Cannabis Use Over Time

information is presented on the proportion of students in Grades 7, 9, 11 and 13 who report using cannabis and alcohol between 1977 and 20016. While cannabis is used by a smaller proportion of students than alcohol; it is still used by a substantial minority of students. There have been important changes in the use of cannabis over time. The general trend appears to have been one of reduced use of cannabis and alcohol from the late 1970’s to the early 1990’s. The proportion reporting use of cannabis declined from a peak of 31.7% in 1979 to 11.7% in 1991. However, since the mid-1990’s self-reported use of both substances has increased, with 28.6% reporting cannabis use in 2001. Data is presented since 1977 on the proportion of the adult population (age 18 and above) who report using cannabis, drinking alcohol, or using cocaine at least once in the preceding 12 months. Cannabis use has continued among a much smaller proportion of the adult population than among students. Alcohol is used by the large majority of the adult population, while the use of cocaine is reported by only a very small percentage. The trends among adults are not as clear as those among the student population. For example, the proportion reporting use of alcohol has been relatively consistent, with perhaps a slight increase to the early 1990s followed by a slight decrease. Among users of cannabis and cocaine, enduring trends over time cannot be ascertained.

Prevalence of Cannabis Use and Driving in Canada: Estimates from Survey Data

Survey data on the prevalence of driving under the influence of cannabis are available. In the first reported data from the general population in Canada, Jonah reported on the prevalence of driving after use of cannabis at least once in the preceding 12 months. The survey included 9943 persons aged 16-69, obtained through random digit dialing. Jonah found that the prevalence of DUIC varied with age. While the prevalence of DUIC was relatively low, it was higher in younger age groups. Jonah also observed that DUIC was significantly associated with a variety of other risk behaviours, such as driving after drinking, use of illicit drugs other than cannabis, and collision involvement.

Conclusions

The data presented here indicate that cannabis use is relatively common in Canada, particularly among young people. The prevalence of use appears to have increased substantially in the 1960s and ‘70s, while since then some fluctuations have occurred. Driving after cannabis use is less common, but among cannabis users it does appear to occur with some frequency. In particular, young cannabis users appear more likely to report DUIC. Among high school students, DUIC appears to occur as frequently, or more frequently, than driving after drinking. These data provide grounds for concern about this behaviour, particularly among younger drivers. Further research on the prevalence of DUIC in Canada, including differences between provinces, is needed.

 

Frequently Asked Questions About Pot & Driving

On November 21, 2005, the Canadian Public Health Association, with funding from Canada’s Drug Strategy, Health Canada, launched a Pot and Driving campaign (http://potanddriving.cpha.ca) to raise awareness among young Canadian drivers and passengers of the risks of cannabis-impaired driving. Campaign materials include:

 

• A poster of airplane pilots smoking up with the campaign message, “If it doesn’t make sense here, why does it make sense when you drive?”

• 10 Questions (to provoke thought and dialogue)

• The thinking behind the questions (to encourage discussion)

• This FAQ (to inform the discussion).  This FAQ provides information on a range of issues related to cannabis use in the context of driving. It draws on up-to-date, relevant studies and surveys, insights given by key informants from Canada and several other countries, and the opinions of young Canadians who took part in focus groups held in several locations across the country.

Recent research on pot is showing that it can play an important role in road vehicle crashes, especially when combined with driver inexperience and difficult road conditions. Road accidents are often the result of a combination of factors and pot can be one of them.

Pot is the most popular drug used by Canadians 14 to 25 years-of-age, after alcohol and tobacco. Drug-use surveys indicate that the rate of driving under the influence of pot surpasses that of alcohol. Alcohol has been the subject of impaired-driving awareness efforts for several decades and tobacco is not a risk for driving. It is time to put the focus on pot.

2. How does cannabis affect driving ability?

Driving skills are affected in specific ways when a person has consumed a certain amount of pot. This impairment increases with the amount of THC (the compound that gives pot its high) a person has in his/her system. While drivers have been found to do certain things to adapt to their impairment, like slowing down, this attempt to compensate does not eliminate the risks of driving high.

It has long been established that pot affects tracking ability, meaning that drivers who are under the influence of a certain dose of THC have been found to have a harder time following their lane. Pot reduces a driver’s ability to perceive changes in the relative speed of other vehicles and to adjust his/her own speed accordingly.

Pot has been found to increase the reaction time needed to respond to an emergency decision-making task, such as adapting to changes in speed of the vehicle ahead or to the vehicle’s brake lights. A driver needs to notice something in order to respond to it and that has to do with the driver’s attention. Because pot disturbs concentration and short-term memory, a driver has a harder time being attentive to events and situations on the road that can have important consequences for road safety.

3. Who drives under the influence of pot?

What do we mean by ‘driving’?

When we use the phrase ‘driving a vehicle’ we are referring to the use of any kind of motor vehicle, including cars, trucks, motorbikes, ATVs, planes, motorboats and snowmobiles. We generally use the word ‘driving’ to imply the use of both on and off-road vehicles. We do not wish to suggest that off-road driving is less of a concern when it comes to drug use.

Several student surveys in Canada have found a high rate of pot use among students in high school, with the rate increasing with age/grade. Male students have a higher rate of use than female students. The likelihood that a person will drive high depends on how frequently they use pot. Daily pot users have the highest rate of driving high while occasional users have the lowest rate.

Cannabis use by Canadian adolescents is reported to be among the highest in the world. The 2002 Nova Scotia Student Drug Use Survey found that 22% of students surveyed used marijuana in the month before the survey, while 5% used it every day. The 2002 Alberta Youth Experience Survey indicated that cannabis use by Aboriginal youth (52%) was almost twice that of non-aboriginal youth (27%). One in five Ontario high school student respondents in the 2003 Ontario Student Drug Use Survey reported driving one hour after using cannabis during the past six months.

Drugged driving is not isolated to young Canadians or to Canadians who use illegal drugs. Older drivers are more likely to drive impaired by prescribed medications; younger drivers are most likely to drive while affected by illegal drugs, including cocaine and pot. It is young, male, frequent pot users, who are most likely to drive high.

4. Why focus on mainstream teens?

Surveys conducted in Canada and in countries such as Australia have shown that driving under the influence of cannabis is rare in the general population but common among cannabis users, a group concentrated in those 14 to 25 years-of-age. For this campaign, we decided to target mainstream youth since data indicates that the rate of cannabis use is approaching the rate of alcohol consumption among youth in Canada. Pot has become mainstream.

We spoke to several groups of young Canadians 15-25 years-of-age about their experiences with pot and driving. Generally, older participants were convinced that driving high was not a problem and said they were unlikely to change their minds about doing it. Participants who were not yet driving or were anticipating learning how to drive appeared to be more open to the suggestion that mixing pot and driving, like mixing alcohol and driving, could put them and their passengers at risk. So we decided the campaign should focus on mainstream Canadians 14-18 years-of-age.

5. Who is likely to be a passenger of a driver who is high?

Studies have found that a person’s likelihood of being a passenger of a driver who has used pot within an hour or two of driving, or uses it while driving, increases with high school grade. Gender does not seem to be a factor, although our focus group participants did provide some indications that female passengers may be more likely to be a passenger with a boyfriend who is high than a female friend.

6. How long after using pot are driving skills affected?

Cannabis impairs driving skills most severely during what is known as the acute phase, which typically lasts for up to 60 minutes after smoking. This is followed by post-acute (the phase after the acute one) and residual phases. The residual phase is 150 minutes or more after smoking, during which impairment subsides rapidly. The degree of impairment during the residual phase depends on the amount of THC consumed. After smoking a so-called typical dose (about 20 mg) of THC, the residual phase lasts 2-3 hours.  *

7. What about ‘burnout’?

Burnout is roughly equivalent to the ‘hangover’ associated with alcohol. Very little is known about the effect of ‘burnout’ on driving, although some focus group participants flagged it as a significant issue for driving. Some even suggested they felt safer driving high than driving during burnout. Since burnout is characterized by fatigue, studies of the effect of fatigue on driving might be applied to burnout.

What is drugged-driving?

If your ability to drive a motor vehicle is affected because you have taken a drug, a combination of drugs, or drugs and alcohol (which is also a drug although it is usually referred to separately), you are drugged-driving. A number of medications prescribed by doctors as well as some overthe- counter remedies are known to affect a person’s ability to drive safely. Several illegal drugs are also known to affect driving skills.

As is the case with alcohol, risk increases with dose. However, regular users have been found to experience less effect from the same dose. Unlike alcohol, pot’s THC concentrations can vary significantly from batch to batch.

Since cannabis is illegal and unregulated, there is no standardized consumption limit as there is for drinking alcohol and driving. In experimental research, drivers are given what would be considered an ‘average’ dose of THC and then observed as they perform a number of driving tasks on the road under controlled conditions. For the sake of safety, these tests cannot put drivers in situations that would likely lead to accidents.

Since cannabis is illegal and unregulated, there is no standardized consumption limit as there is for drinking alcohol and driving. In experimental research, drivers are given what would be considered an ‘average’ dose of THC and then observed as they perform a number of driving tasks on the road under controlled conditions. For the sake of safety, these tests cannot put drivers in situations that would likely lead to accidents.

9. Can a drug that is used to treat disease also affect driving?
Why the term pot and driving?

Phrases like alcohol-impaired driving, drunk-driving, drinking and driving or driving under the influence of alcohol (DUIA) are well known. Equivalent terms referring to drug use and driving– including drug-impaired driving, drugged driving and driving under the influence of drugs (DUID)–are less well known, although that is changing.We have chosen to use more informal phrases such as driving high, mixing pot and driving or simply pot and driving.

10. How does pot compare with alcohol as a threat to road safety?

In Canada, driving under the influence of alcohol is widely regarded as both dangerous and socially unacceptable. The evidence to date supports the claim that alcohol is still one of the most important contributors to crash risk injury or death. The increasing evidence of the contribution of drugs other than alcohol to road crashes, whether they are consumed with alcohol or by themselves, has led to a number of efforts to increase awareness of the potential road safety hazards of these drugs. The perception that pot is relatively risk-free when compared to alcohol may help explain why recent drug use surveys in Canada have found that the rate of driving under the influence of pot surpasses the rate of driving under the influence of alcohol among young drivers and passengers.

11. Why not adopt a law enforcement message?

Law enforcement has played an important role in changing attitudes about alcohol-impaired driving. However, fear of being caught and prosecuted for driving high seems not to be a significant concern for many young people.

Focus group participants indicated that parents could be a deterrent if for no other reason than they usually control the keys to the car. Focus group participants also indicated that it is tougher to fool parents: “When I’m driving high I’m more afraid of my mom because cops have no way of telling. Whereas if my mum says ‘You’re high’, I’m not going to say ‘I’m not” because I know she’s not going to believe me.”

12. What does Canadian law say about drugs and driving?

It is the effects of pot on driving—not the legal status of pot—that makes its use illegal both before or while taking control of a motor vehicle.

Article S. 253 of the Canadian Criminal Code says that: “Everyone commits an offence who operates a motor vehicle or operates or assists in the operation of an aircraft or railway equipment or has the care or control of a motor vehicle, vessel, aircraft or railway equipment, whether it is in motion or not, (a) while the person’s ability to operate the vehicle, vessel, aircraft or railway equipment is impaired by alcohol or a drug.”

In the Canadian Criminal Code, laws on impaired driving are distinct from laws that say whether it is legal or not to produce, sell or use a particular drug. In other words, the fact that a drug is legal or illegal has nothing to do with the issue of driver impairment. As an example, it is legal to drink alcohol for age-of-majority Canadians but it is illegal to drive while impaired by alcohol.

13. Can law enforcement officers identify and charge drivers who are impaired by cannabis?

What is THC?

THC is the primary psychoactive compound found in cannabis. A psychoactive drug is one that alters brain function, resulting in temporary changes in perception, mood, consciousness, and behaviour.

As noted above, current law makes it a criminal offense to drive while impaired by cannabis and other drugs. The federal government is considering tabling Bill C-16, which would amend the Impaired Driving section of the Canadian Criminal Code in order to allow police officers to require drivers to undergo a Standardized Field Sobriety Test if the officer believes the person is driving under the influence of a drug. If a driver fails the sobriety test, the officer would have reasonable grounds to believe the driver has committed a drug-impaired offence and can require the driver to submit to a Drug Recognition Expert (DRE) evaluation at the police station. Police departments across the country have begun to train officers to conduct DRE assessments.

If a person fails these procedures, police would have reasonable grounds to demand a sample of bodily fluids, whether blood, urine or saliva. Charges can only be laid after the presence of drugs in bodily fluids is confirmed by laboratory analysis. A driver who refuses to complete the sobriety test or provide bodily fluid samples would be criminally charged, as is the case for drivers who refuse sobriety test and breathalyzers when they are suspected of driving while impaired by alcohol.

14. Will changes to the Criminal Code relating to cannabis possession and use (Bill C-17) affect laws and law enforcement relating to cannabis-impaired driving?

Under the legislative changes proposed in Bill C-17, possession and use of cannabis will remain illegal, but anyone found to have small amounts of cannabis for personal use would only be fined. If these proposed changes to the Criminal Code become law, driving high will likely be more, not less, subject to penalty than it is today. For example, possession of 15 grams or less of cannabis will be punishable by a fine of $150 for an adult and $100 for a person under the age of 18. However, where aggravating factors such as driving a car exist (even if the driver is not high), the fine would be $400 for an adult and $250 for a person under the age of 18.

The views expressed herein do not necessarily express the views of Health Canada

Cannabis and Driving: Key Points of Reference and Bibliography

1. “Educational and policy initiatives directed at new drivers have failed to adequately inform new drivers about the potential consequences of driving under the influence of cannabis…This speaks to the role of organizations involved in health promotion and education around impaired driving who have, until recently, focused almost exclusively on the issue of drinking and driving and paid less attention to the drug-driving issue.” (7-8)

“Among the general adolescent population in Atlantic Canada, driving under the influence of cannabis has become a prevalent activity surpassing driving under the influence of alcohol, and it has played an important role in motor vehicle collision risk, independent of drinking and driving, driver experience, and other risk factors.” (8)

Asbridge et al. (2005)Motor vehicle collision risk and driving under the influence of cannabis: Evidence from adolescents in Atlantic Canada

2. “The present study presents good evidence that drivers killed in motor vehicle crashes and taking psychoactive drugs, particularly cannabis and strong stimulants, or two or more drugs in combination were more likely to be responsible for the crash than those taking neither drugs nor alcohol. Moreover, the combination of psychoactive drugs with alcohol further increased the likelihood that drivers caused the crash in which they died. We conclude that THC, amphetamines and combinations of psychoactive drugs significantly increase drivers’ risk of a serious road crash.” (247)

Drummer et al. (2004) The involvement of drugs in drivers of motor vehicles killed in Australian road traffic crashes

3. “There is considerable evidence that cannabis does impair ability to perform the multiple functions required to drive a car safely. Although the deleterious effects of cannabis are manifestly not as severe as those of alcohol, they are more complex due to its sedative and stimulant properties; nevertheless several countries have proscribed the use of cannabis by drivers and have introduced legislation to that effect. The impetus behind these measures seems to be several fold — the increasing use of cannabis, especially by younger and therefore more inexperienced drivers; the increasing volume of traffic, dependence on personal vehicles for transport and concomitant increase in accidents; studies highlighting the effects of cannabis on brain function and increased public awareness of the hazards associated with driving and substance abuse; and not least the costs to society and individuals of road traffic casualties.” (330) Hadorn. (2004) A review of cannabis and driving skills

4. “One of the clear messages to emerge from the research reviewed is that there is a need to examine the effects of cannabis in situations where the driver is required to perform several tasks simultaneously or when confronted with a situation that requires a rapid adaptive response. Furthermore, there has been little research examining the effects of cannabis, alone and in combination with alcohol and other drugs, across a range of levels of driving experience.” (xii)

“As previous researchers have suggested, it is critical to examine the effects of cannabis when the driver in placed in situations involving increased mental load. This represents a shift in the experimental research away from looking simply at the effects of cannabis on traditional measures of driving performance such as lateral placement and speed, and a move towards supplementing traditional measures with investigation of the effects of cannabis when a driver is placed in an unexpected high accident risk situation that requires an immediate decision and response.” (31)

Lenné et al. (2004) Cannabis and Road Safety: A Review of Recent Epidemiological, Driver Impairment, and Drug Screening Literature

5. “Surveys that established recent use of cannabis by directly measuring THC in blood showed that THC positives, particularly at higher doses, are about three to seven times more likely to be responsible for their crash as compared to drivers that had not used drugs or alcohol. Together these epidemiological data suggests that recent use of cannabis may increase crash risk, whereas past use of cannabis does not.” (109)

Ramaekers et al. (2004) Dose related risk of motor vehicle crashes after cannabis use

6. “In terms of road safety the results show a clear worsening of driver capability following the ingestion of cannabis or the ingestion of cannabis and alcohol together at the doses used, in comparison with placebo (i.e. having taken neither). Within the sample of drivers, the effects of alcohol (at a dose of just more than half of the UK legal limit) and cannabis taken together were slightly greater than with cannabis alone. Given that other research has extensively shown the rapid increase in the risk of accident, particularly fatal accident, with increasing blood alcohol level, the present results show how important it is to avoid any combination of alcohol and cannabis, as well as avoiding alcohol and cannabis taken on their own, before driving or riding.” (2)

“Drivers under the influence of cannabis seem to attempt to compensate to some extent for the impairment (that they recognise) by driving more slowly, but there are some aspects of the driving task where cannabis-impaired drivers cannot compensate and where their performance deteriorates (e.g. staying in lane on a bend).” (2) Sexton et al. (2002) The influence of cannabis and alcohol on driving

7. “To the extent that drivers compensate for the effect of cannabis, they appear to be able to manage routine and low demand tasks, but the remaining cognitive resources may not sufficient to cope with peak and unexpected demands.” Smiley. (1999) Marijuana: On-road and driving simulator studies

Canadian Drug Use Surveys

ADLAF, E. M. and A. Paglia. (2003) Drug Use Among Ontario Students 1977-2003: Ontario Student Drug Use Survey (OSDUS) Highlights. Toronto: Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.

Alberta Youth Experience Survey 2002 Summary Report. (2003) Alberta Alcohol and Drug Abuse Commission.

Alcohol et drogues: portrait de la situation en 2002 et principales compariasons avec 2000. (2002) Enquête québécoise sur le tabagisme chez les élèves du secondaire. Institue de la statistique. Gouvernement du Québec.

Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (2003). Cannabis Use and Driving Among Ontario Adults. CAMH Population Studies eBulletin, May/June, No. 20.

Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (2003). Cannabis Use and Driving Among Ontario Adults. CAMH Population Studies eBulletin, May/June, No. 20.

2002 North West Territories Alcohol and Drug Survey. (2003) Northwest Territories Bureau of Statistics.

PATTON, D., D. Brown, B. Brozeit and J. Dhaliwal. (2001) Substance Use among Manitoba High School Students. Addictions Foundation of Manitoba.

POULIN, Christiane. (2002) Nova Scotia Student Drug Use Survey: Highlights Report. Halifax: Nova Scotia Department of Health Addiction Services and Dalhousie University Community Health and Epidemiology. 1-16.

TJEPKEMA, Michael. (2004) Use of Cannabis and Other Illicit Drugs. Health Reports, Vol. 15, No. 4, 43.

World Health Organization. (1997) Cannabis: A Health Perspective and Research Agenda. WHO Division of Mental Health and Prevention of Substance Abuse, Geneva: World Health Organization.

Cannabis and Driving Studies

ADAMS, I. B. and B. R. Martin. (1996) Cannabis: pharmacology and toxicology in animals and humans. Addiction, 91(11), 1585-1614.

ASBRIDGE, Mark, Christiane Poulin and Andrea Donato. (2005) Motor vehicle collision risk and driving under the influence of cannabis: Evidence from adolescents in Atlantic Canada. Accident Analysis and Prevention. (In press)

ASHTON, C. H. (1999) Adverse effects of cannabis and cannabinoids. British Journal of Anaestheasia, 83(4), 637-649.

BIERNESS, Douglas J., Herb M. Simpson and Katharine Desmond. (2003) Drugs and Driving 2002. The Road Safety Monitor. Traffic Injury Research Foundation.

BLOWS, S., R. Q. Ivers, J. Connor, S. Ameratunga, M. Woodward and R. Norton. (2005) Marijuana use and car crash injury. Addiction, 100: 605-611.

CHAIT, L. D. and J. L. Perry. (1994) Acute and residual effects of alcohol and marijuana, alone and in combination, on mood and performance. Psychopharmacology (Berl), 115(3), 340-349;

CHESHER, G. B. (2003) Cannabis and road safety: An outline of the research studies to examine the effects of cannabis on driving skills and actual driving performance. www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/MISC/driving/driving2.htm.

CHESHER et al. (2002) Cannabis and alcohol in motor vehicle accidents. In Grotenhermen and Russo (Eds). Cannabis and Cannabinoids: Pharmacology, Toxicology, and Therapeutic Potential. New York: Haworth Press, 313-323.

CIMBURA, G., D. M. Lucas, R. C. Bennett, R. A. Warren and H. M. Simpson. (1982) Incidence and toxicological aspects of drugs detected in 484 fatally injured drivers and pedestrians in Ontario. Journal of Forensic Sciences, 27, 855-867.

DOUGHERTY, D. M., D. R. Cherek and J. D. Roache. (1994) The effects of smoked marijuana on progressive-interval schedule performance in humans. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 62 (1), 73-87.

DRUMMER, Olaf H., Jim Gerostamoulos, Helen Batziris, Mark Chu, John Caplehorn, Michael D. Robertson, Philip Swann. (2004) The involvement of drugs in drivers of motor vehicles killed in Australian road traffic crashes. Accident Analysis and Prevention 36: 239–248.

DUSSAULT, C.,M. Brault, M. Brault, J. Bouchard and A. M. Lemire. (2002) The contribution of alcohol and other drugs among fatally injured drivers in Quebec: Some preliminary findings. In Mayhew, D. R., & Dussault, C. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 16th International conference on alcohol, drugs, and traffic safety, 423-430.

European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction. (1999) Literature Review on the Relation between Drug Use, Impaired Driving and Traffic Accidents. Lisbon: EMCDDA.

GROTENHERMEN, Franjo, Gero Leson, Günter Berghaus, Olaf H. Drummer, Hans-Peter Krüger, Marie Longo, Herbert Moskowitz, Bud Perrine, Jan Ramaekers, Alison Smiley and Rob Tunbridge. (2005) Developing Science-Based Per Se Limits for Driving under the Influence of Cannabis (DUIC). Paper presented at the 17th International Conference on Alcohol, Drugs and Traffic Safety. August 2004.

HADORN, David. (2004) A review of cannabis and driving skills. In The Medicinal Uses of Cannabis and Cannabinoids. Geoffrey Guy, Brian Whittle and Philip Robson Eds., London: Pharmaceutical Press Publications, 329-368.

HARDER, S. and S. Reitbrock. (1997) Concentration-effect relationship of delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol and prediction of psychotropic effects after smoking marijuana. International Journal of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, 35(4): 155-159.

JONES, Craig, Karen Freeman and Don Weatherburn. (2003) “Driving Under the Influence of Cannabis in New South Whales rural area.” Crime and Justice Bulletin: Contemporary Issues in Crime and Justice. Number 75 (May 2003), 1-5.

LENNÉ, Michael, Tom Triggs, Michael Regan. (2004) Cannabis and Road Safety: A Review of Recent Epidemiological, Driver Impairment, and Drug Screening Literature. Monash University Accident Research Center.

MANN, Robert, Bruna Brands, Scott Macdonald and Gina Stoduto. (2003) Impacts of cannabis on driving: An analysis of current evidence with an emphasis on Canadian data. Prepared for Road Safety and Motor Vehicle Regulation, Transport Canada.

NEALE, Joanne, Neil McKeganey, Gordon Hay and John Oliver. (2000) Recreational Drug Use and Driving: A Qualitative Study. University of Glasgow, Scottish Executive Central Research Unit.

OHLSSON, A., J. E. Lindgren, A. Wahlen, S. Agurell, L. E. Hollister and H. K. Gillespie. (1980) Plasma delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol concentrations and clinical effects after oral and intravenous administration and smoking. Clinical Pharmacology Therapy, 28(3), 409-416.

ROBBE, Hindrick. (1998) Marijuana’s impairing effects on driving are moderate when taken alone but severe when combined with alcohol. Psychopharmacol. Clin. Exp., 13: 70-78.

ROBBE, Hindrick and James F. O’Hanlon. (1993) “Marijuana, Alcohol and Actual Driving Performance.” Institute for Human Psychopharmacology University of Limburg, Netherlands.

RAMAEKERS, J.G., G. Berghaus, M. van Laar and O.H. Drummer. (2004) Dose related risk of motor vehicle crashes after cannabis use. Drug and Alcohol Dependence 73: 109–119. Experimental Psychopharmacology Unit, Department of Neurocognition, Faculty of Psychology, Maastricht University.

—–.—-. (2001) A review of epidemiological and experimental studies on marijuana and driver impairment. Experimental Psychopharmacology Unit. Brain and Behavior Institute. Université de Maastricht.

SEXTON, B.F., P. G. Jackson, R.J.Tunbridge and A.Board, K.Wright, M.Stark, K.Englehart. (2002) The influence of cannabis and alcohol on driving. Prepared for Road Safety Division, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, UK, by Transport Research Laboratory, TRL Report 543.

SEXTON et al. (2000). The influence of cannabis on driving. Prepared for Road Safety Division, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, UK, by Transport Research Laboratory, TRL Report 477.

SMILEY, Alison. (1999) Marijuana: On-road and driving simulator studies. In H. Kalant, W. Corrigall, W. hall and R.G. Smart (Eds). The Health Effects of Cannabis. Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto, 173-191.

WALSH, G.W. and R.E. Mann. (1999) On the high road: Driving under the influence of cannabis in Ontario. Canadian Journal of Public Health, vol. 90 no. 4, 260-263.

WEEKES, John. (2005) Drugs and Driving FAQs. Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse.

WHEELOCK. Barbara Buston. (2002) Physiological and Psychological Effects of Cannabis: Review of the Research Findings. Prepared for the Senate Committee on Illegal Drugs. Office of Senator Eileen Rossiter.

Cannabis and Piloting Studies

D.S. Janowsky et al. (1976) Marijuana effects on simulated flying ability. American Journal of Psychiatry 133: 384-388 and —-,—- (1976) Simulated flying performance after marijuana intoxication. Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine, 47: 124-128.

LEIRER, V.O. et al. (1991) Marijuana carry-over effects on aircraft pilot performance. Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine 62: 221-227.

NEWMAN. David G. (2004) Cannabis and its Effects on Pilot Performance and Flight Safety. Australian Transport Safety Bureau, 1-18.

*NDPA would draw your attention to the study which showed pilots could not safely land a plane 24 hours after smoking marijuana.  Marijuana Carry-Over Effects on Psychomotor Performance: A Chronicle of Research by Leirer, Yesavage & Morrow.  Stanford University School of Medicine

 

 

 

The data presented by Parker et al. (1995) and Graham and Bowling (1995) indicate that, for young people, having used a drug is a far from unusual experience. By the time that the majority of Parker et al (1995) respondents were 15, 42% of them indicated that they had, at some point in their lives, used at least one illicit drug. This increased to 51% by the time they were 16. Turning to the national position, over a third (36%) of the ISRD respondents (all of whom were aged 14—21) reported ever having used a drug (Graham and Bowling 1995).

Given that proponents of the normalisation thesis have tended to concentrate on measures of lifetime use (whether a respondent has used an illicit drug at some time in their life) it is worth noting that the extent to which such measures illuminate young people’s drug using habits is limited. Arguments based on such measurements should be interpreted extremely cautiously. The inflexibility of lifetime measures means that they cannot capture the processual character of people’s drug-use (Becker 1963). As a consequence, not only are they unable to distinguish one-off use from regular polydrug use but they also fail to distinguish between current and ex-users. Given these problems it is reasonable to suggest that measures based on shorter time-frames — such as the previous year or month — are likely to provide somewhat more reliable estimates of the extent of current or regular use. Parker et al. (1995) included questions about drug use during the year and the month prior to each of their surveys, and the ISRD asked respondents about their drug use during the previous year (1992).

Inevitably, data concerning drug-related behaviour during the last year/month give a more conservative picture than those based on lifetime measures. As Figure 1 shows, in Parker et al’s second and third surveys, when the majority of the respondents were aged 15 and 16 respectively, drug use during the previous year was limited to approximately two fifths of the sample. During the month preceding the respective surveys, it was limited to about a quarter of them. Following their third survey, Parker et al. (1995:19) estimated that 20 per cent of respondents (approximately three quarters of past month users) were ‘regular users’.
We have already mentioned the fact that Parker and colleagues recognise that their research is unlikely to be typical of the national picture. The situation relating to the nation as a whole is outlined in Figure 2. According to the ISRD slightly less than a third of males and less than a quarter of females aged 14—21 used drugs in 1992 and could, therefore, be thought of as ‘current’ users (Graham and Bowling 1995). While respondents aged 18—21 were, by some way, the most likely to have used a drug in 1992, less than half of the males and less than a quarter of the females in this age category had done so.

As indicated earlier, it is the work of Howard Parker and colleagues (Parker et al. 1995; Measham et al. 1994) that has been most influential in this area. Beginning in 1991 their major study to date involved three surveys conducted annually which recorded the drug-related experiences of a group of 776 young people who were first contacted during the penultimate year of their compulsory education when most were 14 years old. These surveys were administered in the metropolitan North-West of England, an area which includes Manchester, the ‘rave capital of Great Britain’ (Coffield and Gofton 1994:5), and the researchers have acknowledged the dangers of extrapolating from their data to the national situation. Referring to the area’s higher than average levels of smoking, drinking and heroin use, they note that ‘we must therefore anticipate that young people from this region are likely to report higher levels of illicit drug use during the l990s than their peers elsewhere’ (Parker et al. 1995:21). Although the location of their research is therefore in this sense ‘unusual’, this is not the basis of our criticism of the conclusions they draw.

In order to reflect upon the national situation we have drawn, in some detail, upon the domestic element of the International Self—Report Delinquency Study (ISRD) which, focusing on the 14-21
age range, is the most recent survey of a representative sample of the nation’s youth to consider drug use (Howling et al. 1994;Graham and Bowling 1995). We will also consider, albeit more briefly, the evidence from the 1994 British Crime Survey, although it should be noted that this focuses on people aged 16 and above and is not a specialist youth survey (Ramsey and Percy 1996). Although Parker et al. (1995) survey, the ISRD and British Crime Survey vary in the details of their administration, they are similar in that the drugs components of these surveys are all based on a self-completion approach in which respondents are provided with a list of drugs or illicit substances and asked about their knowledge and use of them.

Although more illuminating than measures of lifetime use, those which focus on behaviour during the last year or month are of limited use if they fail to distinguish between different types of drug. Measures which aggregate a variety of different drugs simplify the decisions that young people make and fail to acknowledge the discerning approach many young people take towards drug use. That young people distinguish between different drugs is clearly reflected in their patterns of use. Both Parker et al. (1995) and the ISRD found that levels of use varied greatly by type of drug. Thus, reflecting its position as ‘undoubtedly the most widely used drug in the UK’ (ISDD 1994:28), cannabis had been used by 45 per cent of respondents to Parker et al’s (1995) third survey, when the majority of them were aged 16, and 33 per cent of ISRD respondents. At the other end of the popularity spectrum are heroin and cocaine. Lifetime use of cocaine was limited to 4 and 3 per cent of Parker et al’s (1995) respondents when they were aged 15 and 16 respectively, and 2 per cent of ISRD respondents. Heroin use was even more unusual: 3 and 1 per cent respectively of Parker et al’s respondents disclosed lifetime heroin use as did 1 per cent of ISRD respondents.The rise of the dance/rave scene (Redhead 1993) and its associated drug use has a special position within the normalisation thesis (Coffield and Gofton 1994; Measham et al. 1993). The late 1980s and early 1990s did witness an apparently significant increase in the use of ‘dance drugs’, which became a relatively important part of the youth drug scene (Measham 1993; Clements 1993). In the case of ecstasy and LSD, however, this increase started from a very low baseline (Clements 1993) and the popularity of these drugs can easily be overstated.
Even though LSD was the most popular dance drug among Parker et al’s (1995) respondents when they were aged 15 and 16 (and the second most widely used drug by them) it had only ever been used by approximately a quarter of them. In view of ecstasy’s high media profile it is worth noting that only one in twenty respondents to Parker a al’s (1995) third survey, when the majority of them were aged 16, had used this drug. Nationally, use of dance-drugs appears to be limited to a small sub-section of the youthful population.

Source: Michael Shiner and Tim Newburn
pub. ‘Sociology’ Vol.31 No. 3. Aug 97

Figure 2 – Drug use by young people in England and Wales during 1992 (percentage use) Source: Graham & Howling (1995:26)

 

 

By Maxie Richards, Glasgow, Scotland
Director, Maxie Richards Foundation
www.maxirichards.org

Two-and-a-half-year-old, weakened by starvation, cold, deprivation, and physical abuse, paid the scapegoat price for
this careless society and gave up the fight to live. Scott was a victim of malignant neglect, not just by his drug-crazed parents, but
by the society into which he was born, where neglect, in various forms, has become commonplace. A parent’s’ right to choose, at any
cost, a pleasure-seeking lifestyle, rules, while laws change to allow drug-taking on an unprecedented scale. The silent sufferers are the children.

The long-term effect becomes all too clear, as children, unable to cope with the chaos in their lives, become aggressive and disruptive, serving an
apprenticeship for addiction. This Government’s answer is so-called “harm reduction.” This evil drug policy has been in place for 30 years or so. Its cornerstone is free choice for individuals to take drugs, and it promotes “safe use” – whatever that means. It focuses on the individual, never the family, the dependants, or the community. This policy promotes the lie that drugs are here to stay, and there is nothing we can do about it except “reduce harm.” Addicts are enabled to take drugs and are given, at the taxpayers’ expense, all necessary means.

“Harm reduction” adherents are fanatical about protecting this system,even though it has been responsible for the drug crisis in society. We have
built a gigantic business on the backs of drug addicts (called ‘clients’), and people grow fat on the proceeds. The tax-paying public remains in denial. Perhaps people believe this couldn’t be happening. It is. Parents of addicted children, exploited by the system, live the nightmare daily. The society we are creating through malignant neglect is not one we will want to live in. Scott Saunders is not the first to endure a living hell and prolonged death. Unless we act, the rot won’t stop.

Forty years ago, the Scandinavian countries looked at “harm reduction.” Their findings led them to scrap any notion of adopting such a policy.
Every government agency had to adopt a drug-free stance and promote drug prevention. It was made abundantly clear that drug addiction was not an acceptable way of living. Sweden set up European Cities Against Drugs, developing strategies for a safe, drug-free society, and proving that it can be done.

In Rutherglen, an outwardly respectable neighbourhood of Glasgow, Scott Saunders was subjected to appalling abuse and neglect. One hundred fifty wounds were found on his body; he had been systematically deprived of food, and his eventual death from starvation came after he had been left alone in the house for three days.

We must be brave enough to face up to our failures and to the treason yes, treason – which is undermining our way of life, canceling our workforce,and damaging, often terminally, our young people, while imperceptibly luring us into accepting the unacceptable. Don’t believe the lies, the platitudes,the excuses, the cover-up of so-called “harm reduction” drug policies. We are all responsible for the death of Scott through negligence.

Back to Papers

Adaption by James Bradbury of an article from Forreal.org
You may have seen this mysterious number in the form of logos, on TV shows and in films, perhaps without knowing what it means or even noticing it. Few people currently know what this number represents.

Simply put, 420 is a symbol of cannabis and its culture. It’s a “nudge-nudge wink” for pot users akin to the popular euphemism “I like to party”. It means they can speak openly about cannabis use by way of a code so that non-users will remain ignorant of their meaning. Somehow it leaked out into the mainstream and onto commercial clothing and other merchandise. Despite its prevalence, many parents and some teens are still unaware of what 420 means.

Nobody is certain why the number 420 became associated with cannabis culture, but numerous theories exist. Some people believe that it was originally a police code signalling cannabis use, while others think it came from the number of chemicals found in cannabis. As it happens there are over 400 chemicals found in cannabis, many of them carcinogenic, but the exact number and proportions vary widely between plants. Yet another idea is that 4:20 was the time a group of guys met after school to smoke cannabis. In any case, the number has been significant for cannabis users and promoters since the 1970’s.

When you see the symbol 420, be aware of what it represents. The person or organisation behind it is probably advocating cannabis use, its legalisation and possibly that of other drugs. Remember that the use of cannabis frequently leads users into using other drugs due to a variety of physical, psychological and social factors.

Those who make use of the 420 symbol may imply that cannabis use is commonplace, or even normal. This is certainly not true, as over 80% of young people do not use drugs more than once or twice, while 50% never try them at all. For more information about the physical, psychological and social dangers of cannabis, see our Cannabis Information page.

Thanks to Forreal.org for the use of material for this article.

Back to Papers

By Roger Morgan. Californians for Drug-Free Schools

Marsha Rosenbaum is a self professed drug abuse expert, whose research was funded for 18 years by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. If the contents of her booklet called ‘SAFETY FIRST, a Reality- Based approach to TEENS, DRUGS, and Drug Education’ is reflective of her research, we should demand our tax dollars back. If ever she was a professional, she has now reduced herself to a snake oil salesman.

The worst thing about it is that 30,000 copies of ‘SAFETY FIRST’ were printed and distributed by her employer, The Drug Policy Alliance (DPA), and copies were given to every school in the nation. That should kill more than a few kids, and keep the supply lines open for drugs …. the mission of her employer. Her affiliation with the DPA alone is enough to expose her true intent.

As a parent who lost two step children to drug addiction twenty five years ago, and a very active drug prevention activist for the last 7 or 8 years, I have searched for solutions with no pre-conceived ideas of what it took to keep kids off drugs. Just about everything I have learned flies in the face of her advice. If she has any expertise with drugs, she certainly exhibits none as a drug prevention expert.

One of our cherished rights is freedom of speech. As reflected in ‘SAFETY FIRST’, the ability to propagate false information for specials interests, whatever they may be, also suggests it is one of the flaws. Ms. Rosenbaum’s special wisdom seems to be gained mostly from kids versus the scientific community: For example, she states:

‘They know there are differences between experimentation, abuse and addiction: and that the use of one drug does not inevitably lead to the use of another.

Yet, conventional drug education programs focus predominantly on abstinence-only messages and are shaped by problematic myths:

Myth #1: Experimentation with drugs is not a common part of teenage culture.

Myth #2: Drug use is the same as drug abuse;

Myth #3: Marijuana is the gateway to drugs such as heroin and cocaine; and

Myth #4: Exaggerating risks will deter young people from experimentation.”

First of all, there is profound evidence that one drug often leads to the use of another. It normally starts with cigarettes, then alcohol and then pot. Experimentation with drugs is a common part of teenage culture only because we allow it. We can stop most of it by doing what we have done to stop it with adults: random drug testing.

There should be no level of drug use that is acceptable for teens, because they are physiologically more susceptible to harm and addiction than adults, and their brains aren’t fully developed until their late teens or early twenties. No responsible adult would say just teach them how to do it responsibility.

With regard to telling kids the truth, there is no reason to exaggerate the risks of drugs. The truth alone should be sufficient for anyone with average intellect who is seeking the truth. However, these are children we are talking about. The reason they can’t vote is that they haven’t gained the cognitive skills to make mature decisions, including making the healthy decisions about their activities as teenagers. Most of us weren’t any smarter at that age, so it’s not a slight. Just a reality.

Ms. Rosenbaum states “. . . Our current efforts lack harm reduction education for those students who won’t “just say no”. In order to prevent drug abuse and drug problems among teenagers who do experiment, we need a fallback strategy that puts safety first.”

How about a program that just keeps them off drugs, Ms Rosenbaum, like random drug testing? For those who will become addicted because of permissive practices, we do need treatment. But treatment doesn’t work most of the time. As you stated, 80% to 90% of kids don’t have a problem. But 10% to 20% do, and many more don’t just come out whole. They aren’t totally unscathed. They are damaged, many of whom will never achieve their full potential, even if they aren’t complete addicts.

Harm reduction is the myth; the mantra of the DPA and other druggies and organizations that want to legalize and proliferate the use of drugs. Any self respecting drug abuse expert would know that some kids have a genetic pre-disposition to addiction of alcohol and drugs. Experimentation for them generally leads to addiction, and addiction to death or destruction. Harm elimination by getting kids to adulthood prior to first significant use, by whatever means possible, is the best harm reduction policy. Science says if we can get kids to adulthood intact they should never have a problem. Neither will society.

Ms. Rosenbaum myopically proposes that we teach children responsible use of drugs; and that we call on parents to have coherent conversations with their children, like her “Dear Johnny” letter, which will convince them to be responsible when they are using drugs or alcohol – evidence enough that she lives on a different planet.

Kids experimenting with drugs and alcohol don’t tend to be responsible. What do you tell them? Just smoke a little bit of pot and don’t get high? Don’t drink and use pot at the same time? Don’t drink or do drugs and drive? If someone offers you heroin, meth or cocaine, a drug that will give you a new high, just say thanks, “I’ll lumber along with pot?”

Her “MOTHER’S ADVICE” to son Johnny is naïve, and myopic in view of today’s family situation. Apparently Ms. Rosenbaum hasn’t noticed that our nation has a 49% divorce rate; single parenting; two parents working; drug using parents; child abuse, et. al. There is a reason why 60% of Americans are at moderate to high risk of using drugs and alcohol. There is a reason why schools are the safety net.

Parents are number one in terms of at-risk behaviour, followed by school environment. Even those parents who try, need help. Rosenbaum suggest parents “ find creative ways to open a dialogue, then listen, listen, listen.”

Ms Rosenbaum, if the kid is already using, you’re whistling Dixie. If he or she is just weighing the options, then parents need to carefully weigh their persuasive skills against peer pressure, the need for a teenager to be accepted, the chance of a genetic propensity to become addicted, and the forceful, deliberate attempt of a $600 billion illicit drug trade focused on getting their child hooked on their insidious products before adulthood, when science says they are safe.

To illustrate that marijuana is not a gateway drug, she states “… For every 100 people who have tried marijuana, only one percent is a current user of cocaine.” The reality is for every 100 people who use cocaine, meth, heroin and other drugs, all 100% probably started with marijuana. Rosenbaum states “there is no credible research evidence demonstrating that using one drugs causes the use of another.” That is simply a lie. There is plenty of research to show the relationship that one drug leads to others. Marijuana is a gateway drug, and it is dangerous in its own right. Over 60% of the young people in rehab programs are there for addiction to pot. Marijuana also has a very debilitating effect on short term memory, adversely affects motivation, retards the maturation process and leads to a multitude of physiological problems, including mental illness. Teaching children there is a safe, responsible level of marijuana use is blasphemous.

If there was any question of her maligned motives, her published responses to seminars presented by the ONDCP promoting random student drug testing in the spring of 2004 laid the matter to rest.

She said research and experience tells us “random drug testing does not deter drug use”. That is simply another lie. In every case where it has been done properly, it has dramatically reduced drug use. Schools in Oregon have shown that drug use by kids were in a school which tested was only 25% of the level in schools that did not test. At Hunterton Central Regional schools in New Jersey, after 2 years drug use was reduced in 20 of 28 categories. At De La Salle High School in New Orleans, which the kids had nicknamed “De La Drugs”, drug use has all but been eliminated by use of hair analyses. Ball State University did a study that showed 73% of High School Principals reported a reduction in drug use among students subject to drug testing, while 2% reported an increase. The big question seems to be is Marsha afraid it will work? And why?

She said testing athletes “can deter them from participating.” Research has shown that not to be true in general, and only for a few. If they are using drugs, they should not be competing in athletics. It is dangerous, for them and others. So, kids – a choice.

The biggest lie of all was that random drug testing is “expensive and inefficient”. She cites school administrators in Dublin, Ohio who curtailed their random drug testing program because they calculated their expenses at $35,000 a year for 1,473 students, at $24 a piece, because they only got 11 positive results, a cost of $3,200 per “positive” test.

We know Ms. Rosenbaum isn’t very knowledgeable on drug prevention, but apparently neither she nor the folks in Dublin are very good at math either. Since random drug testing is a deterrent, the correct way to measure the program would be to divide the cost of $35,000 by the 1,462 kids that didn’t do drugs, which would yield a cost of a little less that $24 per student. That’s cheap insurance! And not that Ms. Rosenbaum wants to confuse herself with facts, but with on-site drug test kits that cost as little as $2.50, all 1,473 kids could be tested today for $3,683. If the school can’t afford that, there are Federal Funds available to help pay for it, and if they only tested 10% of the students they could get the desired deterrent effect.

Under the guise of being a drug abuse expert from 18 years of shabby research, Ms. Rosenbaum has foregone any objectivity and professional integrity that should flow from independent research, and sold her soul to one of the most dangerous organizations in America: The Drug Policy Alliance (DPA), funded in large part by George Soros. The DPA’s mission is to legalize and proliferate the use of drugs. In joining their organization and advocating against the best known drug use deterrent, random drug testing, she has essentially defected to the other side.

Rosenbaum is not credible, and neither her motives or advice can be trusted.

In Brief

• In 2004, an estimated 14% of youths aged 12 to 17, approximately 3.5 million youths, had experienced at least one major depressive episode (MDE) in their lifetime

• Over 7%, an estimated 1.8 million youths, had lifetime MDE and thought about killing themselves at the time of their worst or most recent episode

• An estimated 712,000 youths had tried to kill themselves during their worst or most recent MDE; this represents 2.9% of those aged 12 to 17

In 2003, suicide was the 11th leading cause of death among persons of all ages in the United States. However, among young people aged 15 to 24, suicide, or intentional self-harm, was the third leading cause of death, with 3,921 deaths, following accidents/unintentional injuries (14,966 deaths) and assaults/homicides (5,148 deaths).

The 2004 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) asked youths aged 12 to 17 about symptoms of depression, including thoughts about death or suicide. Major Depressive Episode (MDE) is defined as a period of at least 2 weeks when a person experienced a depressed mood or loss of interest or pleasure in daily activities and had at least five of the nine symptoms of depression as described in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV).

The suicide-related questions asked youths if (during their worst or most recent episode of depression) they thought it would be better if they were dead, thought about killing themselves, and, if they had thought about killing themselves, whether they made a plan to kill themselves and whether they tried to kill themselves. This report presents estimates of the prevalence of lifetime MDE among youths. The report also presents the numbers and percentages of youths who had both lifetime MDE and suicidal thoughts.

Prevalence of MDE

An estimated 14% of youths aged 12 to 17, approximately 3.5 million youths, had experienced at least one MDE in their lifetime (Table 1). Almost 20% of females aged 12 to 17 and 8.5% of males had at least one of these depressive episodes. Rates of lifetime MDE were similar among racial/ethnic groups and increased with age.

MDE and Suicidal Thoughts

Among youths aged 12 to 17, about 9%, an estimated 2.3 million youths, had experienced MDE in their lifetime and thought, during their worst or most recent MDE, that it would be better if they were dead. Over 7%, an estimated 1.8 million youths, thought about killing themselves at the time of their worst or most recent MDE.

Females aged 12 to 17 were significantly more likely than their male peers to have had MDE and to report thinking about suicide and believing it would be better if they were dead (Figure 1).

Both 14 or 15 year olds and 16 or 17 year olds were significantly more likely than those aged 12 or 13 to have had MDE accompanied by thoughts that it would be better if they were dead and thoughts about committing suicide (Figure 2).

MDE with suicidal thoughts did not vary by urbanicity.4 Youths in large metropolitan areas, small metropolitan areas, and non-metropolitan areas were equally likely to have MDE with suicidal thoughts.

Figure 1. percentages of Youths Aged 12 to 17 with Major Depressive Episode (MDE) in Their Lifetime and Suicidal Thoughts, by Gender: 2004	Figure 2. percentages of Youths Aged 12 to 17 with Major Depressive Episode (MDE) in Their Lifetime and Suicidal Thoughts, by Age Group: 2004
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MDE and Suicide Attempts

An estimated 900,000 youths, or 3.6% of 12 to 17 year olds, made a plan to kill themselves at the time they were having their worst or most recent MDE. An estimated 712,000 youths had tried to kill themselves during such an episode; this represents 2.9% of those aged 12 to 17.

Female youths were more likely than male youths to have had MDE and made a plan to kill themselves (5.6% of females and 1.7% of males) or to have attempted suicide (4.7% of females and 1.1% of males).

Needle exchange was first introduced in the United Kingdom in 1985 in response to the AIDS epidemic. Most areas within the UK have pharmacy-based needle-exchange services. Mobile, agency-based and automated needle exchange programs also exist.

A new study finds that despite this widespread availability of syringes, there is an increase in HIV infection among injection drug users (IDUs) as well as an increase is the sharing of needles.

These results echo the findings of another study published a year ago in the British Medical Journal which found that HIV and hepatitis C (HCV) rates are increasing among IDUs in the United Kingdom. Nearly half (44%) of injection drug users under the age of 30 are already infected with HCV and 4.2% are infected with HIV– and these rates are increasing, according to the BMJ article.

While the recent study claims that the increase may be a result of an increased focus on crime, it ignores what may be the real cause driving the epidemic which was reported in a university study release last year: Widespread drug abuse. One in 50 young people and adults in London and two other major U.K. cities inject illicit drugs– making drug abuse as common as diabetes. Five million needles are provided to drug addicts in London each year, yet harm reduction advocates claim that this amount is 80% short of the total number “needed.”

All three studies are provided below:

Edwin J. Bernard, Friday, July 15, 2005

New HIV infections via injecting drug use (IDU) appear to be on the increase in England and Wales, according to a collaborative study from the UK’s Health Protection Agency (HPA) and Imperial College London, published in the July 22nd issue of the journal AIDS. The study, which combines anonymous HIV testing data with community surveys for the first time, suggests that recent increases in HIV IDU transmission are most pronounced in younger, recent IDUs, in London. This increase in new infections coincides with a shift in UK drugs policy away from public health concerns towards a stronger focus on crime.

In the UK, harm reduction initiatives such as the provision of clean needles through needle exchange programmes (NEPs) have been relatively effective in limiting the spread of HIV among injecting drug users (IDUs). By the end of 2002, only 7% of the 56,000 diagnosed HIV infections were associated with IDU. However, there has been some recent evidence of an increase in risky injecting practices suggesting that new HIV infections amongst IDUs may be on the increase.

In order to examine trends in HIV prevalence amongst IDUs, researchers from the HPA and Imperial College, London combined data from two voluntary unlinked-anonymous survey programmes that included adults (aged 15-49) who had injected drugs in the previous four weeks.

The first is an annual survey of IDUs via drug agencies in England and Wales (ranging in number over the years between 29-59; providing advice, support, harm-reduction and/or treatment services) has been ongoing since 1990, and includes a brief self-completed questionnaire and oral fluid samples for HIV testing.

The second was a series of community-based surveys in London (1990-1993); London and seven other English cities (1997-1998); and London and Brighton (2001-2002). This was conducted in the field (e.g. street locations, homes and social venues) and included an interviewer-administered questionnaire and oral fluid samples for HIV testing. This provided the researchers with a cross-sectional data set, including almost 28,000 oral fluid samples on which to test anonymously for HIV.

Evidence of increase in HIV prevalence

HIV prevalence among IDUs in England and Wales declined from a peak of 5.9% (67 positive HIV antibody tests out of a total of 1132 samples) in 1990 to a low of 0.6% (14/2270) in 1996. It then remained stable until 2000, after which there was, say the researchers, “some evidence of an increase” to 1.4% (21/1529) in 2003.

Individuals who had been injecting for the shortest period of time (less than three years; 1.2%) and those who had been injecting for the longest period of time (more than twelve years; 2.9%) had the highest HIV prevalence in 2003. In contrast, those who had been injecting drugs between three and five years, or six and eleven years, had lower HIV prevalence (0.3% and 0.7%, respectively).

HIV prevalence was found to be higher in London (5%) compared with elsewhere in England and Wales (0.4%) and similar in women (1.8%) and men (1.6%).

Five factors were included in multivariate modelling after adjustment: survey year; recruitment location; length of injecting career; recruitment setting; and having had a voluntary confidential HIV test.

The odds of being HIV-positive were higher for the survey years 1990-95 and 2001-2003 compared with 1996 (p=0.001); higher for recruitment in London compared with outside London (Adjusted Odds Ratio 7.33; 95% CI, 5.60-9.59); highest for those injecting for 15 years or more (AOR 2.3; 95% CI, 1.61-3.28); higher for those recruited in the community versus those from the agency survey (AOR 1.76; 95% CI, 1.37-2.24); and higher for those who had ever had a voluntary HIV test outside of the survey (AOR 2.49; 95% CI,1.95-3.18).

Younger IDUs in London at highest risk of new HIV infection

The investigators used an adjusted model (adjusted for number of years injecting, recruitment setting and having had a voluntary HIV test outside of the survey) to fit location and survey year together, and the results suggested that the recent increase in HIV prevalence was mainly occuring in London (p=0.025).

To examine this futher, force of infection in and outside of London, defined as the yearly rate at which HIV-negative IDUs become HIV-positive, was estimated by fitting a model to prevalence data by calendar year and injecting career length. The results suggest that force of infection in London is higher amongst novice IDUs (those injecting for less than one year) and has increased over time.

Between 1992-1997, the force of infection amongst novice IDUs in London was 0.008 (95% CI, 0.002-0.02), whereas between 1998-2003 it was 0.028 (95% CI, 0.016-0.045), or almost 3% per year. For IDUs who had been injecting for more than a year, the force of infection was 0.13 lower across all time periods. Since age and length of injecting habit were found to be highly correlated (p=0.001), this suggests younger IDUs in London are acquiring HIV more rapidly than older IDUs in London or elswhere.

This increase in new HIV infections is similar to the 3.4% rate found in a recent London-based cohort study.

Awareness of HIV infection

Overall, 54% of the total cohort had ever taken an HIV antibody test outside of the surveys.

Of those testing HIV-positive, 81%( 371/461) reported ever having taken an HIV antibody test. Of those who reported the results of their last HIV test, 75% (193/259) were aware of their infection.

In 2002-2003, however, only 69% (25/36) of those who were HIV-positive and who reported the results of their HIV antibody test were aware of their infection.

Is UK policy to blame?

Although the combined surveys found that reported needle- and syringe-sharing in the previous month remained uniformly high both in London (31%) and outside London (29%) in 2002, the higher force of infection in London may reflect higher HIV prevalence amongst IDUs in London compared with those outside London, as well as an increased prevalence of injecting drugs, crack cocaine in particular.

However, the authors point out that in 1998, the UK’s national drug strategy changed its focus from harm-reduction and the reduction of blood-borne viruses to “wider social harms, in particular drug-related crime.” They suggest that this “simultaneous shift in the focus of policy and service provisioning for drug users in England and Wales” may have “unintentionally hindered the development and re-invigoration of harm reduction measures in response to evolving patterns of drug use and risk behaviours.”

In addition, younger IDUs would not have been exposed to either national or targeted HIV prevention campaigns that took place earlier in the HIV epidemic.

It also appears that many of the recently-infected IDUs are foreign nationals. “Data on country of birth from clinicians’ reports of newly diagnosed HIV infections indicate that two-thirds of HIV-infected IDUs diagnosed in the UK in 2003 were born in another country,” the authors write. Thus the recent increase in HIV prevalence in London may reflect recent patterns of emigration to London, particularly from south-western and eastern Europe where the prevalence of HIV is higher among IDUs than in other risk groups.

Reference

Hope VD et al. HIV prevalence among injecting drug users in England and Wales 1990 to 2003: evidence for increased transmission in recent years. AIDS 19:1207-14, 2005.

HEPATITIS C ‘EPIDEMIC AMONG LONDON DRUG USERS’

By Lyndsay Moss, PA Health Correspondent

Cases of hepatitis C among young drug users in London are reaching epidemic levels, researchers warned today. The number of people who inject drugs who now have HIV is also worryingly high, according to a study published in the British Medical Journal. The researchers blamed the Government’s current drug policy for failing to protect this high risk group from bloodborne viruses like hepatitis C.

The team, from Imperial College London, the Health Protection Agency and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, estimated that four in 10 new drug users in London now had hepatitis C, which can cause fatal liver damage.

They also estimated that 3% of injecting drug users was now infected with HIV. The results were based on tests involving 428 drug users who had been injecting for six years or less. Hepatitis C and HIV can be spread by sharing needles and the researchers found high levels of syringe-sharing during their study. One in four reported injecting with needles and syringes used by someone else in the past four weeks.

Researcher Dr Ali Judd, based at Charing Cross Hospital, west London, said: “Hepatitis C is now spreading at epidemic levels across London and HIV incidence is worryingly high, which if unchecked will lead to an increase in the total number of HIV infections.

“There is an urgent need for new and comprehensive programmes to tackle this growing number.”

Dr Matthew Hickman, from Imperial College London, added: “For the past six or seven years Government drug policy has focused on drugs and crime, and has been successful in expanding specialist drug treatment, especially through referral from criminal justice. “However there is a need now to reinvigorate harm reduction policies that prevent transmission of hepatitis C and HIV.”

A Department of Health spokeswoman said the Government was committed to driving down cases of hepatitis C and other blood-borne infections like HIV.

“Almost £500 million will be spent on drug treatment in 2004-05 and we recently announced that all Drug Action Teams will get a 55% increase in their allocations between 2006 and 2008. “The extra funding in the last few years has led to many more drug users engaging in treatment and an increase in the numbers successfully completing treatment.

“This is good news as there is clearly a link between getting people into treatment and substantially reducing the rate of blood-borne diseases.” The spokeswoman added: “A Hepatitis C Action Plan for England was launched by the Department of Health in June 2004 calling for a review of harm reduction services to prevent hepatitis C transmission. “Such services include provision of needle exchange services in the community, safe disposal of used needles and syringes and provision of specialist drug treatment services.”

One in 50 injects drugs, research finds

The government has been urged to step up its efforts to tackle drug use after research showed levels of use in English cities to be higher than previously thought.

A study published today revealed that as many as one in 50 young people and adults in three major English cities were injecting drugs.

This statistic is higher than previous Home Office figures, which estimated that in 2001, 0.3% of the population between 15 and 64 years old were injecting drug users.

Using information from sources including drug treatment centres and syringe exchange schemes between 2000-01, researchers from Imperial College London and Liverpool John Moores University studied levels of drug use in London, Liverpool and Brighton.

They discovered that the proportion of adults and young people between 15 and 44 who were injecting drugs was 2% in Brighton, 1.5% in Liverpool and 1.2% in London.

Based on the rates for each city, the researchers said that these figures equated to between 10 and 18 patients in a typical general practice list of 2,000 patients, with 900 aged 15 to 44.

“Thus, in Brighton, Liverpool and London the prevalence of injecting drug use among young adults is as common as diabetes and greater than many other chronic conditions such as epilepsy or psychosis,” the researchers said.

The study also found injecting drug-users (IDUs) were more likely to die of their habit in Brighton. Overall, around 1% of IDUs die from an overdose each year, but in Brighton this rate was twice as high.

The government wants to increase the number of problem drug users in treatment programmes in coming years, but researchers said the figures on which the target was based were flawed and more effort was needed to reach the targets.

“The government aims to double the number of problem drug users in treatment,” the authors said. “In the three sites [looked at in the study], there is ample opportunity for this [drug treatment], given that less than one in four IDUs are in receipt of treatment at any one time. Unfortunately, the data on the numbers in treatment were of poor quality and requires urgent improvement.”

The research also revealed a shortage of sterile needles in each of the cities studied. Around 5 million syringes were distributed each year in London, 400,000 in Brighton and 560,000 in Liverpool.

This works out at 190 syringes per person in Brighton and Liverpool – one used every two days – and slightly less in London at about one used every 2.5 days.

“Given that users inject on average twice a day, this would suggest that current levels of activity provide sterile equipment for approximately 27% of all injections by users in Brighton and Liverpool and 20% in London,” the researchers said, adding that this low take-up increased the risk of diseases being spread.

 

These studies show that the harm reduction strategies of providing needles do not result in decreased HIV infection….. More emphasis on drug prevention is indicated.  The research shows that two thirds of those testing positive are not British born nationals…..the social costs of the spreading of HIV and HEP C plus the costs to the over-burdened NHS surely indicate the need for health testing of all people taking up residence in this country?

This paper was developed as part of a wider training programme in drug prevention for St. John Ambulance. Although it was published in 1999 the points made are still very relevant today.

By Peter Stoker, Director, National Drug Prevention Alliance

‘All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing’.
Edmund Burke 1729-97

‘We have seen
Good men made evil, struggling with evil
Straight minds grow crooked, fighting crooked minds
Our peacefulness betrayed us; We betrayed our peace
Look at it well.
This was the good town once’.
From The Good Town by Edwin Muir 1887-1959

Historical background

Although the primary purpose of prevention programmes is to address avoid contact with drugs, it is necessary that we also look at attempts to relax the laws that relate to drugs. Why essential? Because the status of the law is fundamental to the structure of prevention. There is no point on concentrating on building a “a beautiful tower of prevention” whilst ignoring somebody else undercutting the foundations. We often don’t give as much time as we should to considering fundamental questions, but they can teach us a lot, and two current questions we should perhaps ask ourselves are:

I’ll offer you my answer. Prevention delivers on the promise of enriched lives in wholly healthy people positively inter linked with one another across whole communities and society as a whole. Legalisation gives encouragement to negative, self-centred and health compromising behaviours in the individual and across society. The law defines how we feel about behaviour in general and as such the law is one corner stone of prevention; remove it and you risk total collapse of your prevention structure.

Whilst the drug culture covers many countries of the world it can usefully be studied by paying particular attention to our own country and to America. These two countries have been said to have long had a “Special Relationship”, but in these days of a drug promoting culture this phrase has taken on a more sinister meaning.

Britain and America have long been associated on the drug scene. You could say an early ‘War on Drugs’ came when the Americans threw all our tea into Boston Harbour! But more serious developments started in the 1960’s and 70’s as marijuana in the USA merged with hippie culture, anti-Vietnam protests, and big-time rock/pop music. In Britain we had our anti-nuclear protest groups, we had (they tell me) the Swinging Sixties, and we had the Beatles. Legend has it that it was Bob Dylan who turned the Beatles on to dope, thence to travel through the gateway into Strawberry Fields watched over by Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds (or LSD for short).

By the late 60’s an ambitious young American lawyer, Keith Stroup had conceived the idea of NORML, the National Organisation for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, ‘Playboy’ Hugh Hefner bankrolled it for 10 years, and the battle for legal pot was under way. Britain wasn’t really turning on yet; pot use was viewed stereotypically as the preserve of musicians (see Harry Shapiro’s book ‘Waiting for the man’ pub. Mandarin 1990), immigrant West Indians, and degenerate intellectuals. But we would catch up fast.

NORML and its bizarre fellow travellers like the Yippies (a bizarre group of loony activists) tended to go up to the front door and flamboyantly say what they wanted out loud. This had the effect of generating lots of opposition which usually beat them. The lesson they learnt was twofold: (a) if you’re going to the front door wear suits and don’t shout and (b) better still, go round the back, sneak in and take what you want. The Drug Policy Foundation was the eventual manifestation of the first lesson, together with the unrestrained manufacture of ‘reasons’ why the general public should feel good about pot. Use the hemp (it is the same plant) to make clothes; plant the bushes to “save” the atmosphere, and – above all – use it as a “medicine”; all these and more devices have been deployed. The ‘medical use’ gambit came in while Stroup was still building NORML; in the 70s NORML are on public record as bragging ‘We will use the medical marijuana argument as a red herring to give pot a good name’. And still it goes on. Meanwhile, under item (b) a steady infiltration of key offices was sustained, and is still very much a factor today.

As we worked our way through the 80’s there was still no sign of America buckling under drug culture pressure. Levels of use had peaked and were in decline as PRIDE and other parent-youth prevention groups got into their stride.

Britain was by now moving too. In 1981 the government-funded Standing Conference on Drug Abuse (SCODA) passed a resolution understood to be still in force today calling for decriminalisation of cannabis. One member of SCODA around that time was LCC, the Legalise Cannabis Campaign, thus demonstrating another lesson legalisers learnt i.e. if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em, then persuade ’em from within.

Thus far the link between legalisers across the Atlantic divide were tenuous and occasional. One reason for this might well have been a xenophobia amongst British workers in the field; a distaste for foreigners which was out of all proportion to the rest of Britain’s population (who these days seem to be in love with things American). Whatever the reason, not much happened for some time but then in the mid 80’s changes started. A bridge was constructed with one end in Washington DC and the other end in Liverpool, England. Why Liverpool? Because it was a fountainhead of British drugfolk wisdom, and was saying things the American legalisers wanted to hear. Liverpool has long had a severe drug problem. It has also had a vigorous dislike of London and its lawmakers, dislike based in the class struggle and regional inequalities in funding. Drug workers nation-wide tended to affinity with Liverpool and the views expressed in its magazine, the Mersey Drugs Journal; it seemed to talk more like the clients they dealt with, they identified with and (in my opinion) too often over-identified with. Their near-neighbour Manchester formed an enthusiastic axis with them which to this day constitutes a powerful influence on UK drug wisdom.

Sometime around 1986 British drug workers from Liverpool-Manchester axis were invited to speak at a NORML conference in Maryland. They were feted and hosted by pro-drug, academic, ‘celebrities’ such as Norman Zinberg. They visited NIDA and other agencies, meeting officials who (allegedly) “confessed privately” that the War on Drugs was failing. The Brits returned to report that (a) they had nothing to learn from the Americans and (b) the 12-step method – the basis of the worldwide AA movement – was (quote) “cr*p”. (When asked what the 12 steps were, they said they didn’t know (but they did know they were “cr*p”). The Mersey Drug Journal’s front page at the time summed up their view: ‘Drug War – The Americans Go Over the Top’. This dismissal of the American Official Approach (including, of course, prevention) was manna from heaven to the xenophobic Brits who disproportionately populate the Health Professional Scene and paved the way for recommending the Unofficial Approach i.e. legalise the stuff.

One important aspect, however, distinguished the British legalisation strategy, and was given a fortuitous boost by a tragic new development in the health scene. AIDS was now a reality in Britain as well as America, and amongst many in Britain the view expressed was that AIDS represented “a greater risk to society than drugs”. The incidence of AIDS gave the British Harm Reduction movement a great shove forward, and coincided with the emergence of America’s Drug Policy Foundation as a major player in drug legalisation.

Current Situation

The main section of this paper will now address the following headings:

(a) What does ‘the professional subculture’ mean?

(b) What drives this sub culture?

(c) Who is involved?

(d) How do groups like this obtain and retain power?

(e) What are some of the typical tactics?

(f) What are we on the prevention side doing wrong and what might we do better?

What does professional subculture mean?

This title refers to people who work in various professional settings but who have, for a variety of reasons, elected to act in ‘subcultural’ ways; they will seek to disrupt the status quo and replace it with something which they find more amenable. In the case of drugs this is generally turned out to be a more libertarian or acquiescent approach to the use of drugs and to the legislation around them. Some , but not all of the groups which these professionals belong to include Politicians, Judges, Policemen, Educators, Health workers, Social workers, Probation officers, Prison workers, Economists and of course, never to be over looked, the Media. These activists are always a minority of each of these professional groups, but they do make a lot of noise, and there is a lot of truth in the proverb that ‘the squeaky wheel gets the most grease’; certainly the dissident or activist professional get the most coverage in the media. This is only partly due to the fact that the media themselves are part of the problem, in that a number of them are – more or less – of a libertarian inclination; the rest of the explanation can be attributed to the fact that dissent and activism sells more copy than does the actions of those who seek to preserve the status quo, or even to enhance it- such as we prevention workers.

What drives such people, or groups?

It is a fundamental mistake to imagine that everybody on the pro-drugs side of the fence is there for the same reason. The reasons are many and very varied. Perhaps four main categories can be defined as Power, Money, Attraction and Ideology. Fringe activities like pushing for legalisation or decriminalisation of drugs most often comes from the people who are on the fringe of power but would like to be in the centre. This quest for power can sometimes produce strange alliances, for example in Norway the pro drug alliance combines the right wing Fascist group with the extreme left wing Anarchist group. Some see the use of drugs as a way to create revolution. Stalin was one of these, and a quote from his writings is:

At the other end of the spectrum of activism, but still on the pro drugs side of the fence, are the fatalists and the compromisers. These are people who would rather that drugs weren’t used but who believe that it is inevitable that they will be used by the majority, that drug use will be the norm, and that the best one can do is to sue for a peaceful surrender with the drugs trade. The problem with climbing over to that side of the fence is that you are likely to be warmly embraced and dragged off to more extreme positions; this can be seen to have happened recently with Bolton MP Brian Iddon, in whose consistency five year old Dillan Hull was shot in what is reliably perceived as a drug-related incident. Iddon was elected in May 1997 and started off with fairly moderate statements about wanting to review drug laws; on BBC’s ‘You Decide’ programme he was heard at the end of the debate to say that he was now “confused”. His confusion has scarcely been lessened by some of the people with whom he has associated, and in November 97 he shared a bizarre press conference at the House of Commons seated along side Irvine Welsh, the author of ‘Trainspotting’ and Howard Marks, the former major smuggler of cannabis who served 7 years in an American prison, and who is now attempting to get into politics somewhere (he has tried Lincoln, where he lost his deposit, and is currently trying to become the mayor of his town of residence in Malta). Marks claims he is pursuing this political work to ‘give back something to all those pot users who have given him lots of money in the past’ (this is a paraphrase but is close to what Marks said). In truth, this ‘selfless’ campaign has already netted Marks large sums of money – he has sold around a quarter million copies of his autobiography ‘Mr Nice’ and he appeared to capacity houses in a various theatres, reading from this book and musing on his life. In reality Marks is still working the punters; the only difference now is that instead of selling them a poisonous substance he is selling them a poisonous philosophy. And with no danger of arrest.

The above has given at least some examples of what is meant by the quest for power and the quest for money. Another example of the quest for money concerns organised crime. Some people theorise that organised crime would be against law relaxation, because this would take the business out of their hands and put it into the hands of responsible people (like tobacco companies!). The evidence suggests otherwise. It is acknowledged, even by pro-drug campaigners like ex-Scotland Yard Drugs Squad supremo Eddie Ellison that nowadays the coffee shops in Amsterdam, which were to have grown their own in a ‘nice cottage industry’ approach, are actually receiving their supplies from the Mafia. The Dutch Minister of Justice has described Amsterdam reluctantly as ‘the crime capital of Europe’ and there are reports that the Mafia is considering moving its centre of operations from Italy to Holland because of the more conducive atmosphere there. It is also worth noting that the lawyers (and almost all of them were lawyers) who founded the Drug Policy Foundation – the most powerful pro-drug lobby in the world – can be found on public record as having often appeared as defence attorneys for the Drug Cartels . . . far from being automatically against law relaxation, organised crime has for years been moving its operations into legitimate businesses (to save costs of money-laundering, and to avoid the inconvenience of criminal prosecution). Were drugs to be legitimised then this revised legal status would scarcely represent an obstacle for them. Moreover, most of the proponents of law relaxation, quell public disquiet, suggest they would still expect to keep the laws in place for under 18 year-olds. In this hypothetical situation there would still be an enormous black market for organised crime to tap into, and if anything the pressure on the under 18’s would tend to increase, since supplies to over 18 year olds would be – presumably – coming from other sources other than organised crime.

As to the third main incentive i.e. the intellectual Attraction of being involved, this can be seen as one driving force amongst some of those arguing for law relaxation. It is not always easy to quit the centre stage and be put out to grass; some people like to leave their long-term employment by making one last mark. Policemen who have done this include the afore mentioned Eddie Ellison from Scotland Yard and Ron Clarke from Greater Manchester police. Those formerly on the bench, including Judge Pickles seem to find the attraction of radical statements sometimes to hard to resist. This should not be confused with the quotes made in 1997 by the Master of the Rolls who was misrepresented in the Sunday Independent as ‘calling for a review of the laws’. From a person who was present at the press conference that the Master of the Rolls was giving the subject was not even on his agenda. It came up towards the end of the conference, in the form of a question from the floor along the lines of ‘do you think the legalisation should be debated?’ The Master of the Rolls shifted in his seat uncomfortably and said something along the lines of ‘I am not minded to support such legalisation but I am minded to support the due exploration of the proposition’.

Ideology, the fourth reason, is a potent force – and in contrast to the other three reasons is less capable of change, in that you buy into it more emotionally than you would with power, money, or intellectual attraction. The Education profession is, by its very nature, more prone to this tendency, (see pages 7, 8 for more). The manifesto entitled ‘Down with prevention, up with free choice and harm reduction’ has spanned more than 15 years now (during which time use has soared), and despite the National Strategy espousing prevention there is so far little sign of change in organisations like SCODA, ISDD, and the like. The word ‘prevention’ may appear now in documents or utterances, but this is the perfunctory genuflection of the non-believer. Until we get this one right we are always going to collect a bloody nose in the educational arena.

Who is involved?

The line up of professions in an earlier section (What does ‘the professional subculture’ mean?) gives some indication. Politicians may follow this course perhaps because they genuinely (and we would say mistakenly) believe law relaxation will improve the situation. Some educators and, within that profession some youth workers, would support the ‘choice’ for young people to use drugs as part of what they would see as a ‘freedom of expression’. Health workers tend to be ‘Sickness Workers’ in that they are almost interminably involved with the demands of treating people who have been in some way become unhealthy; it is therefore an inclination on their part to support expedients that reduce harm, and some of them would extend this non-logic to the relaxation of laws. They have been suckered by the proposition that it is ‘the laws which are turning otherwise law abiding people into criminals’. The truth is that it is the users who are turning themselves in to criminals and doing so knowingly – no one can claim to be unaware of the illegality which surrounds illegal drugs. This tendency to go along with the needs of the perpetrator and do little or nothing for the needs of the victims of the perpetrator (i.e. people around the user and – ultimately – the whole of society) is not only typical of the health service; it can also be seen reflected in social services, probation service, prison service, youth services, and others of the so called ‘caring professions’. Somewhere along the way they have lost the track and they are now seeking to relax the constraints on such drug users, in the mistaken belief that this will facilitate the workers having a greater sense of identity, a better relationship with their youthful charges. A form of selling-out which deserves no respect – and gets none from the users themselves.

Another group with a minority supporting legalisation are Economists. A commentator once said that ‘if you want to know the answer to 2 + 2, a mathematician will tell you 4, a politician will say “somewhere between 3 and 5”, but an economist will ask “what would you like it to be?”. The partial and simplistic models which some economists use to support legalisation arguments are very questionable, and do nothing to enhance the reputation of their profession. Last, but certainly not least, we have the media. There are some media commentators who are now starting to speak out against a pro drug stance; people like Melanie Philips of the Observer, Peter Hitchens on the Express, Mary Kenny on the Sunday Express and Lucy Johnson, formally with the Big Issue, now with the Observer. But the pieces that they get published are small in terms of ‘column inches’ compared to those that their more libertarian colleagues manage to get into their pages. In America where there is such a thing as a Freedom of Information Act a large sample of newspaper proprietors found a majority of them were paid up members of the ACLU; American Civil Liberties Union, or other similar libertarian groups. It would be interesting to see a similar survey conducted here in Britain! The Sunday Independent push for decriminalisation of cannabis (covered at the end of this paper) was an example of just how far this libertarian juggernaut can be trundled if you have enough resources at the back of it. Mention of resources brings to mind another vital libertarian resource and that is people in Finance. The most notable of these is George Soros; he is the man who made hundreds of millions in the infamous Black Wednesday crash of the British stock market a few years ago. He is also the top man in a trust which has assets in excess of seven billion dollars. Soros has expressed an interest in stirring up a whole variety of different causes but one of them most noted is his funding of the pro-drug effort. He has given, it is estimated, (and there may be much more that is not known) in excess of 90 million dollars to pro-drug campaigners such as the Drug Policy Foundation in Washington DC. He has also funded the Lindesmith Institute and he was also the major funder in a successful push to get cannabis ‘legalised’ for medical purposes in the States of Arizona and California in 1996. But he had a predecessor in funding the Drugs Policy Foundation and other similar groups and that is a man called Richard F. Dennis. Dennis and Soros have something else in common besides their penchant for funding pro-drug groups, and that is that both of them are Futures Speculators. What this means is that if a particular commodity which they have bought into suddenly becomes more attractive on the market place they stand to make vast amounts of money. This may or may not be what is driving Messrs Dennis and Soros, but it should not be overlooked in any analysis of these gentlemen. It is also worth noting that Soros has bought into two banks, one in Columbia and one in the Netherlands, and he has also large tracts of cultivatable land in Colombia and Venezuela, purpose unknown . . .

How do these individuals and groups obtain and retain power?

The short answer is ‘gradually’. (Look back at descriptions of how NORML and the YIPPIES use to behave and now how they do behave – quoted in the introduction to this paper.) It was the Fabian Society, a think tank started many years ago for socialist intellectuals, which came up with the phrase ‘the inevitability of gradualness’. By this they meant that any movement whose approach is gradual but sustained has a much greater chance of success than any ‘crash, bang, wallop’ approach. One also needs to tap into any other movements that are happening in your arena and, as it were, swim or row along with them. One classic piece of research in this context comes from a noted sociologist called Kelly; he produced something called Kelly’s Repertory Grid. What the Grid does is to demonstrate that if a person buys into i.e. swallows a particular idea then they are also much more likely to also buy into ideas which seem to be in the same philosophical family. Therefore, for example, if I am helping young people to turn their lives around, I maybe against punitive justice sentences, I may also be against racism, bullying, violence and other things that get in the way of advancement of these young people, I will probably have some clients where AIDS and HIV has become issue and therefore I will be for the AIDS resources movement and out of all these factors I will probably be for the relaxation of drug laws. (It could be quite a useful SJA study group subject to try and write down other similar groupings that satisfy Kelly’s Repertory Grid criteria and perhaps one way forward in that would actually be to get the relevant research paper by Kelly out of your local library).

What the pro drug movement will do and indeed have been doing very successfully for certainly fifteen years (to this writer’s knowledge) and perhaps longer, is to infiltrate and penetrate the relevant organisations in the drug arena. These include central government, both at representative and civil servant level; local government both elected and appointed officers; and also other professions and voluntary sector workers in Education, Health, Social, Justice, Police, Youth Service, and other related fields. Most importantly, it will also get close to the media: National, regional, local of all forms TV and radio, printed page, magazines, are important targets. Information is power . . .

Whilst this infiltration maybe subject to setback when elections happen, generally it is the case that only the elected representatives disappear. Thus points of view, attitudes and philosophy can be perpetuated in Whitehall despite changes in Westminster. Leading journalist Melanie Philips has referred to this in her landmark book ‘All must have prizes’. Although this book focuses in particular on the struggles around basic education (reading & writing) it is uncannily close to the struggles around drug education/policy. Quoting from Melanie’s book:

And later, when she talks about tackling academia in the context of English teaching;

But opposition to the English proposal was not confined to the formulation of Dons safely coralled within their ivory towers. It constituted instead a well developed network which had become so well integrated with the political institutions that reform had become impossible. The English teachers boasted they would subvert the reform from within, and they were correct.

In her column in the Observer on 21st September 1997 the title of the piece was ‘The Tories education policies were savaged by civil servants and academics. The same people can now scupper Blunkett’.

This article describes how the forces at play that Melanie had noticed in the Thatcher government are still in play and quite often seen to be involving the same civil servants and supporters. She says;

This all has a strong resonance for professionals working to counter the drug problem, and the main lever in the drugs context is so-called Harm Reduction. The practice of engaging with known users to reduce the harm they do to themselves, pending their cessation of use, is as old as drug services themselves. What is new is the extension of harm reduction ‘advice’ to all and sundry whether they are users or not, under the limp assertion that they might all need it in due course. Coupling this with a perfunctory prevention agenda – or in most cases no prevention at all – has the not-unexpected result of increasing use. This is then advanced as proof of the failure of ‘prevention’ and the need for even more ‘harm reduction’. A more honest description for this process would be ‘A Trojan Horse with legalisers hidden inside it’.

What tactics are employed by the pro drug lobby?

From Sumo to Judo – a good metaphor for what has happened to the tactics of the pro drugs lobbies. In the past they tried to make themselves big and push their opponents out of the ring, as a Sumo wrestler might. What they have now learnt is there is more to be gained by less effort if one works to use the energy of the opponent to trip them or otherwise flip them out of your path, as a judo fighter might. Thus, in Britain we currently have many people who are known to be sympathisers of pro-drug attitude insisting vociferously that ‘what we need is lots more drug education’. What they actually mean is ‘we need lots more of our kind of education about drugs and we are the people to deliver it’. Because the appropriate government and voluntary sector departments have been infiltrated there is an in-built system of control; this is of course supplemented by the degree of infiltration that is in the media. Taken together this is a potent combination of position and influence. If such sectional interests are allowed to advise and thus influence who will get money in the future then this also means that money, which is the ‘third leg’ to power, is in the hands of the same people. In December 1997 some of our European colleagues put together a bid for funding to do valuable prevention work across Europe; some of this work is proposed for Britain and for the Republic of Ireland. When the list of people reviewing the bid on behalf of European community (the funders) came to our notice it was immediately apparent that the names on it could have not been worse. People unsympathetic to prevention were in command of the key positions, able to decide who would be allowed to pass and who would be turned back.

When the National Children’s Bureau launched a new Drugs Education Forum the launch in 1996, which lasted two days, was opened by Lord Henley, one of the Education Ministers of that time. Lord Henley opened the conference by saying that he was delighted to see so many people committed to the government’s aims of discouraging drug use and of returning current users to a drug free status as soon as possible. After a few other supportive remarks he left, to return to the House. Scarcely had the doors finished swinging behind him than the next speaker stood up and said ‘Well, what ever you may think about the government strategy . . .’ a snigger rippled its way around the room and off we went on a dissection of the government’s approach and how it should be replaced with a harm reduction based approach. It was evident at this conference that all of the ‘old crowd’ who are known to be supporters of a harm reductionist approach were present, and it was also – sadly – noticeable that some of the more recent people entering the scene were being absorbed into this jolly little coterie. Department for Education health education coordinator John Ford startled some, including this writer, at the conference by delivering an apology for the Leah Betts video ‘Sorted’. He ‘explained’ that it had been put together in a hurry and that the Education Department hadn’t really had much input to it etc. etc. the broad impression was gained that it was not something with which they wished to be associated. (The video has been reviewed by this writer and is found to be generally not sensationalised; it certainly is emotional and emotive but then it is a true reflection of the feelings of the Betts family at that time). The Drug Education Forum has gone on to collect other supporters of the Harm Reduction orthodoxy; a token presence of Prevention workers is heavily outnumbered. In autumn of this year DEF’s steering Committee introduced a small but very significant change to the Mission Statement. Formerly it has expressed the aim of skilling young people “to make informed choices to resist drug misuse”. After the change the aim now is only “to make informed choices”. Resisting drug misuse is apparently not what is wanted!

The effect of all this intellectual conflict can be seen in the local government scene, not just the ‘Three W’s’ (Westminster, Whitehall and Wapping). Drug Advisory Teams (DATs) each control a number of Drug Reference Groups (DRGs) in areas roughly corresponding to Health Authority areas. There are variations in attitude about and commitment to the national strategy at all levels; the range of variance could be said to span from strong support to lip service, with outright antagonism to some aspects of the strategy. Another generalisation with some credence is that the further you get from central government the less the support for the government strategy.

Senior government officials and MPs seem strangely reluctant to contemplate that this may be happening – the word ‘conspiracy’ is an anathema (and probably pays the opposition too much credit anyway), but there has been some acceptance of the idea that a ‘confluence of thinking on several matters by otherwise disparate entities’ is having an effect. This is Kelly’s Repertory Grid in action. (See above ‘How do these individuals and group obtain and retain power?’).

What are we doing wrong?

A short answer is difficult, but will be attempted; shortcomings exist in the following areas: – not looking at the overall picture. Inadequate awareness of what is going on elsewhere in UK, in Europe, and across the world.

The emergence of the NDPA some five years ago was a breakthrough in addressing these shortcomings, but its tiny funding base (until October 1996, when National Lotteries awarded NDPA its first substantial funding) severely limited its effectiveness.

None of the above shortcomings is beyond correction; that they still exist suggest that Britain’s famed ‘Dunkirk Spirit’ may yet be required, to pull us through. Unfortunately Dunkirk (in the drug scene) may have to happen before people wake up!

The particular case of the Sunday Independent

In the Autumn of 97 the Sunday Independent launched a campaign for the decriminalisation of cannabis. It did this in response to a flat rejection of this proposition both by the government in the person of Jack Straw and by the new Anti-Drugs Co-ordinator (Drugs Tsar) Keith Hellawell. It is also known that Jack Straw’s junior minister with the drugs portfolio, George Howarth has repeatedly rejected this proposition under an unequivocal three-part statement:

The last statement i.e. ‘no debate’ does not mean people’s democratic rights should be denied; in fact there has been a very voluminous exploration of law relaxation over the past 10-15 years world wide, and in Britain there has been a very heavy focus on the proposition especially over the past 5 and more years. George Howarth’s statement of ‘No debate’ simply means ‘No more government debate; we’ve heard it all before and we have reached a rational conclusion, and we don’t propose to waste any more Government time and money on a dead duck’. To say this is anything other than eminently sensible is a travesty, but then nobody could ever accuse the Sunday Independent or other pot campaigners of being sensible. Editor (at that time) Rosie Boycott announced in her opening feature on this subject that she was ‘a recovered alcoholic’ and a lapsed user of cannabis; in the normal parlance of the field Ms. Boycott would never be described as a recovered but only ‘recovering’ and her claim of ‘recovery’ would be viewed sceptically since she is still using another psychoactive drug. Whether Ms. Boycott’s drive in producing this campaign is altruistically based in her own drug experiences and her wishes for others to share them, or whether it has to do with producing a sensational initiative which may boost the flagging sales figures of the Sunday Independent must be left for the reader to judge. Currently the Sunday Independent is at the bottom of the circulation league for Sunday newspapers, and its circulation dropped some 20% between the most recent yearbook figure and the previous year. It sells around three hundred thousand copies.

On the 11th December (‘97) Sunday Independent held a one-day event in Westminster-‘a stoned throw from Parliament’. Originally put forward (to this writer and others) as a ‘balanced debate, with an equal number of speakers on both sides’ it ended up with 6 for decriminalisation, 3 against, and one who presented a commercial for more science in reviews (he was a scientist).

In the ‘pro’ side were Gianfranco dell Alba from Lista Panella, an Italian Radical Party. To roars from the crowd he described how in Italy they had pressed for a referendum on drugs, got one, lost it, and so resorted to planned civil disobedience. From Lindesmith Institute (which George Soros funds) Ms Lynn Zimmer was presented as an ‘impartial’ speaker – incredible, in that she has been recently listed as a Board Member of NORML (the National Organisation for Reform of Marijuana Laws) and more incredible in that Lindesmith’s literary output is consistently and heavily biased towards decriminalisation and legalisation of cannabis. When Zimmer took the stand all pretence of impartiality fell away.

Despite heavy promotion the hall was around one-fifth empty. Few anti-decriminalisation people bothered to attend, and no papers other than the Sunday Independent and Independent covered this sham affair. Years ago there might have been an argument for refusing to debate with legalisers, but that bridge has long since been crossed. The best than can be done is to debate factually and with dignity, and also make sure that the decision makers are aware of what is really going on.

Epilogue

Recommended reading on this subject of ‘professional sub culture’ is a paper by Professor Norman Dennis (1997) entitled Social Irresponsibility: How the Social Affairs Intelligentsia have Undermined Morality. Available from Christian Insitute, Eslington House, Eslington Terrace, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE2 4RF (Tel: 0191 281 5664). Professor Dennis is not himself a practising Christian; he was invited to present this paper at a CI conference.

With so much of the information/communication system influenced by or in the hands of libertarians and their fellow travellers, all this might seem a hopeless cause. Far from it. This path has been trodden before, and success for a prevention approach has been achieved (see this writer’s comparison paper for The Royal Holloway training, on the subject of ‘Prevention”). The opposing forces may seem awesome, like Goliath – with you as David. But remember, Goliath lost, and the reason he lost is very simple.

He got stoned.

INDEPENDENT TWO REPORTS Exclusive report reveals the crisis among teenagers caused by their growing addiction to drink and drugs.

Teen Britain: The shocking truth Exclusive report reveals the crisis among teenagers caused by their growing addiction to drink and drugs. Experts warn of ‘health time bomb’ as ministers consider forcing GPs to report under-age sex to police and social workers By Jonathan Thompson and Marie Woolf.

Teenagers are facing what medical experts warn is “a mental health time bomb” caused by the abuse of drugs and alcohol.

New figures show that the use of drink and drugs has become common among children as young as 13, with one expert saying alcohol, cocaine and marijuana are “as ubiquitous as traffic on the streets”.

Doctors and counsellors say that record numbers of stressed-out adolescents are becoming addicts as they struggle to cope with the trauma of family break-up, exam pressures and the ever-growing obsession with body image.

The use of drink and drugs is also fuelling a growing problem of sex among young teenagers. Ministers are now considering forcing doctors to breach confidentiality with young patients if they believe they are having under -age sex.

72% Alcohol

The proportion of 14-year-olds who have drunk alcohol. Almost half of all 13-year-olds have also tried it. Mental health experts say people drinking at that age are four times more likely to become alcoholics

36% Drugs

The proportion of 15-year-olds who have tried cocaine or cannabis. Addiction experts say there is clear evidence that young people using drugs are more likely to suffer from psychiatric disorders in later life

32% Sex

The proportion of 15-year-olds who have had sexual intercourse, with more than one in 10 saying they felt pressured into it by peers. Doctors say the trend is fuelling an explosion in sexually transmitted diseases

25% Suicide

The proportion of girls aged 15 who have considered killing themselves or indulged in significant attempts at self-harm. Almost one in 10 blamed bullying and violence for their low self-esteem and depression.

Teenagers are facing what medical experts warn is “a mental health time bomb” caused by the abuse of drugs and alcohol.

New figures show that the use of drink and drugs has become common among children as young as 13, with one expert saying alcohol, cocaine and marijuana are “as ubiquitous as traffic on the streets”.

Doctors and counsellors say that record numbers of stressed-out adolescents are becoming addicts as they struggle to cope with the trauma of family break-up, exam pressures and the ever-growing obsession with body image.

The use of drink and drugs is also fuelling a growing problem of sex among young teenagers. Ministers are now considering forcing doctors to breach confidentiality with young patients if they believe they are having under -age sex.

Dr Dylan Griffiths has spent more than 20 years healing the minds of troubled teenagers. But the psychiatrist is shocked by what he is now facing on a daily basis. He is treating record numbers of disturbed young patients, unable to cope with the pressures of modern life, who are hooked on drink, drugs and underage sex, or who are so desperate they even contemplate suicide.

The age of experimentation among Britain’s teenagers is dropping every year, he and other leading health workers warn, creating a mental health time bomb which will create a generation of dysfunctional adults.

“For today’s teens, marijuana, cocaine and alcohol are as ubiquitous as traffic on the street,” said Dr Griffiths, who is based at Ticehurst House Hospital in East Sussex.

“Adolescents who self-harmed were rare 30 years ago. Today, self-harming is a dramatic, addictive behaviour, a maladaptive way for growing numbers of youngsters to relieve their psychological distress.”

The shocking extent of teen angst among Britain’s youth is revealed tomorrow in one of the most comprehensive reports ever carried out into adolescent mental health. Backed by counsellors, drug experts and mental health charities including Sane, the independent study commissioned by the Priory Group paints a bleak picture of the growing mental-health crisis among 12- to 19-year-olds.

Family break-up, increasing pressure to achieve at school, a lack of tolerance in society and an “anything goes” attitude are all contributing to a rise in the number of young people pushed to the brink of suicide, with others driven to experiment with drugs, drink and underage sex as a way of coping with stress.

More than 900,000 adolescents have been so miserable they have considered suicide, the study says. A million have wanted to self-harm and more than half a million have experienced bullying or violence at home.

The Priory research is based on interviews with 1,000 girls and boys across the country as well as an analysis of figures provided by the Office of National Statistics. More than one in seven 14-year-olds and one in 25 young people of 13 said they had had sex. Around one in every 13 teenage boys and girls said they had gone through with sex because of peer pressure, not because they wanted to.

Ministers are discussing measures to make family doctors warn police and social workers about young patients who are having under-age sex.

Peer pressure was also to blame for many adolescents using alcohol or drugs – one in 20 teenagers of 13 and around one in six 15-year-olds had experimented with illegal substances in the belief that it would make them look “cool” and be better accepted at school.

Another worrying trend is the increase in teenagers who have such low self-esteem that they think they need radical surgery to make them look “normal”. Nearly one in five 15-year-old girls and boys and one in every 20 young people of 13 said they had considered plastic surgery.

Counsellors, drug experts and mental health charities agree that action is needed urgently to prevent a generation of young people growing up with serious mental health problems. Dr Angharad Rudkin, a children’s therapist, said that the internet and mobiles, which have given rise to text bullying, were factors.

“There is a lot more stress now in the education system and a pressure on teenagers to be thin, beautiful, successful and to have sex,” said the clinical psychologist, based in Basingstoke, Hampshire. “There’s less guidance for teenagers, less mentoring and fewer role models for positive behaviour.”

Marjorie Wallace, chief executive of Sane, said that increased availability of drugs was a huge factor in the rise in young people suffering from mental illness.

“Young people who may have symptoms of mental illness rumbling under the surface are being pushed to flashpoint very quickly because of binge drinking and the availability of drugs, particularly chemical hybrids,” she said. “Many of them will go on to develop lasting mental illness.”

Virginia Ironside, the agony aunt and writer, said that the “curse” of a wealthy society was that young people had too much choice, so were confused about their identity.

“Pressures are absolutely nothing compared with what they used to be – pressure used to be going up chimneys. But at least if you are going up a chimney you know where you are.”

Additional reporting by Ese Odetah, Rob Tolan and Laura Herring

DRINK: Emma East, 15

“My home life stresses me out as I often have fights with my family. It means I can’t concentrate in school and it affects my schoolwork. My family don’t get on at all. I got really badly drunk once and was sick in the pub, so I haven’t touched the stuff since last Christmas. I had a really bad experience and don’t want to touch the stuff any more. I’ve been to church for the past five years. My parents don’t go; I go by myself. You learn things there to help you in your everyday life. It’s a support network.”

72% of 14-year-olds have consumed alcohol

DRUGS: Sevim Hodge, 16

“It starts at secondary school, where there is a huge emphasis on status. Drugs offer an easy solution to these pressures. From the age of 13 I was smoking cannabis with my friends. It was only my own willpower that helped me stop, and what I saw happening to my friends. I’m still friends with people who take drugs and at least a third of them now are regular users, but it can easily spiral out of control. I’ve seen cocaine taken openly in the playground.”

53% of 16-year-olds have tried illegal substances such as marijuana or cocaine

BULLYING: Michael Licudi, 17

“I was targeted by homophobic bullies outside my school and ended up on anti-depressants. Being gay, I’ve struggled because US rap culture promotes masculine stereotypes in schools. The media, particularly programmes such as Little Britain and The Catherine Tate Show, also legitimise a certain way of saying and doing things. If you don’t match those stereotypes, then it makes acceptance much more difficult. There has always been a cool group, but media influence gives them an added legitimacy and power.”

28% of 13-year-olds are bullied at school

SELF HARM: Imogen Townley, 15

“It’s a bit weird, but a lot of girls in my year cut themselves. I think it’s supposed to be some kind of statement, because they roll their sleeves up in class to show the marks. It’s like they’re trying to say, ‘Look at me, I’m so stressed out, so messed up and misunderstood, so beautiful but lonely.’ But all they’re trying to do is get attention.”

19% of 15-year-olds have wanted to hurt themselves

SEX: Amari Nunesi, 14

“Of course teenagers are going to have sex. We like doing it, it’s as simple as that. We like it as much as adults do. Society can’t stop it. Nobody can stop it. The only thing that would stop it is if they made more ugly girls. Family-wise it’s more difficult for teenagers now, because a lot of people don’t have two parents, so they don’t know who to go to with their problems. Sometimes you want to speak to your mum about something, but if you’re staying with your dad you can’t.”

32% of 14-year-olds have had sexual intercourse

STRESS: Steph Ashcroft, 13

“There are people from my school who have anger management counselling, and others who have counselling for depression and abnormal behaviour. I guess about 10 people in my year are having therapy. There are some kids who have hit teachers over the head with chairs. Sometimes they just go ape and throw everything about. There are a lot of people at school with a lot of issues, unfortunately. I get tense myself sometimes. I got an after-school detention last week for calling one of the teachers a stroppy cow.”

15% of 14-year-olds have considered taking their own lives

BODY IMAGE: Sebastian Emin, 13

“I am happy with my body but I would definitely change my height. I used to get picked on because I’m only 4ft 6in. Everyone sees something they don’t like about themselves. If you take a photo, you look at your lips or your eyes and you think they look horrible. We always find something wrong with ourselves. I think Peter Andre has got the perfect body. He’s more popular because of his looks – particularly his muscles. Britney Spears has the perfect female figure. She’s so slim.”

15% of 14-year-olds have considered plastic surgery

Dr Dylan Griffiths has spent more than 20 years healing the minds of troubled teenagers. But the psychiatrist is shocked by what he is now facing on a daily basis. He is treating record numbers of disturbed young patients, unable to cope with the pressures of modern life, who are hooked on drink, drugs and underage sex, or who are so desperate they even contemplate suicide.

The age of experimentation among Britain’s teenagers is dropping every year, he and other leading health workers warn, creating a mental health time bomb which will create a generation of dysfunctional adults.

“For today’s teens, marijuana, cocaine and alcohol are as ubiquitous as traffic on the street,” said Dr Griffiths, who is based at Ticehurst House Hospital in East Sussex.

“Adolescents who self-harmed were rare 30 years ago. Today, self-harming is a dramatic, addictive behaviour, a maladaptive way for growing numbers of youngsters to relieve their psychological distress.”

The shocking extent of teen angst among Britain’s youth is revealed tomorrow in one of the most comprehensive reports ever carried out into adolescent mental health. Backed by counsellors, drug experts and mental health charities including Sane, the independent study commissioned by the Priory Group paints a bleak picture of the growing mental-health crisis among 12- to 19-year-olds.

Family break-up, increasing pressure to achieve at school, a lack of tolerance in society and an “anything goes” attitude are all contributing to a rise in the number of young people pushed to the brink of suicide, with others driven to experiment with drugs, drink and underage sex as a way of coping with stress.

More than 900,000 adolescents have been so miserable they have considered suicide, the study says. A million have wanted to self-harm and more than half a million have experienced bullying or violence at home.

The Priory research is based on interviews with 1,000 girls and boys across the country as well as an analysis of figures provided by the Office of National Statistics. More than one in seven 14-year-olds and one in 25 young people of 13 said they had had sex. Around one in every 13 teenage boys and girls said they had gone through with sex because of peer pressure, not because they wanted to.

Ministers are discussing measures to make family doctors warn police and social workers about young patients who are having under-age sex.

Peer pressure was also to blame for many adolescents using alcohol or drugs – one in 20 teenagers of 13 and around one in six 15-year-olds had experimented with illegal substances in the belief that it would make them look “cool” and be better accepted at school.

Another worrying trend is the increase in teenagers who have such low self-esteem that they think they need radical surgery to make them look “normal”. Nearly one in five 15-year-old girls and boys and one in every 20 young people of 13 said they had considered plastic surgery.

Counsellors, drug experts and mental health charities agree that action is needed urgently to prevent a generation of young people growing up with serious mental health problems. Dr Angharad Rudkin, a children’s therapist, said that the internet and mobiles, which have given rise to text bullying, were factors.

“There is a lot more stress now in the education system and a pressure on teenagers to be thin, beautiful, successful and to have sex,” said the clinical psychologist, based in Basingstoke, Hampshire. “There’s less guidance for teenagers, less mentoring and fewer role models for positive behaviour.”

Marjorie Wallace, chief executive of Sane, said that increased availability of drugs was a huge factor in the rise in young people suffering from mental illness.

“Young people who may have symptoms of mental illness rumbling under the surface are being pushed to flashpoint very quickly because of binge drinking and the availability of drugs, particularly chemical hybrids,” she said. “Many of them will go on to develop lasting mental illness.”

Virginia Ironside, the agony aunt and writer, said that the “curse” of a wealthy society was that young people had too much choice, so were confused about their identity.

“Pressures are absolutely nothing compared with what they used to be – pressure used to be going up chimneys. But at least if you are going up a chimney you know where you are.”

Additional reporting by Ese Odetah, Rob Tolan and Laura Herring

 

As we set sail for another round of political buffoonery revolving around the drug problem here in Vancouver, there is a lone cry from the crow’s nest. Sadly, there were 14 more drug OD deaths in Vancouver during the first year of operation of the ‘Supervised (formerly ‘Safe’) Injection Site’ (50 in 2003; 64 in 2004 as per the attached documents). I have seen more tragedy down here in the skids (and elsewhere across Canada) than I care to, or possibly can, remember. I do sense that the tide will be changing here soon (I hope) as we are currently drifting in dangerous and uncharted waters.

Tonight I am taking out a Global TV reporter and her camera crew at the request of our good Inspector John McKAY, a worthy seaman who is bolding taking a stand against all of this pro-drug legalization nonsense that is deeply muddying up the waters. I have been policing these barren waters since the mid 80’s and the surface is as choppy as it ever was. It is time to high time say that the “Emperor has no clothes on” and set a new, healthy and prosperous course. The efforts behind the ‘Four Pillars Model’ (prevention, treatment, enforcement, and harm reduction) have been in vain, if you pardon the pun, because there has been too much emphasis on the so-called harm ‘reduction’ components.

Let’s look at it this way. Ask yourself this simple but defining question: Which of the four pillars are anti-drug and which are pro-drug? The answer to this belies why we are veering off course and into shark-infested waters. The drug legalizers are pirates who have hijacked the harm reduction pillar, which they have neatly and quietly whittled down into a harm reduction rudder in order to ‘safely’ steer the ship while the passengers and the crew sleep.

I find it a bit ironic that the warning of ‘ice’ being sighted from the crow’s-nest is being taken seriously, given the death and damage that other drugs have wreaked in our society. One of crystal meth’s nicknames is ‘ice’. Society is waking up to the fact that there needs to be a ‘war on ice’. But what will sink S.S. Society is the 90% of raw destructive power that is below the waterline: the foundation on which this drug is allowed to sit (injection sites, heroin trials, ‘medicinal’ marijuana, legalization attempts, weak drug laws and sentencing, etc.). I can show you a picture of a drug addict that is now largely a waste of human potential. Was this due to ravages of heroin, coke, or meth? What drug was used first: nicotine, alcohol, or pot? Does it really matter? The end result is the same.

The passenger infirmary list is getting longer by the day. If those of us who are deck hands are not to be believed, and if the attached stats are somehow skewed, then let’s just go ashore and ask the store owners and non-drug using citizens about the highly touted success (by Mayors Campbell and ex-Mayor Owen) of the ‘Four Pillars’ (“One pillar and three toothpicks” as one astute politician commented on the overabundance of the HR efforts). No one seems to ask for the opinions of the stalwart deck hands of this ’success’, none of whom are throwing up their hats in the air in celebration of these joyous announcements. Those in the thriving ‘junkie industry’ are tossing lifesavers made out of blood-soaked meat to the hapless victims who have gone overboard with their drug ‘experimentation’ in shark infested waters. All this is done under the banner of compassion mind you, as we must not take away the freedom of choice. I would argue that to a large degree, the addict is unable to soberly choose what is right for them anymore. Their loss of dignity speaks to that.

Meanwhile the sharks circle below hungrily awaiting for the Captain to declare the water safe for swimming.

What is not a laughing matter is the strong movement afoot to legalize all drugs (‘market regulation’ is the buzz phrase). The sham of “legalization though harm reduction” is at last being exposed here in Vancouver. I hope that the police are not willing to be used as pawns in the legalization game by speaking into their hats. The Vancouver Agreement has been contorted beyond its initial shape and scope. I feel that it is time to speak up or forever live with the shame and further social destruction that drug legalization will bring.

Ed Broadbent (leader of the New Democratic Party from 1975 to 1989 and human rights champion) stated recently that “Human rights are based on the inherent dignity of the human being” (June 16, 2005, ‘CBC One’ radio). Drugs have been robbing that dignity from tens of thousands of people. If some blackguards were killing and torturing people in the high seas as drugs do, then it would be an obvious human rights issue and the purveyors of powdered death and destruction would be forced to walk the plank, be keel-hauled, or thrown into the brig.

Drugs sap the potential of our youth. We owe them a better legacy than drug dependency, for it is very well-established that as the perception of the harms done by drugs decreases, drug use increases, and that is simply unacceptable and completely unconscionable.

The havoc that we have witnessed with drugs in our society to date is but the tip of the iceberg if the drug legalization movement is left unchecked.

Of course these comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of the VPD, but watch and see if they in fact are…Al

Al Arsenault, President
Odd Squad Productions Society
Box 1107, 516 Abbott St.,
Vancouver, B.C. CANADA,V6B 6N7
 www.oddsquad.com
cell: 604-788-7051
bus: 604-408-9945

By Jill Schiabig Williams
NI NOTES Contributing WriterA multicultural version of a substance use prevention program tested in middle schools in Phoenix, Arizona proved at least as effective as culturally targeted versions, according to recent research by Drs. Michael L. Hecht, Michelle Miller-Day, and Flavio Marsiglia and colleagues at Pennsylvania State University and Arizona State Universily The NIDA funded researchers compared a multi cultural version of a drug prevention program—which included cultural values from all of the groups participating in the program—to two cul ture-specific programs. The latter programs are based on the hypothesis that messages matched to the stu dent’s culture are more effective than messages that are nor culture-specific. This is good news for the future of drug prevention in schools serving culturally diverse students,” says Dr. Hecht. “It is very difficult logistically to deliver culture-specific programs in culturally diverse schools, Multi cultural programs are much easier to deliver, and now we find that they’re also as effective as culture-specific programs.” Research has shown that students respond better to drug prevention programs when they see their culture and images of themselves represented in the prevention message. More minority youth respond favorably to programs that feature a teacher or characters from their own ethnic group.

‘We know that kids need to see something of their own lives and cul tures reflected in the programs,” Dr.
hecht explains. “But we wanted to test the effectiveness of multicultural prevention programs and compare their effectiveness to selectively targeted or matched interventions.”
The prevention program, dubbed “keepin’ it REAL.” (see text box on p. 10), is a school-based intervention targeting substance use among urban middle schools. Its goals are to reduce use of alcohol, cigarettes, and marijuana; promote antidrug norms and attitudes; and develop effective drug resistance decision making and communication skills. Through NIDA funding, “keepin’ it REAL.” was developed, tested, and evaluated in 35 middle schools in Phoenix. Designed to reflect aspects of the adolescents’ cultures and learning styles in content and format, it includes 10 classroom lessons that promote antidrug norms and teach substance use resistance skills, life skills, risk assessment, and decision-making skills, The intervention was reinforced by a public Service announcement radio and billboard campaign and by booster activities. Three versions of the curriculum were created and delivered: one based on Mexican-American culture, one based on African-American and European-American culture, and a multicultural version using five lessons from each of the other two versions. The large proportion of Mexican or Mexican-American students (approximately 74 percent) in the study population contributed to the choice of Mexican-American culture for one curriculum version.

“In developing this program, we studied the process by which kids resisted drugs and used a narrative approach to teach these skills to other kids. The whole program is from youth through youth for youth,” observes Dr. Hecht. Stories of drug resistance were collected from adoles cents in each ethnic group and used to write scripts for videos that were then performed and videotaped by local high school students. These 10 videotapes (5 or the Mexican-American version, 5 for the African-American version) form the core of the pro gram. They teach resistance skills through enactments of successful drug resistance in recognizable locales, by youths similar to the students in age and ethnicity.

The lessons content is built on previous research on what is effective in drug prevention. In addition, researchers infused the curriculum with cultural norms and values that are predominant within certain groups example, the value of family to Mexican Americans, respect to African Americans, and individualism to European Americans. Affirming these values can help students use familiar behaviors and attitudes to resist drugs. The curriculum emphasizes family and cultural norms that discourage behaviors like drug use, equipping students with the skills to tap their social support systems to effectively resist drug offers.

‘We dont generalize about the cultures. We give them stories. We show them scenarios that come from their mouths. It’s always a specific situation with no moralizing,” says Dr. Hecht, In the fall of 1998, 25 Phoenix middle schools were randomly assigned to one of the three versions of the curriculum, and 10 schools were assigned to the control condition. Schools in the control condition received other drug prevention programs already planned for those schools, including a statewide anti-tobacco campaign. The research team administered a pre-intervention survey to all participants and then implemented the curriculum in 7th-grade classes in the 25 treatment schools.

Followup surveys were conducted 2 months, 8 months, and 14 months after curriculum implementation. Surveys included questions on demographics; recent alcohol, cigarette, and marijuana use; use of resistance strategies learned in the program; antidrug norms; and intentions to accept substances. The final sample included 6,035 students, of whom 55 percent were Mexican American, 17 percent were non- Hispanic white, 9 percent were African American, and 19 percent were of other Latino or multi ethnic Latino origin.

The results showed that the interventions were significantly more effective than the control condition.

Ben Mitchell argues that drugs should not be legalised.
In the UK, the social and economic costs of drug misuse account for between £10 billion and £18 billion a year. Around 250000 problematic drug users’ contribute to 99% of these costs.1 These addicts spend around £16,500 a year each to feed their habits, with most of this coming from the proceeds of crime2. Hard drug users, who indulge in heroin, crack cocaine and powder cocaine, are responsible for 50% of all crimes3.
On the one side, them are proponents of harm reduction’. In the case of heroin, they want to see persistent users prescribed heroin under the N US.
Opponents compare the Dutch and Swedish approach to drugs over the last 25 years, and point out that drug use in the Netherlands, which has adopted a policy of ‘harm reduction, has seen use of cannabis amongst the young more than double, with use of ecstasy and cocaine by l5 year olds rising significantly4.
By contrast, in Sweden, the goal has been to create a ‘drugs free society,’ with everyone from the police to schools working towards such a strategy. As a result, overall lifetime prevalence of drug abuse, amongst 15-16 year-olds. is 8% in Sweden, compared to 29% in the Netherlands. In 1998, only 496kg of cannabis were seized in Sweden, compared to 118 in the Netherlands, now described as the drugs capital of Western Europe5 . This is because in Sweden drug use is seen as inimical to a civilised, tolerant society, whereas in the Netherlands drugs have been accepted as a ‘way of life’ and have contributed hugely to crime.
The UK’s approach to drugs is deeply flawed. with the government sending out confusing and misleading messages. Cannabis has been downgraded from a class B to class C drug; yet many people widely believe that cannabis has been decriminalised,
The ‘Lambeth Experiment’, which led the way to reclassification, caused an explosion in the number of drug dealers preying upon the area6. The experiment has to all intents and purposes ‘allowed’ people to smoke cannabis publicly. But, the moral and ethical question still remains: is it acceptable to tolerate something which is proven to damage both the health and judgement of individuals, and can also affect relationships with families, friends and the wider society?
There are now several experiments being conducted across Europe in an effort to contain heroin addiction. In Switzerland, since 1994, 1,000 of the country’s 33 heroin addicts have been prescribed pure heroin. The aim is to stabilise the health of addicts and prevent them from using heroin in public, thus taking their habit away from the black market.
Swiss officials claim that the experiment is working because crime is down, However, addicts are now becoming dependent on prescription heroin and hopes of weaning them off the substance have quickly faded.7
The Police Federation disputes that legalisation would cut crime. This assumes that the powerful international drug cartels would simply fade away into the night. More likely scenarios are that they would fight to maintain their lucrative street trading8.
Notes
1. The Government Reply to the Third Report from the Home Affairs Committee Session 2001-02: The Government Drug Policy: Is it working?, p.5
2. Home Affairs Third Report: The Government Drug Policy. Is it working?, Illegal Drugs, Drugs-related property crime. no.36
3.The Government Reply to the Third Report from the Home Affairs Committee session 2001-02: The Government Drug Policy. Is it working?, p.5
4 .Home Affairs Select Committee Report: The Government Drug Policy. Is it Working? Memoranda of Evidence – no.16 (submitted by the Criminal Justice Association)
5. Risk of Legalising Cannabis Underestimated: A Comparison of Dutch and Swedish Drug Policy. Criminal Justice Association, February 2002
6. The Dealers Think They’re Untouchable Now’, The Observer, 24 February 2002 and ‘London’s Drug Crime Hotspots Revealed. Evening Standard. 28 May 2003
7. Better Ways’. The Economist, 26 July 2001
8. Quoted in Home Affairs Select Committee Third Report: The Government ‘s Drugs Policy. Is
Working’., no.60 Source:CIVITAS; Institute for the Study of Civil Society
The Mezzanine, Elizabeth House, 39 York Road, London SEI 7NQ
Phone; +44 (0)20 7401 5470 Fax: +44(0)201401 5471
Email; info@civitas.org.uk
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By NIDA Director
Nora D. Volkow, M.D.
Each year, substance abuse and addiction contribute to the death of more than 120,000 Americans and cost taxpayers nearly $300 billion in preventable health care, law enforcement, crime, and other costs, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. For NIDA, the key word in this assessment is ‘preventable.’ The best approach to reducing the tremendous toll substance abuse exacts from individuals, families, and communities is to prevent the damage before it occurs.

The science of drug abuse prevention is still in its early stages. Yet it has already made great strides. Twenty-five years ago, drug abuse prevention programs. where they existed, were based primarily on ideology and good intentions, Today, we have effective prevention programs anchored solidly in a base of empirical knowledge about fundamental factors that can promote or reduce substance abuse. These research-based programs have demonstrated that we can modify individual family, peer, and community factors that we know to be risk factors for drug abuse and, in this way, steer many young people away from abusing drugs. Two NIDA-sponsored National Prevention Conferences and a research-based guide on preventing drug abuse by children and adolescents synthesize key findings, detail fundamental prevention principles, and describe programs that have successfully applied these principles.

While recognizing these accomplishments. we are also compelled to do better to protect our children and adolescents. Buoyed by our successes and encouraged by our ongoing research, we know that science can do more to make drug abuse prevention more effective. The most urgent need is to make better use of what we already know. Recent research indicates that only one in seven of the Nation’s public and private schools offers prevention programs that incorporate proven elements and deliver them in the most effective way (see “Few Middle Schools Use Proven Prevention Programs’ NIDA NOTES, Vol. 17, No. 6). These findings underscore the need for additional research focused on accelerating the faithful adoption and application of research-based prevention approaches in communities across the Nation.

The difficulties inherent in translating precisely structured research- based programs into the culture and operations of diverse communities require that the scientists who develop programs and the practitioners who deliver them, work together effectively to improve drug abuse prevention. Toward this end. NIDA has been promoting a working alliance between research and practice to identify programmatic, organizational, and local circumstances that foster or forestall the adoption and effective implementation of research-based programs by communities, schools, and service delivery organizations. A primary goal of this partnership is improved delivery of currently available interventions.

Our recently launched National Prevention Research Initiative (NPRI) has fast-forwarded this research practice partnership with four large-scale community trials of programs that have been shown to prevent drug abuse on a smaller scale, In these trials, scientists and practitioners are delivering a research-tested intervention to populations in urban, suburban and rural sites. Each trial examines specific implementation factors, such as how different training methods affect a program’s delivery or how accurately the staff of a community service program delivers an intervention to different groups in various settings. Results of these studies should reveal systemic. structural and other barriers to implementation and strategies to overcome these barriers. Ultimately, this information will enable many more communities to adopt research-based programs and use them effectively to prevent drug use. for more information on NPRI. see NIDA National Prevention Research Initiative Begins Broad Range of Studies,” p. 5.)

Blending the knowledge gained from research with the realities of the community practitioner should do more than accelerate the adoption of current prevention programs. It also should foster the development and testing of the next generation of prevention programs. Data from our field studies will inform the new prevention approaches that flow from NPRI’s expanded basic and transdisciplinary prevention research and make them more feasible Thus, tomorrow’s prevention programs will more closely reflect the practical circumstances of the practitioners, the community settings in which programs are delivered, and the children, youths, and families who will take part in them.

Because our schools play such a central role in preventing drug abuse. NIDA is particularly interested in bridging gaps between the researchers and practitioners who develop and deliver drug abuse prevention program in our Nation’s public and private schools. In April, NIDA took an important step toward this goal by bringing together educators, researchers, and representatives of Federal and State funding agencies to discuss school-based prevention at a 2-day meeting in Bethesda, Maryland. More than 100 meeting participants explored the many challenges to and opportunities for conducting prevention research in schools and in integrating research-based programs into the school curricula and operating environment. Meeting these challenges and seizing these opportunities will be key to improving the feasibility and effectiveness of school prevention programs and increasing their impact on young peoples’ drug abuse.

The final step in getting effective approaches working in the community is communicating the latest scientific findings on preventing drug abuse to those who are in a position to apply them. To accomplish this, we are building on the success of our first research-based guide to preventing drug abuse among children and adolescents. An updated version of the guide synthesizes the significant advances in prevention science during the last 5 years and makes them accessible to parents, teachers, and community leaders.

Our National Prevention Research Initiative, our conferences and meetings. and our dissemination of the latest prevention information demonstrate NIDA’s strong commitment to closing the gaps between prevention research and practice This blending of science-based knowledge with community realities will result in wider adoption of more effective programs and major progress toward the ultimate goal: that far fewer of our Nation’s children and adolescents become snared in the destructive web of drug addiction.

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By Peter Stoker, Director, National Drug Prevention Alliance
to the ECAD 10th Anniversary Mayors’ Conference Stockholm
May 15, 2003

‘Creating the Alternatives – Policy and Prevention’

My links with ECAD have been partly with Tomas, but also in my own country with Peter Rigby – so sadly lost to us all last year. In giving this paper I would like to record my personal gratitude to Peter, and all that he did through ECAD in the struggle for sanity, in this sometimes crazy world in which we find ourselves
I have worked in this field for over 15 years; in Counselling, Treatment, Justice, Education and – not least – in Prevention. I have visited or dialogued with drug programmes and agencies in more than 20 countries and NDPA continues to exchange information and good practice with many more, through our membership of organisations like Drug Watch International, the Drug Prevention Network of the Americas, and the Institute for Global Drug Policy. All this has woken me up to the ‘World of Alternatives’, and this morning I hope to bring you some insight into practical, workable Alternatives you could apply in your own city.
Alternatives. Creating the Alternatives. It is said that we live in a sometimes crazy world, and one sign of this occasional craziness is when we give unjustified hearing to people who offer ‘alternatives’ to our present social and legal policies which may suit them very well, but which would be deeply dangerous to our children and to our society. Maybe we should blame ourselves for this; perhaps the Crazy Alternative might not sound so attractive if we became more effective in making people hear the Sane Alternative.
As we are in Scandinavia, let’s consider Hans-Christian Andersen’s story of the Emperor’s New Clothes – in which it took the innocence of a child to open the eyes of adults, an internationally-known metaphor describing blindness to the truth. An affliction taken to new heights when it comes to drug abuse.
Society obviously differs between different countries, but in western society we can see some broadly similar patterns. Let me describe what we see in the UK. Our society is one in which behaviour is conditioned by the conspicuous pursuit of consumption, by the demand for rapid gratification (‘Give me pleasure NOW); by an environment in which people march for of their rights but never for their responsibilities, by the idea that we have ‘ a right to be happy’, by the elevation of the Self above the Society (Me first) – and certainly by the elevation of youth, above all. [Ref 1] When you take all this into account, it is easy to see how drugs can have assumed a new prominence.
We also live in a society where ‘Political Correctness’ shackles our thinking, so that, for example, I can no longer call myself ‘able-bodied’ but must instead call myself ‘a person who is non-disabled’. This is just one more example of how clever use of words can confuse the mind, in the same way that the Tailor confused the Emperor – and the way in which the Emperor’s subjects went along with the deception.
This is the fertile ground in which drug-abuse grows, and one of the cleverest tactics of the pro-drug lobby is to convince you that there is no alternative – we must surrender to the inevitable; accept drug use, legalise it, and keep the harm to a minimum – for the users, that is!
We have allowed ourselves to be seduced by clever words and convoluted arguments – and a major part of this process is that the sane counter-argument to this insane dialogue gets only a tiny proportion of the media’s attention. If we were to apply the ‘Emperor’s Clothes’ logic that is advanced for drug abuse to other social behaviours there would be a national, if not international outcry.
Let’s take a fictitious example. Suppose you were designing a new social policy concerning rape. Would you think it enough to just provide services for the victim after the attack? Surely not. How about some Harm Reduction advice for the rapist? They have rights too, you know. After all, maybe it was just ‘recreational rape’ – and the rapist’s lawyer says he is ‘an otherwise law-abiding person’. Maybe if we relaxed the law this would improve things – and look at all the police time we would save! ……It is at times like this that I envy that child who showed us that the Emperor had no clothes. I envy him because his story ended with the community recognising the truth and common sense of what he said.
I have enough faith in human behaviour to believe that we will achieve this condition of sanity with drugs policy in the end – but I am also sure that it will not be achieved through apathy. Ultimately, we get the society we deserve. That is why the commitment all of you are showing through your support of ECAD – and through your actions which flow from that – is so very important. The question then is, how can we create saner alternatives?
My eminent fellow-speakers this morning will be telling you about their successes in treatment and rehabilitation. I have visited several of them in my travels, including Delancy Street – whose speaking slot I have filled today – and I can testify to what marvellous projects they are. They do an enormously valuable job, and deserve more support. But we don’t beat problems only by treating the casualties – and the sheer numbers of those with problems mean we have to do something else as well. Just consider the numbers. If we take the four major projects presenting here, and add in other large projects such as Betel in Spain, Delancy street in America, and Synanon in Germany, their combined throughput is probably something under 10,000 people a year, and yet it is said that in Britain alone we have more than 250,000 addicts. One thing is sure; treatment centres are unlikely to become redundant in our lifetime or our children’s lifetime.
Another concern is that whilst the projects presenting here today are models of good practice, not everybody matches these standards. A survey of British treatment projects on behalf of the Big Issue magazine found that most drugs other than heroin were rarely addressed by treatment centres, and that for heroin there was often only the ‘new solution’ of prescribing methadone. Big Issue found that far from weaning people off drugs, methadone prescriptions were supporting 33% of addicts for 5 years or more and 16% for 10 years or more, with both percentages rising. Moreover, 80% of methadone ‘clients’ were also using street drugs, with 44% of those on prescribed methadone using heroin on a daily basis. – and up to 50% of them still commit crimes.
If treatment and rehabilitation alone cannot turn the tide, what else is there? Let’s go back for a minute to that imaginary social policy we were looking at; the policy for rape. If we agree that rape is a bad thing; bad not just for the victim, but bad for the rapist and bad for society as a whole, our policy would not confine itself to just reacting to it, and treating the casualties. Our core policy would be to prevent it.
Rapes still happen, but we do not take this as evidence that the prevention of rape should be abandoned, anymore than we seek to dissolve driving schools because we still suffer car crashes. We take a rational view that if we were to be fatalistic about rape, there would be a lot more of it around. So, instead of surrendering, we work harder at improving our rape prevention technology.
I want however to qualify one point in my remarks: there is actually a limited scope for Harm Reduction – provided you deliver it to the right people in the right setting. It was properly defined and limited as to its scope in Britain’s first National Drug Strategy in 1995 [Ref2], a definition also enshrined in the 1998 strategy [Ref 3] which Keith Hellawell – whom you heard speaking so eloquently yesterday – designed and introduced. The ‘limit of scope’ is to use it only with people you know are users, on a one-to-one basis, as part of the treatment process; that is, whilst the user is moving towards cessation. Drug workers like myself have always practised this limited scope – indeed one could argue that there is a moral obligation to do so. But this practice only relates to a fraction of our population – it has nothing to do with the hijacked version of Harm Reduction [Ref 4] which is applied to the whole population, and which asserts that:
• You cannot prevent drug use
• You are inhibiting personal rights if you try
• Everyone may use at some time, so
• Guidance for everyone on how to use is the key, and
• Policy should be confined to reducing harm
This is a very cunning alternative – for if you introduce it, and then find that use increases, its proposers will say this proves that Prevention is useless and therefore Harm Reduction is clearly the right path to follow. A self-fulfilling prophecy. (The story of how this came about is too long to repeat here).
The truth is that in the past we have rarely tried to prevent, in the true sense of the word, that is, working ‘pre the event’. This is the Alternative on which I want to focus for the remainder of this paper, and in the process to give you some useful Alternatives to consider, from the examples I’ve seen around the world.
Let’s start with a piece of Prevention history. A common claim by the pro drug lobby is that “the Just Say No approach doesn’t work”. This has been repeated so many times that it has become a mantra – a classic example of the Orwellian principle; that if you repeat a lie often enough it becomes perceived as the truth. Saying that Just Say No “doesn’t work” is simply another way for the pro-drug lobby to claim that “the War on Drugs is failing”. Another cliche. Another lie.
Very few members of the general public know that in the so-called ‘War on Drugs’ a victory was recorded every year for 12 years, and that over those 12 years drug abuse was reduced by over 60 per cent – an astonishing public health success by any standards. [Ref 5] Even if they do know that, they are unlikely to know that one particular prevention programme was pre-eminent throughout the period. The name of the country? America. And the name of the programme? Just say No.
The Just Say No programme was much more than the chanting of slogans. It was a comprehensive personal, social and health education programme, backed up by trained volunteers and professionals. I have copies of their manuals and I can assure you of that. [Ref 6] But we can now see that a major factor in its success at that time – between 1980 and 1992 – indeed perhaps the main factor, was the culture of the society in which it was operating.
Culture is vital as the deciding factor in behaviour. And the key cultural force that swung into action to generate those successful years was not the Ministry of Education, or the Ministry of Health, or the Police and Courts – it was the community. Ordinary communities like yours, in cities across America. Parents were the main activists, acting just as that little boy did when he saw the Emperor – they exposed the truth, which the professionals had been too blinded by dogma to see. The parents shamed the professionals into producing truly preventive programmes – with the splendid results I have just stated. And those proven techniques are still available to you today – if your city only has the political will to use them.
America may have been one of the first to properly tackle prevention, but it was by no means the only one. Let’s take a quick trip around the world and see some of the other things that have happened in this context: Most countries have good and bad aspects, so in the time available this will have to be a simplified review.
Poland: The Warsaw Institute has seeded many good prevention programmes.
Germany: More than 30 of our Teenex camps, plus parent skills trainings.
Portugal: Projecto Vida and others have executed many good projects, including over 35 Teenex camps..
Belarus: Is keen to co-operate with UK on prevention.
Kazan: Has sent young people to UK Teenex prevention camps. Keen to do more.
Bulgaria: Excellent community structures are now addressing drug prevention and other services. Burgas, on the Black Sea coast, is an ECAD member and is one of the cities in which we have just started work.
Italy: Has changed to more preventive policies. Hosts the World Prevention conference 2003 – in Rome.
Belgium: Exemplary work has been initiated in the Eastern cantons, over many years.
Sweden: Has drug use levels far below the rest of Europe, largely from inducing a culture which discourages drug abuse.
Latin America: Countries like Brazil and Peru have vigorous prevention programmes. The next world conference of the International Task Force on Strategic Drug Policy will be in Argentina, next month.
Spain: Have just invited UK to co-operate on a primary school prevention programme.
Australia: Birthplace of two wonderful prevention programmes – Life Education Centres (now operating in several countries) and the Kangaroo Creek Gang.
New Zealand: an oasis of prevention – make sure you get a copy of ‘The Great Brain Robbery’ – one of the best advisory books for non-expert parents and community officials I have ever seen.
America: so much has been and is being done to prevent drug abuse. Check out the websites at NIDA and CSAP, which you can reach via the links on our site. I would also like to say a word at this point about a great programme, which has so many daggers sticking out of its back it looks like a porcupine. That programme is DARE. It is precisely because it has been so successful, so widely adopted, that it has become a constant target for the pro-drug lobby and the professionally jealous. Like everything else, it has had its faults in the past, but it has addressed many of these and is now launching a strengthened curriculum. Its unique involvement of police officers in a sustained relationship with schools – not just a quick visit – has many benefits in and beyond prevention. Already seven police forces in UK are using it, with more coming.
United Nations: Despite all our worries about the money and heavy pressure applied to it, the UN came up with the right result in its recent 46th meeting of its Commission on Narcotic Drugs – ruling out any weakening of drug laws. I am sure that the 1.3 million signatures collected by many groups – including ourselves – under the leadership of Hassela Nordic Network had a big influence, and I would like to add my congratulations to HNN for this tactical masterpiece.
Plenty of good news, then. But before you assume everything’s solved, I must emphasise that the well-financed and highly-resourced machinery of the pro drug lobby is having a significant and growing effect…

Holland: Their story is well documented, liberalization continues, despite polls showing that 70% of Dutch citizens want the lax drug laws rescinded.
Switzerland: We hear glowing reports of their heroin experiments, but this is hardly surprising when we learn that the head of the experiments is also the head of the Swiss branch of the International Anti-prohibition League, a major player in legalisation.
United Kingdom: We have been subjected to enormous pressure, with international backing for the pro-drug lobby, and we are almost certainly about to have cannabis re-classified to a lower class of legal penalty – ridiculously demoted to rank alongside steroids instead of alongside amphetamines. This is despite a wide range of new research against cannabis – and no new science in favour of it. But the good news is that both the Select Committee [Ref 7] and the Advisory Council to the Government have turned their back on all the dishonest argument, and have said they will not recommend legalisation or decriminalization – (and, for good measure, they have said the same thing about ecstasy). They have also exposed the ‘medical cannabis’ argument by inviting scientific trials, but ruling out any use of ‘cannabis as grown’ (because if its extreme variability and pharmacological unreliability as well as undesireable side-effects) and they also rule out any use of smoking as a delivery method. Their stated intention is to test extracts of cannabis, not smoked but ingested by normal medical means, and not to be of psychoactive effect. So, you don’t smoke it and you don’t get high – not at all what the pot lobby had in mind!
East Europe: As I have said already, there are good outcrops of prevention, but this region is held to ransom by pro-drug influences, most notably George Soros, who has put tens of millions of dollars worldwide into weakening drug laws.
Australia: When South Australia first decriminalized cannabis possession there was a significant increase in use by young people, compared to neighbouring states. Sadly, this experience has not deterred the liberalisers, and worse is to come. Western Australia is now considering following suit.
Canada: Policy is deteriorating in the same way as Australia.
From time to time I encounter drug liberals who assert that there is no proof of prevention. I usually refer them to the research work of Nancy Tobler; [Ref 8] she analysed no less than 240 successful prevention programmes. 240. And still they come, with their cries that there is no evidence. And yet if you press them on the subject, the more honest of them will admit that there is little or no evidence of effectiveness of Harm Reduction. Such evidence as there is can often be damning, as is the case with Baltimore in the USA; this city has one of the biggest needle exchange and condom issue schemes in the USA and yet it has ended up with the highest levels of drug abuse, the highest level of HIV infection and is amongst the highest levels of addiction. Harm Reduction may be having an effect in Baltimore, but it is not the effect that the public were promised. Coming back to Nancy Tobler; she looked at the 240 programmes and found 140 that had enough common factors to allow her to conduct what is called a meta-analysis. From this she was able to indicate the components of the more successful programmes. Another advanced researcher, Bonnie Benard, who is now with NIDA – the National Institute on Drug Abuse – has repeated the same kind of comparative exercise over many years, and from this has produced a set of “Criteria for Effective Prevention” which are a classic, timeless in their value. [Ref 9] A summary of Bonnie’s criteria is included in the written paper supporting this talk.
If I had to choose just one key criterion from what I have seen in all these countries, it would be Culture. Localised programmes will be effective locally, and programmes concentrating on one topic – such as self-esteem or drug awareness – may be effective in those areas, but not much elsewhere. If you are intent on generating a healthier environment in your city then you need to look to generating a health-oriented, prevention-oriented culture right across your community – in the home, in the school, in the workplace, in the youth organization, in the leisure areas, in the shops, in the churches and temples – and certainly in the media.
Culture can be artificially distorted, at least in the short term – which is where the media can be particularly effective, or particularly damaging. But cultural changes generally are slower to happen, and require steady application of energy. If that effort is sustained then change will occur, like the dripping of water that wears away the stone. The drug liberals have learnt this truth – we must learn it too, along with another truth.- that we sometimes forget that today has not always been . We did not always have the drug culture and the society culture we have now. It was changed before, by others. It follows that we can change it again.
What can an ordinary city do to produce a more healthy culture? One of the most comprehensive examples I have seen of this is “Project Revitalisation” in Vallejo, California. [Ref 10] The project is designed to tackle drugs, alcohol and crime in the city’s worst areas. The heart of the project is a strong community partnership: – the Vallejo Fighting Back partnership, Vallejo Code Enforcement, Vallejo Chamber of Commerce, Vallejo Police Department, Vallejo Neighbourhood Housing, California Employment Department, the Private Industry Council, and many neighbourhood associations. It works to integrate neighbourhood revitalisation, alcohol and other drug policy, neighbourhood safety, job-training, and co-ordination of human services into a comprehensive effort. The project’s goals are to sort out and regularize the jumble of disorganized buildings and facilities, regenerating the neighbourhood; to reduce crime, and foster safety and quality of life for the residents of these deteriorating, crime-ridden neighbourhoods.
Project Revitalisation is based on four principles:
• The physical make-up of a community has an important influence on its vulnerability to crime. This is equivalent to the very successful “Broken Windows” project run in New York [Ref 11]
• Neighbourhoods where residents have commitment and interest in improving their area can influence the level of crime
• Everybody, individuals and families, must personally gain from the project. You cannot expect people drowning in problems such as unemployment, addiction, lack of child care and other human service shortages to be interested in improving their neighbourhoods
• problems with alcohol and other drugs contribute to neighbourhood deterioration and must be specifically addressed.
In a five phase process, Project Revitalisation moves from initial assessment to detailed assessment, then to initial ‘pilot’ interventions before full implementation. The final phase is to reinforce the new stability of the neighbourhood by establishing permanent neighbourhood groups.
First reports of results from the project show encouraging improvements; there has been a reduction in police call-outs and an improvement in the perception of safety by residents – this is a very important feature in my own country, where fear of crime is often as crippling as crime itself.
The efforts to reduce illegal drugs are probably well understood already; particular alcohol policies that Vallejo introduced included:
• ‘Conditional use’ (trial) permits for regulation of new alcohol outlets.
• Improved ordinances to regulate existing outlets.
• An ordinance for youth parties, to reduce non-commercial access of alcohol by young people
• A social nuisance ordinance to hold property owners accountable for standards of building maintenance and for the conduct of their residents
• A rental property inspection ordinance
Vallejo is a very comprehensive scheme but I’m sure you will agree that there is no ‘rocket science’ in what they are doing. Their deliberately steady progress, involving all the elements of the community at each stage, is reminiscent of the excellent work done by Dr Ernst Servais [Ref 12] in the Eastern cantons of Belgium. Both projects recognised that unless you carry the community with you at each stage, the effect of your labours is likely to be short-lived.
In summary, then, what Alternative do we have? What tools do we have in our toolbox? We could list these under three simple headings;
• Before drug use
• Early stages of drug use, and
• Problematic stages of drug use
Before:
Culture. Prevention. Education. Parenting. Big Brothers and Sisters. Peer-group prevention. Policing for prevention. Media. Spiritual aspects. Workplaces. Sports (including FIT technology). Arts. Music.
Early stages:
Intervention. Counselling. Befriending. Harm reduction. Policing. Diversion (Alternatives). Containment.
Problematic stages:
Primary care. Treatment. Harm reduction. Justice. Drug courts. Restorative justice. Probation. Prison-based rehab treatment. Halfway houses. After-care. Relapse prevention.
Encompassing many of these initiatives, one brand new and usefully comprehensive addition to NDPA’s library has been the publication ‘Blueprint for a Drug-Free Future’ [Ref 13] by the Hudson Institute, USA.
Money – as always – comes into it. And because treatment is easier for accountants to count, it has traditionally tended to get much more of the available funding than other services. In economic terms, however, prevention gives a better return; even using conservative figures, prevention can be seen to give a payback of $6 for every dollar spent, [Ref 14] compared to only $3 for every dollar spent on treatment.
How might we inter-relate these services? Here is my model for doing that:
With the overall aim of a healthy society, the strategy relevant to the majority of the population has to be prevention. This does not mean that you have to accept anything in the name of prevention, or preventive education. You have every right to ask questions as to what a project is specifically aiming to achieve – and demand evaluations to make sure you get what you were promised.
For those who start to get involved – and they are still a minority – it is probably enough to expose them to prevention processes which they may well not have experienced before. Those who continue to stay involved will need more intervention effort, maybe even some form of treatment, but the outcome should still be that when they cease using this is affirmed by prevention processes. The problematic users are the ones we hear about most, but they are almost certainly only a few percent of your population. This whole structure needs to be buttressed by firm but fair legal and justice systems which firstly deter, then intervene, and – above all – correct aberrant behaviour. A justice system does not have to be confined to punishment, indeed I would argue that such a system is likely to be counter-productive; it should be a sensitive mix of punishment, retribution, restoration and rehabilitation.
CONCLUSIONS:
• There is no one programme around that does it all.
• What works for one person very well will not work at all for another .
• We need to see all of our services – prevention, education, intervention, treatment and so on as part of a continuous whole – and apply them holistically.
• We should not be afraid of having a variety of initiatives, but we should make sure that they are all inter-related.
• Don’t rush it, and don’t tamper with bits of the problem. This is like playing with the ecology – and will probably be equally disastrous.
• Always monitor and evaluate for process and outcome.
• Don’t be afraid to trust your gut feeling. If you have clear goals, then something which feels bad probably is bad.
• Don’t try to be an expert, but know where the ‘experts’ live – and in choosing them, be careful to check their background and agenda .
There is a great deal that you can do in managing a team of experts by asking some simple questions, such as: What are we trying to achieve? How are we trying to achieve it? What is it for? Is everything we are doing pointing in the same direction – if not, why not?
And remember – if one of these ‘experts’ offers you a wonderful new set of clothes, fit for an Emperor – get rid of him!
REFERENCES:
[up] 1. Stoker, P: Moralising, demoralizing .. the fight for Personal and Social Education. 2000. NDPA.
[up] 2. UK Government: Tackling Drugs Together. UK Drug Strategy 1995. HMSO.
[up] 3. UK Government: Tackling Drugs to Build a Better Britain. 1998. HMSO.
[up] 4. Stoker, P: The History of Harm Reduction. 2001 NDPA.
[up] 5. US Biennial National Household Surveys, correlated with Michigan Schools System. (Ongoing).
[up] 6. Just Say No International. Just Say No Club Book/Teen Leader Guide.1989. Walnut Creek, CA USA.
[up] 7. UK Home Affairs Select Committee. The Government’s Drug Policy – Is it working?. 2002. HMSO.
[up] 8. Tobler, N. Meta-analysis of 143 adolescent drug prevention programs. 1986. Journal of Drug Issues.
[up] 9. Benard, B. Characteristics of Effective Prevention Programs. 1987 acquisition. (Contact NIDA, USA).
[up] 10. Sparks, M. Project Revitalisation – Vallejo, California. 1998. Prevention Pipeline (NIDA).
[up] 11. Kelling, G. L., Coles C. M. Fixing Broken Windows. 1997. pub Touchstone, NY USA.
[up] 12. Servais, E. Before it’s too late. 1991. SPZ-ASL, Schnellewindgasse 2, B-4700, Eupen, Belgium.
[up] 13. McGarrell, E. F., Hutchens, J.D. Blueprint for a Drug-Free Future. 2003. Hudson Institute, Indianna.
[up] 14. Masi, D. A. Designing Employee Assistance Programs. 1984. Published by Amacom.
NDPA, P O Box 594, Slough, SL1 1AA, UK. Tel/Fax: +44 (1753) 677917.
Email: ndpa@drugprevent.org.uk
website: www.drugprevent.org.uk
Attachment to Peter Stoker paper to ECAD Conference, May 03,Stockholm
CHARACTERISTICS OF EFFECTIVE PREVENTION
By Bonnie Benard (With annotations by Peter Stoker to relate to the UK scene)
PROGRAMME COMPREHENSIVENESS/INTENSITY
A. Multiplicity: the causes of drug/alcohol abuse are multiple: personality, environmental, behavioural (Kandel, Logan, 1984; Hawkins et al, 1951). Programmes tackling only one area usually fail. You should target multiple systems (youth, families, schools, community, workplace, media, etc). Also use multiple strategies (information, lifestyles, positive alternatives, community policies) (Botvin, 1982).
B. Target whole community. School based programmes benefit less than community based approaches.
C. Target all youth. not just “high rise for prevention. Adolescence is seen to be a high risk time (for all youth in terms of health compromising behaviour. Labelling ‘high risk’ youth can provoke stigmatisation and lead to self fulfilling prophecies. There is however an argument for defining ‘high risk’ communities where an additional resource over and above the general prevention effort could be justified.
D. Build drug prevention into general health promotion. Drug abuse has been found by several (Lofquist, 1993) to be part of a complex pattern of interrelated factors e.g. delinquency, truancy, school failure, precocious sexuality, which share common antecedents.
E. Start early and keep going! Even in infancy there are influences in later behaviour. Developmental difficulties by age 3 are difficult to overcome (Burton White). Here it is of course relevant to mention Trevor Williams, Noreen Wetton and Alysoun Moon of the Southampton University team who have demonstrated so graphically in their “Jugs and Herrings” research paper that primary age children are not blissfully ignorant of drugs and alcohol. Prevention programmes starting from what children actually know are essential. Many secondary schools still seem to regard Years 11 and 12 as the age at which discussion of drugs or indeed sexuality) should be facilitated. Stable doors and horses come to mind!
F. Adequate quantity. ‘One shot prevention efforts do not work (Kumpfer, 1988) There must be a substantial number of interventions, each of a substantial duration Project DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) initiated by Los Angeles Police and now in several other states delivers no less than seventeen onehour lessons to any given year and this is only part of the school programme.
G. Integrate family/classroom/school/community life. This is easier to say than do, but where it has happened results have been enhanced.
H Supportive environment, empowerment. Where young people are encouraged to participate and take responsibility their behavioural outcomes are improved. In Britain now peer education methods proven elsewhere are being piloted.
PROGRAMME STRATEGIES
J. Knowledge/Attitudes/Behaviour. Address these as a set, i.e. each must be directly tackled rather than assuming one will flow from another. The behavioural component is in part addressed by social skills development, but also supported by positive reinforcement activities drug free social/sporting events, commendations (preferably with something for everyone), media coverage, etc. Research suggests that Social Learning Theory (Bandura, 1977) produces some of the most profound improvements.
K. Drug specific curriculum. Affective education programmes that had not specifically covered drugs (including alcohol) were found unsuccessful, even though they addressed knowledge, attitudes and lifeskills.
L. Gateway drugs. So called because people now using heavy end drugs almost always started on these. Gateway drugs can be tobacco, alcohol and cannabis or, these days in Britain, even heroin! Concentration on prevention of these is therefore likely to prevent use of all substances. British research by MORI (Parents against Tobacco, 1990), showed that of youth who smoked tobacco 50% had also tried an illegal drug compared with only 2% of those who did not smoke tobacco. It should be particularly noted that cannabis is far from harmless: physical, mental and social damage is now being increasingly accepted as a reality.
M. Salient material. Whatever is used needs to identify with the audience, including:
• Ethnic/cultural sensitivity
• Appeal to youth interests
• Short term outcomes to be emphasised as important to youth as well as long term
• Appealing graphics and appropriate language, readability
• Appropriate to real age/reading age a key factor:
In a survey of 3,700,000 young American children, 25% of 9 year olds felt ’some’ to ‘a lot’ of peer pressure to try drugs or alcohol (Weekly Reader, 1987).
N. Alternatives. Activities have to be plausible, be more highly valued than the health-compromising behaviour. Too often these alternatives are poorly thought through.
P. Lifeskills. Development of these will be of wider benefit than drug prevention. Included will be:- Communication, Problem Solving, Decision Making, Critical Thinking, Assertiveness, Peer Pressure Reversal, Peer Selection, Low Risk Choice Making, Self Improvement, Stress Reduction and Consumer Awareness (Botvin, 1985).
Choosing your friends has been found in some research to be more effective than resisting the peer pressure of said friends. Consumer awareness is a ‘companion’ to resisting peer structure, i.e. resisting media pressure.
Q. Training prevention workers. For the school setting the greater emphasis on experiential and interactive work requires teacher training to extend into youth work skills. Community development skills are valuable in taking school initiatives into the community. Imported ‘prestige’ role models are all very well, but good results have been achieved with parents, peers, teachers, or outside agency workers.
R. Community norms. Consistency of policies throughout schools, families and communities can greatly enhance impact.
S. Alcohol norms. Because of its dual status as a beverage and as an culturally accepted drug, alcohol is problematic for prevention. However, heart disease and tobacco prevention programmes have shown that societal norms can be changed.
T. Improve schooling! Listed here as a target because of its important correlation with healthy lifestyle. Within the current British economic and academic climate the most realistic hope may lie with co operative learning, see the TRIBES program for example.
U. Change Society. Don’t just stop with improving schools: add your voices to pressure for improvement in employment. housing, recreation and self development. (See ‘Project Revitalisation’ in Vallejo, California, for example). It is naive to suppose that prevention can take place in a political vacuum. Jessop recognises that failing to acknowledge the need for macro environmental improvement while at the same time placing the responsibility for health solely with the individual is tantamount to ‘blaming the victim’.
THE PLANNING PROCESS
V. Design, implementation, evaluation. Evaluations have generally concentrated on outcomes rather than the quality of design. However, implementation is as much dependent on engaging all sectors of the community (be it a school. a workplace, or a town) as it is on quality of design. Evaluation should therefore measure process as well as outcome.
W. Goal setting. Unrealistic or immeasurable goals help no one. It is important to set not only long4erm outcome goals (for prevention is long term) but also “process goals” such as increased involvement of parents and community, academic success, increased student teacher interaction. and so on.
X. Evaluation and amendment. Prevention workers have been criticized for giving too little attention to this area., the crushing shortage of funds has much to do with it (in America the ratio of funding between interdiction policy and prevention is about 200: 1). This lack of emphasis on evaluation has been the Achilles heel which pro drug campaigners have gleefully attacked. Effective evaluations have been those including longitudinal design, multiple measures of process as well as outcome (Tobler, 1986), and cost benefit analysis (CBA). CBA is perhaps the greatest marketing tool prevention has; where CBA has been applied substantial cost effectiveness has been demonstrated.

Bonnie Benard can be contacted at NIDA, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, 6001 Executive Boulevard, Bethesda,MD 20892-9561, or info@health.org

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By Alberto Carosa
A leading Italian journalist and media expert, who presented a seminal paper
at the HNN conference in Visby in May 2001.Rome. The recent Fifth Global Conference on Drug Prevention, which took place in Rome in late September (Monday 22nd – Friday 26th , 2003) confirmed what was already signalled by the author of this article few years ago, viz. that the Catholic Church is in the forefront in the fight against illicit drugs (see Catholic religious move to the forefront in battle against drugs, in the Wanderer of August 20th, 1998).
Sponsored by the Italian government’s extraordinary commissioner for the co-ordination of anti-narcotics policies, Prefect Pietro Soggiu, in conjunction with the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs of the US Department of State, the conference was spearheaded by a Worldwide Network for the Prevention of Drugs under the co-ordination of an International Organising Committee which included a number of other groups, associations and NGOs. Among these a pivotal role was played by Associazione Casa Rosetta (ACR), a Sicily-based religious-run rehabilitation centre, with its president father Vincenzo Sorce, and the US Florida-based Drug Free America Foundation in the persons of its founder and president, long time anti drug war veteran Betty Sembler, wife to the present US Ambassador to Italy, Melvin Sembler. As a keynote speakers of the opening session, the senior diplomat paid his tribute to the organisers “not only as the United States ambassador to Italy, but also as someone who has been personally involved in trying to help solve the illegal drug issue”.
Father Vincenzo Sorce is a Catholic priest who teaches Pastoral Theology in Sicily at the Palermo-based “S. Giovanni Evangelista” Faculty of Theology and Social Education at the Free “Maria SS Assunta” University in Rome. Journalist and founder of ACR, which is active in 40 centres in Italy and Brazil, he was also the conference moderator in his capacity as chairman of the above International Organising Committee. Father Sorce is also specialising in the training of anti-drug personnel in co-operation with several foreign institutions, including the universities of San Diego and San Francisco in California.
As further proof of the leading role played by Catholic religion, the proceedings were opened and concluded by other two Catholic religious leaders respectively, archbishop Javier Lozano Barragan, president of the Pontifical Council for Pastoral Assistance to Health Care Workers, and Msgr. Paolo Romeo, apostolic nuncio to Italy.
To confirm the relentless and uncompromising stance of the Church in the anti-narcotics fight, Archbishop Barragan, soon to be appointed cardinal in the upcoming concistorium, reminded that in his Magisterium John Paul II dwelt upon the drug issue no less than 360 times, stressing that drug use and /or abuse is never licit because it’s unworthy of a God-created human being, who under no circumstances may renounce his/her dignity as a free and responsible person.

Over 500 delegates from 84 nations in all the continents participated in the event and it would not be possible to mention all of them. Suffice to say that some 60 speakers, from government officials to ambassadors, from scientists (Carmelo Furnari, Eric Voth, Ernst Aeschbach, Gregory K. Pike, Mark S. Gold, David A. Gross, Guillermo Fernandez D’Adam) to jurists (Giuseppe Dalla Torre), media experts (Wade West, Carlos Alberto Di Franco) and NGOs leaders (Stephanie Haynes, Peter Stoker, Calvina Fay, Chavalit Yodmany) offered a wide variety of presentations reflecting cultural, ethical, scientific, medical, social, political and spiritual dimensions of the subjects. Although representing many diverse faiths and beliefs, the participants were united in their support of the following common core principles, as entrenched in their final resolution: the pursuit of a ‘Common Good’ which should define and guide the actions of Society; a ‘Culture of Disapproval’ of drug abuse, namely any use of illegal substances and any inappropriate use of legal substances, to be nurtured in all Society; ‘Moral Imperatives’ for responsible and constructive citizenship, which should be honoured by Society at large; all strategy, policy and action should be informed and underpinned by proper, validated science. Furthermore the participants, who endorsed the resolution by acclamation, pledged “to create value in acknowledgement of the gift of life with which we have been blessed” and confirmed “the superiority of love, in relation to the education and building of our society: a superiority which has become a social, political, cultural and spiritual commitment”.
The Conference resolved also to progress initiatives in support of the above core principles, including opposition to legalisation and other forms of drug law relaxation, and therefore any drives seeking to serve, overtly or covertly, such negative expedience. The fullest support, the final resolution also stated, should be given to the Vienna Declaration, which seeks to unequivocally support the UN convention on drugs, notably by the collection of 25 million supporting signatures by the year 2008, when an overall assessment of the UNGASS results is scheduled to take place. This collection is a natural follow up to a campaign launched in late 2002 by the Sweden-based Hassela Nordic Network, which was able to present over 1.3 million signatures during the midterm review in Vienna last April 2003 for the UN Convention on Drugs to retain its successful “restrictive policies against any legalisation of illicit drugs, including cannabis”. Such legalisation is being pursued by a notorious and powerful trans-national anti-prohibitionist lobby, whose ultimate aim is “getting rid of global treaties against drug” (see also The War on Drugs Takes a New Turn, in the Wanderer of November 28th, 2002).
Besides the above resolutions and pledges, whose impact is generally measured on the medium-long term, the most immediate result produced by the Fifth Global Conference on Drug Prevention was an enormous amount of media coverage which after many days is still far from abating.
A turmoil was apparently unleashed by Italy’s deputy premier Gianfranco Fini, another keynote speaker at the opening sessions of the Conference, when he announced that by Christmas his country would reverse its drug policies with new legislation that would target users of soft drugs and end the legal distinction between possession and trafficking. He said the abolition of the so-called ‘minimum daily dose’ had defanged Italy’s drug laws and prevented police from distinguishing between drug-pushing and personal use.
Apparently a raw nerve was touched, since most of the secular media reacted with hysteria, crying foul and distorting Fini’s stance, whom they accused of wanting to jail all addicts. But the Italian Health Minister Girolamo Sirchia, a prominent haematologist and transplant expert, immediately backed Fini’s message, adding that the Superior Health Council’s decision to classify cannabis as hard was a “strong scientific response which I agree with”. “This puts an end to the pointless and sterile polemics which distort the truth about drug issues,” the minister continued. “There aren’t any drugs that don’t harm the user. These substances are worse than smoking, they harm the brain and cause mental illnesses,” said the 70-year-old minister.
Fini further clarified his vow to clamp down on drugs, speaking of a “zero tolerance” approach as “the most appropriate phrase” which “doesn’t mean handcuffs and police busts but fighting the tendency to underestimate the problem…It is a scientific fact, and one with social costs, that people who use and abuse substances like Ecstasy and amphetamines suffer damage to the brain,” Fini concluded. In other words, “there is no freedom of drug addiction”. Fini is convinced also that, besides traffickers, also what he termed “friendly fire” should be effectively combated, viz. those who foster drug use by disseminating criminal lies and fallacious distinctions between “good” and bad drugs. A real “pro-drug lobby”, as the Executive Director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crimes, Antonio Maria Costa, put it more bluntly in his keynote speech at the Conference the inaugural day. Besides the trans-national lobby referred to above, another typical case in point is the “singing lobby”, so much so that Fini also rebuked rock stars and the drug culture he said was associated with the world of rock. “Rock singers should reflect before saying that drugs are in some way a right, that people should be free to take drugs and that the culture of ‘getting high’ should not be criminalised”. Also Interior Undersecretary Alfredo Mantovano, another keynote speaker on the first Conference day, slammed “pop singers and the media” for encouraging youngsters to smoke pot. In a piqued reaction, 29 major artists published a manifesto to deny these accusations, saying that such words “smack of censorship”, “sound a bit intimidating”, subtly seek “to limit freedom of opinion and speech” and that “new restrictive measures are not needed” (cf. Corriere della Sera, October 1st, 2003).
The Italian media also pulled the emotional chord under another respect, by advocating more rehabilitation efforts rather than jail terms and crackdown policies on both consumers and traffickers. But these very media did ignore what was said at a concomitant joint press conference to present the First UN Report on Amphetamine-type Drugs to the Italian government by the Executive Director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crimes, Antonio Maria Costa, and the Director of the US Office of National Drug Control Policy, John Walters, namely that in the last five years marijuana addiction increased only by 10%, as against that caused by synthetic drugs, which rose by 70%. “Hence my fear”, Costa said, “that these chemical drugs may turn out to be the public enemy No 1”.
As a matter of fact, these chemical substances, like ecstasy and amphetamines, have devastating and irreversible effects on the psyche and body, causing real holes in the brain similar to those suffered by Alzhaimer-hit elderly and thus accelerating the aging process. “Who will assist and pay to support part of a generation mentally and physically crippled by the damages caused by ecstasy?”, Costa wondered. This question might be answered by another question: why shouldn’t the victims or their families sue for damages members and accomplices of the “pro-drug lobby” referred to by Costa, as was the case with tobacco-induced damages?
Should the trend towards irreversible damages continue, therefore, any talk of rehabilitation instead of repression and prevention may soon become sheer platitude, like a hunter who keeps on aiming at a bird even well after it has already flown away from its perch.

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Simply because this subject is too important to leave to the experts. Parents, even these days, are seen by young people as a key source of information and moral guidance. As an example, try summating the whole life of your child from birth through to age 21. Tabulate all of the hours that they spend in school, or in religious areas, or in community areas, or with you the parent; it is enlightening to then look at the percentage of time the child spends in the various ‘zones of influence’, throughout their youth. The figures are 10% in school, and less than 1% in churches etc. The rest of the time, they are outside the influence of those organisations.

Moreover, the great majority of drug use by young people does not take place in school, nor does the dealing. What does this mean? It clearly means that most of the drug misuse takes place when we are in charge. In the main we have drug free schools; what we don’t have is drug free young people. It follows then, taking the title of this paper, that if we who have longer with the young can communicate and influence effectively with them that we stand a strong chance of making things better. But are we using this time well? Research has shown that on average, a parent spends 15 minutes a day communicating with their child. Of that 15 minutes, 13 minutes are spent in criticism. It is not suggested that parents are the only people who can mobilise to good effect. It is obviously, at the very least, a tripartite effort between home, school and community. But what has been one of the main factors in the deterioration over the past few years, which has let in negative behaviours such as drug misuse, has been the separation of the influence of the home from the diverse and sometimes negative influences young people receive either in school, including the playground; or in the community, including those other ‘playgrounds’. If we are to succeed in prevention, we must recognise that ‘Partnership’ is not just a fashionable buzzword; it is a fundamental.

Can Parents Succeed?

Yes, they certainly can; they have done in other countries, and to some extent they are already succeeding here, but nowhere near enough yet. Before quoting figures from the obvious place that researches so much i.e. America, there is evidence from countries much closer to home: two are Belgium and Sweden. In the Eastern cantons of Belgium, Ernst Servais runs the Social-Psychological Centre which is based in Eupen, and has been working for some 15 or 16 years now on community drug prevention work. Before he got into drug specific community education and prevention work Ernst spent a long time, several years, just developing community networks and using less emotive subjects as a vehicle for bringing people within the community together. He knew the truth of the adage that ~‘Tasks Unite, Issues Divide”. Over 13 years up to 1991 when Ernst published his synthesis called “Before It’s Too Late”, drug use by young people in the area concerned rose by only 3%. If you compare that with the major increase in drug use by surrounding areas, it is truly a remarkable achievement. In the case of Sweden (in the late 1970s), there was a period of relaxed approach and harm-reduction-based policy, particularly around the use of amphetamines. This led to a very large escalation in their use with attendant social, emotional and medical problems. Sweden learnt from this mistake, instituted an exemplary suite of prevention programmes and coupled this with a constructively firm law structure; the prevalence of amphetamine abuse, and indeed of other drugs of abuse in Sweden, has since been pushed back very significantly.

Turning now to America, their experience shows how parents can be truly effective. Nationally, biennially collected data across large numbers of households paints a graphic historical picture (Figure 1). Drug use which had been at a very low level for very many years took off during the 1960s under the dual factors of hippie lifestyles and libertarian philosophies, expediently coupled with protest against the Establishment in the context of the Vietnam War. What did parents do when use first started to grow? Absolutely nothing. This is probably about where Britain is now. The problem had to get much bigger before they woke up, but when they did it was the parents and not the professionals who first started insisting that a more vigorous and constructive approach be taken. And to salutary effect. The results are easy to see. Over a 12-year period from 1980 the USA reduced drug use in all age groups and for all substances by a staggering 60%. 13 million fewer users. If any other Public Health or other kind of behaviour modification exercise had achieved this result people would be screaming from the rooftops what an amazing success it was. Instead, all we heard from a largely libertarian press was that “the war on drugs is failing”. Since 1992, use is climbing rapidly again; a stark lesson that you cannot take your eye off the ball — or take the funds off the programme. Prevention (and health promotion in general) must be revisited in every generation, and constantly reinforced.

So, parents can certainly succeed. But they will only succeed if they work in partnership. Prevention is the proper business of every section of the community, each dovetailed into the other but each addressing the subject in different ways, according to their own setting. It is not only youth who need prevention opportunities; whoever the centre of focus is, there will be some who can exert more influence and others less — but every input is valuable. People who are closer to the focal point are likely to be more influential than the people on the periphery. But all of them have a valuable influence, and all of them should be engaged.

Can Parents Succeed Now?

The chances of success as things stand at the moment with parents in Britain are a lot less than they should be. This is because, as a generalisation, parents are largely on the margins of influence. This marginalisation has occurred through a combination of factors, but is also, to some extent, self-inflicted. Cultural changes, including the elevation of youth to a position of near-autonomy, greater spending power by youth, and youth-centred methods in schools, youth centres etc. have mingled with a seemingly daunting array of issues — sexual behaviour, sexuality, negative role models, libertarian media and entertainment, increased family breakdown as well as reduced family influence, violence and vandalism, and of course alcohol and other drugs. In the face of all this many parents have been tempted to see marginalisation as the route to survival. In the particular context of drugs parents remain behind the ‘brick wall’ of marginalisation, in some cases because they want to be, because it’s safe there. But they’re also behind it because an awful lot of media commentators, professionals of various sorts, and indeed other parents reinforce the view that this is where they should be because they a) don’t know enough about drugs, b) have only one simple function when drugs are mentioned, which is to panic, and c) even if they do get involved they mess up anyway. I want to see this brick wall demolished; and the sooner the better. We will only succeed in prevention if parental communication is brought back from the margins to the place where it belongs, in the very centre of things. And nobody will invite you; you will have to push your way back in.

Where Should Parents Focus Their Effort?

For all but a few parents, who want to take the wider view, the focus should be firmly on one’s own back yard; work with your own family first, and worry about the rest of the world later. Next, as a parent, you do not have to be an expert, any more than others who speak out are (Noel Gallagher and Brian Harvey are certainly no experts). As parents, you know instinctively the behaviour you want to encourage in your children and the behaviour you want to discourage. Focus on that, and all ways of achieving it, and leave the fancy drug technology to other people. You don’t have to ‘know knowledge’, just know where to find it. If you must have an instant drug lecture in thirty seconds, this is it:

All psychoactive substances can be classified under one of three headings: They send you upwards, they send you downwards, or they send you sideways; or some permutation thereof.
(End of lecture)

Your focus needs to be not so much on drug technology but instead be firmly on parenting, and we could all benefit from lessons in this. Indeed, there is an argument for including parenting skills in the school curriculum. Parenting courses unfortunately often tend to be limited to drug knowledge; you need much more breadth and depth than this. One example of a useful model has as its name and emphasis ‘Parenting Skills for Prevention’. It is video and audio based, an 8-week, Adult Education course, proven over more than 10 years operation and developed from the original by NDPA to suit British culture. The 8 modules cover awareness of the subject of drugs, and of you yourself in relation to that subject, how to be ‘pre-event’ and parent assertively; the adolescent’s development and basic drives; and the differences between a child, an adolescent, and an adult. In the second half of the course we look at family systems for QA and QC — Quality Assurance and Quality Control. (Setting behavioural standards and following up to see that they are complied with). The difference between Punishment (which can sometimes mean getting even, or revenge) and Consequences (which are the pre-advised outcomes of unwanted behaviour — and they must be preadvised and consistently applied). The difference between the Needs and Wants of one’s offspring; how the Needs must remain inviolate even in the face of the most extreme behaviour, whilst the Wants can be a focus of any Consequences in response to negative behaviour. We also look at the vital relevance of feelings — adolescents work from their feelings; if your communication is only from the head, their hearts won’t understand. Take a deep breath, and tell them how you feel. Reinforce positives, play down negatives. Arrange your time to allow more real communication with your family. And if all else fails, be aware of where to get help. We have run this 8-week course, sometimes in the evening, sometimes in the day, even in workplace lunch breaks, with several hundred parents. We have received excellent evaluations, and these have been accepted by the Home Office, who funded the early stages of the project.

How Can Parents Be More Effective?

The first thing that parents should do is to exert a positive influence. It is essential that between all of the various people who communicate with a young person that the three key areas of behavioural influence are addressed. This has been termed for short as KAB — Knowledge, Attitude, and Behaviour. Giving knowledge is relatively easy, but it must be valid information. Challenging attitudes, why they exist and why they might be more beneficially changed is also rather better understood than the third component i.e. behavioural modification. We far too often overlook that if we wish to produce positive behaviour we need to encourage it when it occurs. More often our inclination is to challenge or punish negative behaviour when it arises. The plain fact is that if you can introduce an environment of positivity in your home and encourage your children to interact with other children in a more positive way this will have a beneficial effect, and this can spread over a wide area. Studies at Swansea University show that for every peer educator who goes through training programme they beneficially impact, to some extent, around another 200 people. A convenient encapsulation of a parental approach to behaviour is found in a psychologist’s term, which is to say that you need to practice “loving control”, being neither too authoritarian nor too lax. Again, research shows that this produces overall the best results, including a marked decrease of prevalence of drug misuse.

A current educationist fashion is to speak of facilitating ‘Informed Choices’ by young people. (Regrettably, the people doing the informing rarely encourage consideration of anyone other than the individual; self-actualisation -Maslow style- is the governing force.) Choice per se is of course a part of healthy development, but when it comes to the use of illegal drugs (or age limits for legal drugs), choice has no part to play. We do not ask children to choose whether to steal or assault; we Just Say No.

Disapproval is still a strong impactor, as a 17-year analysis of USA nation-wide drug-related behaviour shows (Figure 3). Throughout the 17 year period (1974 — 1991) there is a perfect inverse correlation between prevalence of use and perception of disapproval by others, as well as perception of harmfulness of use. You can exert positive influence by setting out clear values and boundaries for behaviour in the home, and setting out what the consequences will be of crossing those boundaries. And, most importantly, sticking to those consequences without wavering if any transgression occurs. Parents can also set an example and show integrity in what they’re saying, even though sometimes they may be decoyed by arguments such as ‘you smoke tobacco’ or ‘you drink alcohol; those are your drugs, so why are you criticising mine?’ The short but valid answer to this is ‘two wrongs don’t make a right’. The alternative short answer is for you not to smoke and not abuse alcohol. (Abuse of alcohol may, stereotypically, include using it as a drug instead of as a beverage). The longer answer is that if you do smoke you probably became hooked when the level of knowledge was well below what it is now, and if you had known what is known now, you probably wouldn’t have started. If you are a smoker, both for the example you set and for your own health, it would do you no harm to give it up. As for alcohol, the least you could think about is keeping the levels well below the health limits and never say “I need a drink” — this is a suicidal parental message! If you want to introduce a healthy form of taking substances in your home, here’s a radical idea: try and eat together as a family now and again; a big challenge, I know, but you can do it if you try!

If you are going to get ahead of the game you need to stay very aware of youth culture, and in particular the youth culture that exists in your own home. Here’s another radical idea: Every now and again, check how your young person decorates his or her room. What records do they listen to? What set of people do they hang out with? What kind of language do they use? Are there any marked changes in their attitude towards you and respect for you? What magazines and newspapers do they read? What films and videos do they watch? Do you know which musical groups and which films promote or give apologia for drug use? If not, why not? This kind of upstream marker is a lot more valuable than the kind of “signs and symptoms of drug abuse” that are so often peddled in parental advice articles. Frankly, if you’re looking for signs and symptoms of use you are already too late.

Another thing that you can do as a parent, and you have the right to do it, is to check out your school. Do they have drug policy, and does it start with the aims of the school and how to achieve these through prevention and education, or is the policy no more than a list of damage limitation, reaction and repair once drug use has been discovered (“stable door — instructions for bolting” etc.)? What lessons are they delivering that have to do with social behaviours and personal development? What philosophies are they following? Who is funding this aspect of their education, directly or indirectly? What materials are they using and what agendae inform the materials? What messages, overt and covert, are being given out? And if you don’t like the answers you find, what are you doing about it? (Then repeat the dose for everyone else in the community who communicates with your offspring. politicians, media, health workers, social workers-above all check out people like me, who claim to specialise in the drugs field. Where are we coming from? Is reduction of drug misuse our driving force? (The answer from some within the above disciplines may surprise you!)

Tackling the drug problem in our society is one of the toughest yet potentially most rewarding tasks facing us all today. ‘Tackling Drugs Together’ is today’s maxim but is a good way short of being today’s reality. To reverse the trend (and thereby ‘to Build a Better Britain’) will take nothing less than a major change in the culture of our whole society. Mission Impossible? Hardly. The culture changes which brought us to where we are now have all taken place in the lifetime of many of us who are now parents. What has been done can be undone, and the longest journey begins with a single step. That first step could, and indeed should be taken by you, the parent. Safe journey!

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NDPA started in a modest way in early 1993, after a year of exploratory work. Of course nobody was standing idly waiting for NDPA to appear, and the value of the initiative had to satisfy hard-nosed, already overworked agencies and individuals. By May 93 the clear need for NDPA was acknowledged, and the first formal meeting of the Executive got things moving.Attendees included Life Education Centres, Hope UK, prevention specialists Positive Prevention Plus, Ben’s friends (named for Ben Wood who died from ecstasy use), health promotion specialist Anthony Johnson, and other concerned individuals. From these small but substantial beginnings the Alliance has extended to the point where its ‘constituency’ now conservatively numbers more than ten million people.

As well as entities in the four ‘home nations’ and the Irish Republic, major groups like Life Education Centres and DARE UK, and high-profile campaigners like Jan and Paul Betts, we now have links with an even more diverse range of interests groups. Mrs Frances Lawrence, widow of murdered headteacher Phillip Lawrence and Anne Pearston of Dunblane’s ‘Snowdrop’ campaign are but two examples. Why would they be interested in the NDPA? Because they recognise, as do we, that drug misuse is part of a much wider picture of social behaviour in which we must all strive (as our general leaflet title says) for
‘a prospect of something better’.

The Executive has met at least four times a year every year since then, and the many and varied outcomes are touched on in this brief paper. The detail of our activities fills several filing cabinets and not a few floppies and zips. The most expedient way for you to find out more, if you want, is to contact us personally; we will be very pleased to assist you.

ACHIEVEMENTS SO FAR.

NDPA’s formal ‘birth’ coincided with the first drafting of ‘Tackling Drugs Together’. We were asked by then – Minister David Maclean to meet with Sue Street, director of the Central Drugs Coordination Unit (CDCU) in Whitehall. We made a good impression by the calibre of our input, and the eventual publication gave us much grounds for encouragement. From that time on we have sustained a good working relationship with the CDCU under Stephen Rimmer, and now in its new existence as the office of the UK Anti-Drugs Co-Ordinator, Keith Hellawell (and his deputy, Mike Trace).

NDPA is increasingly in demand for conference appearances, including the Scottish National Drugs Conference, the Irish Drug Squad (Garda), ‘Frank Talks’ (Belfast), DARE Graduation, Isle of Man Life Education, Scottish Chief Police Officers, several international presentations, and many more. Trainings have been held in Glasgow, Lake District, Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire and of course the Metropolitan area, where several have occurred. Several police forces continue to use our consultancy resources.

As well as technical papers for ‘Tackling Drugs Together’ (TDT) and its successor ‘To Build a Better Britain’ , NDPA has produced a great many others, including papers for the three main political parties. These and other papers covered such subjects as drug strategy and philosophy, prevention technology, educational techniques, enforcement approaches, constructive/rehabilitative justice systems, drug information, and more. Two leaflets summarising cannabis research (one for youth, one for parents) have been reprinted twice already, their content having been validated in ongoing meetings with Professor John Henry and Professor Heather Ashton.

Very little of this would have been possible without the National Lottery Charities Board (NLCB) grant. Coming in summer 1997 the grant was worth just under £150,000 over three years, and we volunteered to put in another £50,000. Companies House rigorously screened us before allowing our definition as ‘National’. NLCB also vetted us closely, because NDPA was an unknown quantity, but their analysis proved positive; they put their faith in us and for that we are eternally grateful.

A NEW FOCUS ON PREVENTION

Our opening comments on ‘TDT’ still hold good today and indeed were strongly echoed in our imput to ‘BBB’, which came in two slices – a four page summary called ‘Adjusting the Focus’ and, in January 98, a 28 – page formal proposal.

The main thrust was that Britain’s strategy needed to be strongly focussed on primary prevention, buttressed by sensible but unequivocal legal structures. Our words were ‘Prevention coupled with firm but fair laws’. When BBB came out it called for ‘Firm laws plus prevention’ – not a million miles away, it would seem.

Inculcating cultural changes in favour of healthy lifestyles.
Constructive justice system.
Workplace prevention.
Harm reduction kept in perspective.

AD NAUSEAM

A perennial bugbear of our work is the legalisation lobby. This has taken us to formal/informal debates at Cambridge, Oxford, Colchester, even Westminster. Several reams of paper have gone into technical presentations. Our extensive international links help greatly on this and other subjects. The Media regard us as ‘first port of call’ on this subject, and we have featured on BBC World Service (130 million listeners) BBC TV, Channel 4, Readers Digest (5 million readers), The Guardian, and on. And on. We have faced up to drug smuggler Howard Marks, ‘heroin doctor’ John Marks (no relation). The Government seem to hope that their unequivocal stance against law relaxation (for which, much thanks) will make all the legalisers shut up and go away. Far from it.

YOUTH DEVELOPMENT

The main focus of our work is on youth, and services to skill them, to enable them to resist drug misuse. We were taught a long time ago by a wise old trainer that “we rarely succeed at anything unless we have fun doing it”. This remains a mainstay of our youth work, and probably accounts for the fact that so many of our youth participants stay with us for so long. Another guiding principle is Youth Empowerment, through the medium of Peer Prevention (which is like Peer Education, but much wider in scope). We now have a Youth Training Team which is capable of organising and delivering prevention programmes, and prepared to travel anywhere – expenses permitting.

Besides the Teenex programme, which looks set to spread into Wales before too long, there is the excellent Youth Trust in Devon which is currently planning to expand into after – school services for ‘latchkey’ youth. Meanwhile services to the younger set are impeccably provided by such as Life Education and DARE. For the latter we recently completed a meta-analysis and synthesis of international evaluative research which is now aiding their development programme.

THE FUTURE – THAT ‘BETTER PROSPECT’

‘To Build a Better Britain’ is a 10 year strategy with regular interim reviews; we have met Keith Hellawell and Mike Trace several times, and will sustain this dialogue. We have just started two research studies, in hand at Brunel University, to run over 3 years. Our existing parliamentary contacts need increasing, and likewise the media work is bound to step up – with fierce demands every time someone else says something libertarian or outrageous (or both). The legalisation/decriminalisation/’harm reduction + no prevention’ lobby will remain vocal. There is also the small matter of funding NDPA for the next decade. Above all we need to ensure two things: greater union (a stronger voice) amongst prevention agencies and supporters across the community; and greater efforts to lift quality (and prove this quality by evidence–based evaluation). Should keep us busy for a while……………

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Australia and Sweden have taken different paths in the battle against illicit drugs.
Dr Lucy Sullivan examines the results.

A comparison of drug policies in Sweden and Australia. and of drug usage and associated problems, is highly suggestive of which country has chosen the more effective approach.

Sweden:

After beginning with a legal approach to illicit drugs, Sweden executed a volte face in response to escalating drug use in the population. Policy now aims at a drug-free society.

Coercive care of adult drug abusers was introduced in 1982: Swedish courts can order treatment instead of punishment if the offence carries no more than one year of imprisonment.

Drug use was criminalised in 1988, and a maximum penalty of six months’ imprisonment for illicit drug use was introduced in 1993, Possession of small quantities of cannabis or amphetamines may result in only a fine, but possession of heroin or cocaine receives a strict term of imprisonment. Drug trafficking maybe punished by 20 years imprisonment. Methadone assisted rehabilitation of drug addicts has been implemented.

Schools and municipal social services provide extensive education against drug use. Harm minimization, as a policy approach, and needle exchange have not been adopted, on the grounds that they would convey an ambiguous message against society’s attitude to drug abuse.

Australia:

In Australia generally, the maximum penalty for possession of small amounts of cannabis is two years imprisonment. In South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory, however, possession of small amounts of cannabis has been decriminalised. Trafficking in illegal drugs may be punished with life imprisonment.

Despite the legal position, Australia’s National Drug Strategy since the late 1980s has been one of ‘harm minimisation’, rather than prevention or a drug-free society. Through the late ‘80s and most of the ‘90s, there has been a movement in the allocation of funding, from law enforcement to education.

As an educational policy, harm minimisation is defined as teaching safe use of drugs, abstinence is not seriously addressed. Other features of Australia’s harm minimisation policy are an extensive free needle exchange programme and free methadone maintenance for heroin addicts.

Sweden Australia
Lifetime prevalence of drug use in
16-29 year olds (Sweden) and 14-25 year olds (Australia) 9% 52%
Use in the previous year, as above 2% 33%
Estimated dependent heroin users per million population 500 5-6000
Percentage of dependent users aged under 20 1.5% 8.2%
Methadone patients per million population 50 940
Drug-related deaths per million population 23 48
Percentage of all deaths at age under 25 1.5% 3.7%

Drug offences per million population –
Sweden = arrests; Australia = convictions 3100 1000
Average months in prison per drug offence 20 5
Property crimes per million population 51,000 57,000
Cumulative AIDS cases per million population 150 330

Outcomes:

The accompanying table shows comparative figures on drug abuse and related factors for Sweden and Australia as presented in the United Nations World Drug Report 1997 (adjusted where necessary to a rate basis).

The comparative figures for drug use in Sweden and Australia, taken in conjunction with education policies which promote abstinence versus safe usage, suggest that Australia’s policy of harm minimisation has induced widespread drug usage – 52% lifetime usage (i.e., used at least once) in Australia compared with 9% in Sweden.

Further data indicate that the change from the liberal to prohibitive in Swedish policy has been effective in reducing the initiation of young users, whereas usage by young people in Australia has been rising over the same period.

The highest prevalence of lifetime usage in Sweden occurs in the 30-49 years age group. In Australia, the rates of usage are minimal above age 40, while the greatest increase in use has occurred in the 14-24 years age group. This demonstrates the success of education in harm minimisation in encouraging drug use, particularly in the age group most exposed to drug education – school children.

Only 1.5% of Swedish young people (aged under 20) are drug dependent, compared with 8.2% of Australians in the same age group.

The information conveyed in harm minimisation education is clearly unable to counteract the effect of higher usage rates. Drug-related death rates are twice as high in Australia as in Sweden – 46 versus 23 per million population. Moreover, the share of under 25 year-olds in drug-related deaths in Sweden is very low – only 3.6%. The Australian figure in this category was not available, but the percentage of all deaths at age under 25 (3.7% compared with 1.5% in Sweden) indicates a higher presence of trauma for Australian young people, of which drug taking is likely to form a part. Free needle distribution in Australia does not appear to have resulted in better control of the AIDS epidemic here, with our cumulative AIDS rate more than twice that of Sweden. While the proportion of methadone patients to heroin addicts is similar in the two countries, one may conjecture that the use of methadone for rehabilitation in Sweden, rather than for maintenance as in Australia, contributes to the dramatically lower rate of heroin addiction there (less by a factor of at least 10).

The higher rate of illegal drug use in Australia is the more remarkable in that Australians are roughly as law-abiding as Swedes in relation to property crime, and far less violent. The lower ratio of convictions to usage rates in Australia may well encourage contempt of the law.

The proponents of the harm minimisation strategy in Australia claim that Australia is leading the world in the public health of drug abuse.

These figures suggest, rather, that it is leading us in the opposite direction, and that a policy like Sweden’s, which addresses its goals straightforwardly and unambiguously, rather than deviously, is more successful in practice.

News Weekly, August 28 1999 Page 8
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Evidence for prevention
Prevention outweighs permissive policy for social benefit to the individual and to societyEd Jurith is currently temporarily occupying the desk of the USA’s ‘drug czar’ while President Bush decides whose name is ‘permanently’ painted on the door. Close to the end of his Atlantic Fellowship in England, Ed gave a talk in London to drug workers. He proposed and answered the rhetorical question: ‘What is the goal of US drug policy ? – A drug-free America’.

I watched his audience stiffen, then relax as he went on: ‘None of us expect 100% success, but as a goal to work towards, it’s not that bad.’

It is a mistake to assume that all the zealots are anti-drugs, any more than all the sacred cows are on one side of the fence. We all have our share of both.

The governing goal in our national strategy is to work towards the irreducible minimum of drug users. This is a common theme in both the current drugs strategy and its 1995 predecessor (its Appendix C has one of the most helpful definitions of the role of harm reduction).

When asked to identify the main tool to achieve this goal, most people choose ‘education’. But this is only one component – and by some accounts a deliberately ‘aimless’ one.1 You could, from this basis, educate a ‘drug fancier’ but the outcome at best would be an educated drug fancier.

Prevention differs from education by setting goals and boundaries and working within the social context. Prevention fosters a culture in which the desired situation is more likely to occur, more likely to be willingly chosen. The then Chief Executive, Council on Addiction for Northamptonshire, Robin Burgess, underscored this very even-handedly in Druglink, March/April 1996.2

Prevention must engage the whole society. This requires a substantial shift in attitude for several professions, given we are by nature symptom-focused and reactive. Suggesting, for example, that prevention should be limited to those ‘at risk’ is like limiting contraception to the pregnant.

Lofquist, in his classic text says: ‘We must get beyond the notion that prevention is merely stopping something happening, to a more positive approach that creates conditions which promote the well-being of people’.3

In simple terms to prevent we must be working ‘pre-event’. School or workplace drugs policies that only intervene when drug use is observed need extra front-end chapters to cover this.

What is the value of the law in prevention and health promotion? It spells out the boundaries and at least some of the consequences of breaching them. It also undoubtedly acts as a discouragement for some – hence the increase in use seen universally when laws are relaxed.

Intervention by the law, whether by Caution or Court, is credited by many in my experience with having decided them to avoid or turn away from drugs. In the USA the criminal justice system remains the top referral source for rehabilitation.

There is great potential for more constructive systems: for example, the National Drug Prevention Alliance advocates an extended caution applied to minor drugs offences, with a preventive aim (a working title might be ‘PreCaution’).

The principle is to offer a caution – or deferred sentence – with the condition of attendance at drug prevention training sessions, analogous to what happens now with drink driving cases. Failure to attend would constitute a breach and thus appearance in court. Costs could be limited by cooperation with the voluntary sector.

Law and criminal justice are parts of the interlocking structure of social agents that deal with positive and negative life issues to foster a healthy society. The problem with such structures is that removal of any part can lead to collapse. The ‘legal’ element may be easier to dislodge than many, starting with mislabelling it.

‘Prohibition’ conjures up images of a rejected policy and an American policy at that – very handy derogatory terms. The Australian Parliamentary Group for Drug Law Reform certainly believed so, to the extent that they deployed ‘ conscious manipulation of the language and debate ‘ – their words, not mine, ‘ labelling those who oppose drug law reform as ‘prohibitionists’ and those who seek it as ‘reformers’’.4

For equity, instead of prohibition I suggest ‘preventive policies’ – a less calculated term, less likely to promote a particular viewpoint. It also fairly balances the term for the opposite approach ‘permissive policies’. From this start point, let’s climb over the fence and vet some of the sacred cows in the ‘permissive’ herd:

Culling ?

‘US Prohibition equals UK drug policy’ – US tried to suppress what was until then a legal substance (alcohol), used by the majority of, and generally accepted by the public. The inverse of these parameters is true of our drug laws. No comparison.

‘US policy spectacularly unsuccessful’ – the US sustained drug prevention for 12 years from 1980–92, achieving a 60% drop, about 13 million fewer users.5 Things slipped thereafter as government and parents took their eyes off the ball, but prevalence is now declining again. This is despite ‘law-weakeners’ like George Soros investing huge amounts of money in permissive campaigning – he puts his personal input at $90 million (so far).6

‘Hundreds of thousands jailed in US for simple possession’ – sentencing for all offences, including drugs, has declined and is now at half the 1997 level. The average amount of cannabis per incarceration is 4,500 lbs. In 1998 alone 1.7 million pounds of cannabis were seized. Under 0.1% of those jailed are non-violent, first-time cannabis offenders.7

‘US incarceration policy is racist’ – demographic analysis belies this. In Northeast and Northwest regions sentencing black/white is equal, while in the Midwest whites do worse. Average sentences for the South are 1 month longer for blacks but, crucially, in this region all races are more likely to be convicted, and imprisoned for longer. This factor alone explains the differences.7

‘We are at surrender stage in the UK’ – despite the current World Health Organisation (WHO) European School Survey Project on Alcohol and other Drugs (EASAD) report, the white flag can stay in the locker for a long time yet. The UK Anti-Drugs Coordination Unit confirm that more than 80% of young people either never use at all (50%) or else give up after one or two tentative tries, a figure which has been growing for at least the last three years.

‘Just Say No doesn’t work’ – unsupported sloganeering certainly doesn’t work but the US programme of this name was much more. It was a comprehensive personal and social development process and one of the key factors in the prevention gains from 1980-92.

Undoubtedly some re-visit the slogan as a coded message implying prevention as a whole doesn’t work, but there is a growing body of evidence to rebut this slander. The work of experts such as Kumpfer8, Tobler9 and Benard10 relates to large numbers of successful initiatives.

But Joan Smith does have a point (Druglink Jan/Feb 2001 p.14). Latin America is certainly in a mess. Nowhere more so than Colombia under President Pastrana, a man who demonstrates his readiness to ‘milk the cow from both sides’ – sacred or not. Bellicose presidential anti-drug proclamations have been accompanied by awarding the drug-financed guerrilla forces a ‘police and army-free’ slice of Colombia the size of Switzerland.

Mexico is more encouraging. On a visit there recently George Bush said the time was past for Americans to blame Mexicans for a problem substantially derived from the demands of American youth. He said that priority should be given to ensure the effectiveness of prevention programmes, and that jailing first-time drug offenders: ‘may not be the best use of jail space, or the best way to free them from their disease.’

Danny Kushlik defines drug policy parameters (Druglink Jan/Feb 2001, p.20), but ends up with some dubious correlations. A more sound method is to look at the experience of countries that have tried to unravel their drug laws.11

Holland and Switzerland are glorified by some but there are enough negative reports, despite the predominantly libertarian media, to give cause for serious doubt.

Journalist and writer Larry Collins?12 is not impressed by the proposal to go Dutch. WHO and INCB experts have combined13 to condemn the Swiss experience as a questionable model – not to be followed by other countries.

Spain in the early 80s relaxed laws for cannabis, cocaine and heroin until parents shamed the government into a tougher stance. Italy in the late 80s rescinded lax heroin laws after record levels of addiction and death. Japan cut record abuse levels of amphetamines and heroin by applying firm laws with mandatory rehabilitation. In the distant past China found it necessary to apply stricter laws and education/rehabilitation to recover from damage by British-marketed opium.

Closer to home the ‘British experiment’ of heroin on prescription was revoked after it led to ‘leakage’ on to the street and record levels of youth addiction. Those European countries now approaching law relaxation may find themselves living through a previously-observed cycle – the three Rs: relax, repent, repeal.

In 1975 Alaska caved in to a well-orchestrated campaign for decriminalisation. The grounds for decriminalisation of cannabis were that this would not increase casual or chronic use as there was already lots of both about. It would not boost use of other drugs as cannabis as a gateway to other drug use is a myth. Crime would go down due to no possession charges and streets full of peaceful cannabis smokers.

More than a decade’s experience and observation convinced the Alaskan Supreme
Court that exactly the opposite had happened, and in 1990 the decriminalisation was rescinded.

Perhaps the most instructive example comes from Sweden.14 In the mid-50s Sweden found itself facing increased amphetamine use. Its natural instinct was to seek a liberal accommodation. Accordingly, the use of amphetamines was decriminalised while social/medical systems were put in place to accommodate the behaviour and minimise the harm.

Within 15 years the Swedes found amphetamine use had soared to enormous levels and with it social and medical costs. A new plan was introduce with the incremental introduction of firm laws plus mandatory treatment schemes. Today Sweden has prevalence levels a fraction of the rest of Europe.

Recent moves to relax the policy have been emphatically rejected, and Sweden stays with their preventive approach, which they characterise as ‘a vision expressing optimism and a positive view of humanity.’ The contrast between Sweden and, for example, Australia is, as researcher Dr Lucy Sullivan15 says ‘highly suggestive of which country has chosen the more effective approach’ (see table). (Full Drug Policy comparison article)

	Sweden	Australia
Lifetime prevalence of drug use in  16-29 year olds (Sweden) and 14-25 year olds (Australia)	9%	52%
Use in the previous year, as above	2%	33%
Estimated dependent heroin users per million population	500	5-6000
Percentage of dependent users aged under 20	1.5%	8.2%
Methadone patients per million population	50	940
Drug-related deaths per million population	23	48
Percentage of all deaths at age under 25	1.5%	3.7%
Drug offences per million population - Sweden = arrests; Australia = convictions	3100	1000
Average months in prison per drug offence	20	5
Property crimes per million population	51,000	57,000
Cumulative AIDS cases per million population

 

Culture

The culture in which decisions on life issues are taken is all-important, whatever the country.

In the case of youth and drug use in the UK, recent decades have seen many cultural developments: more drugs at lower real prices, a shift from community orientation to individualism, a search for rapid gratification, less guidance from (and faith in) religion, a pill for every ill, marching for rights but never for responsibilities. This comes with an increase in youth autonomy and spending power simultaneous with a decrease in traditional authority from parents, teachers and other civic/social agencies.

This may help to understand how the UK comes top of the European league for self-indulgence but it misses one important factor – what contribution have we, the relevant professionals in health, education and social fields, made to all this?

The answer is not flattering.16 There has been too much striving for acceptance by youth, too much selling out. We try to identify with youth and too often we over-identify. The result has been sizeable sections of youth who have scant respect for others, or for society’s boundaries. In effect they sign up for the (Rogerian) gospel of Values Clarification – a do-it-yourself morality kit.17 This is not education, it is abdication.

Steering the educationist juggernaut will be one of the biggest challenges to Keith Hellawell, our UK Anti-Drug Coordinator (many fail the driving test). It will require him to put some flesh on the bones of his rhetoric – however sincere.

Keith Hellawell is personally commited to minimising drug use, affirms that he is convinced of the significantly damaging effects of cannabis – physiological, social, emotional and intellectual. He says that he has ‘never been a just say no person, but is a say no for these reasons person’.

He rejects an educational approach that is relaxed about drug use, which replaces behaviour boundaries with harm reduction. But if prevention is ever to become more than a slogan he needs to put the Government’s money where his mouth is.

Prevention outweighs permissive policy every time in terms of social benefit to the individual and to society. And yet, when the sacred cows come home and when the relative strengths of our friends and our adversaries are weighed in the balance, we probably get the society we deserve.

References:

1. O’ Connor et al. (1999) ‘Drug Education in Schools.’ Roehampton Institute.

2. Burgess, R. (1996) ‘What’s Wrong with Prevention?’ Druglink, March/April .

3. Lofquist W. (1983) ‘Discovering the Meaning of Prevention’. AYD Publications.

4. ‘A Push for National Drug Law Reform’. Connexions News Oct/Nov 1994.

5. US Biennial Household Surveys, correlated with Michigan Schools System

6. AP wire, 25 Aug 1997: George Soros quoted in ‘Time’ magazine that he has spent ‘more than $90 million in recent years to weaken drug laws’.

7. Peterson, R. E. (1997) ‘Drug Enforcement Works’. PAE Consultants.

8. Kumpfer, K. (1990) ‘ Challenges to Prevention Programmes in Schools’. OSAP.

9. Tobler, N.S. (1986) ‘Meta-Analysis of 143 Adolescent Drug Prevention Programmes’ Journal of Drug Issues

10. Benard, B. (1987) ‘Characteristics of Effective Prevention Programmes’.ITI and NIDA

11. Peterson, R E. (1991) ‘Legalisation – the Myth Exposed’. Narc Officer.

12. Collins, L. (1999) ‘Holland’s Half-Baked Drug Experiment’. Foreign Affairs.

13. (1999) ‘International Criticism of the Swiss Heroin Trials’ AIDS-Aufklarung Schweiz and Schweizer Aerzte gegen Drogen.

14. Swedish National Institute of Public Health. (1995) ‘Drug Policy – the Swedish Experience’.
15. Sullivan, Dr. L. (1999) ‘Drug Policy: A Tale of Two Countries’ News Weekly

16. Dennis, Prof N. (1997) ‘Social Irresponsibility.’ Christian Institute.

17. Stoker, P. (1999) ‘Early years drug prevention and education – getting back on track’ Early Child Development and Care, Vol 158, .

‘Tackling Drugs Together’, a strategy for 1995-98 came from joint action by all relevant government departments and with support from all major political parties. Specialist agencies, including NDPA, contributed to its production. Much positive progress has been made. The Drug Action Team/Drug Reference Group structure has concentrated minds. The ensuing review of prevention, intervention, treatment and rehabilitation services has pointed up areas for improvement. Above all, the commitment to more and better primary prevention (including education) has galvanised action across the field.

Three years is little enough to establish a structure, let alone deliver on it. There must be a corresponding strategy beyond 1998 and into the next millenium. This will always be a ‘long game’. This Paper suggests how an improved strategy could develop.

Drug strategy is always prey to ideology and negative agendae. A firm hand on the tiller is essential. In summary NDPA would wish to see a system which promotes total rather than just physical health; instead of reactively responding to sickness, it validates and encourages non-users, minimises the number who start, facilitates users to stop, and uses the tools – including the justice system – constructively; with firmness melded with sensitivity.

A Total Health

The World Health Organisation (and many others before them) have defined Health as having six components: physical, mental-intellectual, emotional, social, spiritual, and environmental. Far too much of drug related work to date has ignored all but the physical element. Real progress awaits this fundamental widening of vision.

B Education is not equal to Prevention

A common misunderstanding is that Education = Prevention. Section C (below) exposes the fallacy of this; education is an important part, but far from being the whole. This flaw is compounded by overviews of work in Britain, much of which has indeed been limited to education, and has in consequence been of limited efficacy. This has had much to do with the unusually pessimistic attitude towards Prevention of many British drug workers. Ample evidence of success exists in other countries, and cultural transferability has already been demonstrated to the satisfaction of all except those with the telescope to their blind eye.

The vital techniques of persuasion; vocabulary, semantics, images, psychology and ‘thinkspeak’ are well understood by those who seek to replace ‘Tackling Drugs Together’ with more acquiescent strategies. It is palpably true that those who support the strategy are sadly not so well versed. Until this disadvantage is removed the struggle will always be uneven.

C A Community Affair

We live in a symptom-focussed society, with separated response systems for such as health, social services, justice. Painful experience has shown that this ’segmental’ attitude seriously hampers effective prevention – the correct approach must be to engage the whole of society, albeit in different ways. We must grow beyond the notion that prevention is merely ’stopping something happening’ into promoting and enriching the wellbeing of people. Some examples of action within the community are:

• Government – Specify, resource, manage, evaluate
• Health – Cover all health elements
• Schools – Health promoting policies
• Colleges – train teachers/youth workers in prevention
• Peers – Utilise potential
• Parents – de-marginalise, train, resource, support
• Religion – spiritual lead, network
• Pharmacists – Pro-active, prevent, reduce harm
• Businesses – Employee Assistance (EAP), testing
• Media – Educate staff, avoid mixed messages
• Vol. Sector – Network and engage
• Sport – Pro-active prevention
• Drug services – Encourage plurality

D Long, wide and deep

Environmental and nurture factors around the child which may precede drug misuse start very early; even in the nursery. Factors increasing propensity for use are many and varied, and can be profound. Prevention systems must therefore be ‘long, wide and deep’.

There is a flavour permeating from some quarters that exploratory use (otherwise euphemistically named ‘experimental’ use) is of relatively little concern. This is not only untrue, it reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of the process. Community-wide primary prevention for all age groups, especially the young, needs very substantial development above the present very limited levels. Beyond this there is also scope for focussed interventions, such as ‘mentoring, with those young people identified as more ‘at risk’ than others.

Parents are a key resource in prevention, a resource largely ignored thus far. Their marginalisation and disenfranchisement must be reversed, and they need support and training to cope with the greater demands on parents in this area.

E Social Foundation

Cutting-edge prevention technology recognises that wide focus is fundamental. Whilst social factors such as deprivation, unemployment or homelessness are not necessarily causal to drug misuse, they certainly correlate. Rhetoric around ‘return to full employment’ helps no one; if life after the microchip means ‘less than full’ employment, the social strategy should own up to this and address it constructively.

Support systems in ‘deprived’ areas should not presume all residents are drug users. If anything these areas need more primary prevention resources, not less.

F Justice potential

NDPA has identified ways of improving the application of the justice system. but surrendering to the drug problem is not one of them. Research has shown that justice systems which are firm but fair and coupled with quality drug prevention produce the best results. There is certainly more scope for diversion to treatment or counselling, (such as the TASC system in America), but by no means everyone is far enough into ‘a drug career’ for this to be relevant; in earlier stages some other intervention – perhaps developed upwards from Reparative Cautioning – should be explored.

Throughout the justice system (and without denying the just application of punishment and retribution, which are matters outside the scope of this Paper) the focus should firmly be on whatever methods are needed to produce voluntary non-offending in future. The deterrent effect of the sentencing structure will only be one part of this. There is good evidence to suggest that Drug Courts can be a helpful introduction; expediting cases and hearing them before knowledgeable judges and court officials is welcomed, even by the defendants.

G No debate needed

For drug apologists still pathetically struggling, thirty years on, to justify their cause, a common ploy is to refer to “the current debate on drugs”. Just keeping the subject on the agenda is a tactical victory. The next step is to continually plead until exhaustion in the listeners yields some compromise. The truth is that outside of this minority and a strangely supportive media there is no debate. Parents and other citizens do not want their children to misuse drugs – legal or otherwise. Some groups, including NDPA, feel obliged to respond, but do so unwillingly. Many MP’s have made it clear they reject calls for a Royal Commission since this would send an erroneous signal to the public that the law might change, when there is no such intention. NDPA strongly supports this stance. Mixed messages are confusing, especially to our young people.

H The public and the media

Engaging with the community at several levels and in several ways is the lifeblood of democracy, if a little anaemic at times.

With the drugs issue, the task is hampered by accidental or calculated misinformation, the use of out of date materials and by the personal agendae of those delivering the information – be they media personnel, drugs professionals, or others in the community. A whole vocabulary of ‘weasel words’ has been developed by a well-financed international pro-drug lobby, to confuse and seduce our policy makers and the public at large.

For ‘realism’ read ‘surrender’; for ‘informed choices’ read ‘laissez-faire’, for ‘normalisation’ read ‘decriminalisation’, for ‘prohibition’ read ‘the current laws almost all of us support’; for ‘harm reduction’ read ‘legalisation’, and so on.

NDPA finds the metaphor ‘War on Drugs’ inexact and unhelpful, but rumours of its death are greatly exaggerated. Some pro-drug campaigners suggest this is a ‘Civil War’, with the public as innocent victims – if this be so, then these campaigners are to the drug barons as collaborators are to an invasion force.

Government could do the whole process a great service, and increase the chances of its strategy succeeding, by tackling this issue assertively. The fact is that over at least the last ten years far too much succour has been given to those who seek to undermine the governments’, strategies; despite people of the calibre of Anna Bradley – ISDD Director, making it clear that “there is no research base for Harm Reduction”. The received wisdom of Harm Reduction has been widely applied whilst Prevention of any merit has either been undercut or excluded altogether. Ironically, in the face of increasing use over this period the protagonists of Harm Reduction audaciously claim that this is evidence that Prevention is failing! Government attempted to put Harm Reduction in proper perspective when producing ‘Tackling Drugs Together’, but old ideology dies hard. A good start would be to correct the definition of ‘Prevention’: to prevent should mean to be pre-event; anything during or after the event is damage limitation (harm reduction) or repair (treatment/rehab.)

(NDPA wishes to make it plain that the above relates to the ‘abuse’ of Harm Reduction as a ‘Trojan Horse’ for legalisation or decriminalisation, in the guise of a broad policy for non-users and users alike. In the quite separate and more traditional application of Harm Reduction (or damage limitation) to mitigate the effects on actual users, NDPA is supportive.)

J More support needed

The structure for ‘Quality Assurance and Quality Control’ in delivering the national strategy needs strengthening. At present there is a system (CDCU/DAT/DRG) for communicating up and down. but the level of ’specifying’ and ‘compliance control’ is less than desirable.

In essence, the government should be able to verify that its strategy is reflected in local policy and action; and if not, why not. The obvious control mechanism would be funding, which should be prospectively and retrospectively tied to compliance (as well as to effectiveness). Funding of all aspects (prevention, intervention and treatment/rehab.) is well below where it should be. Moreover, within this funding structure prevention is very much the ‘Cinderella’ service. If compliance is given its due importance, it follows that it must be underpinned with appropriate ‘good practice’ training mechanisms.

Training should not be confined to the professions directly concerned with drugs services but should cover others of secondary and tertiary relevance; it must also cover the Voluntary Sector. In the case of any future regulating/accreditation systems for this field, it is essential that this is done by an independent body able to take a detached and balanced view of the whole process. Those working in intervention and treatment may well come under the purview of the Dept. of Health but for those at the Primary Prevention end a body such as America’s CSAP (Center for Substance Abuse Prevention) would be more appropriate.

Whilst sound arguments exist for having lengthier funding for proven schemes, there is also sound argument for seed-funding new initiatives, in order to judge their effectiveness. Evaluation budgets tend to ignore or under-resource newer, smaller initiatives; the reverse should be the case if value for money is to be achieved.

K Drug Information

Research, surveys and observation will continue to be vital to the success of prevention. There is a regrettable degree of xenophobia (towards overseas research and practice) in the drugs field which may have more to do with ‘ownership/control’ fixations, or excluding that which does not fit certain agendas; these factors often seem to hold more sway than the technical merits of the material. NDPA strongly recommend increased interchange with other countries on all aspects of drug-related work, particularly primary prevention, where there is so much that we can learn.

An almost unheralded reduction, in the USA of 60% over twelve years in the use of all drugs at all ages led Neil Dixon, BBC Social Affairs Editor to describe it as “America’s best kept secret”. The misuse of drugs is a global problem and we should be more willing to share international successes as well as failures.

It is fashionable to decry painful facts about drugs and their misuse; these should, it is argued, be excluded on the grounds that all “shock-horror” input is counter productive. A grain of common sense would not come amiss here; certainly hyperbole should be avoided, but rational facts set into context about the personal and social harm which can ensue should not be shirked. Leaving them out gives a falsely rosy picture of drug misuse. Prescribed drugs packaging contains information on all the possible harm – even though it is unlikely to affect more than a few people using the medicine.

L And in conclusion…

Current vogue in youth education speaks of ‘Informed Choices’. ‘Choice’ implies there are two or more valid options for selection. In the case of illegal drug use there is no option. In what other area of illegal behaviour – theft, violence. etc. do we permit choice? Moreover, the educationist vogue is to say this is ‘your choice’ – implying that the many other people consequentially impacted by that choice feature little if at all in the process. This is another area of training our young for life which needs rapid rectification.

Though the prevalence of drug use, especially by young people seems to be worsening, there is no need for fatalism. Others have succeeded, and if we improve our ways of tackling this together -not hoping for that mythical ‘silver bullet’ but instead co-operating in a pluralist approach, there is a bright future ahead. In this era of unemployment the word “redundancy” has become tainted, but there is one redundancy we can all welcome…

…we don’t need drugs!

Back to Papers

 

Prevention is another matter. When I have told people I have been working on a book about prevention, the immediate question has often been prevention of what?’ That is a logical question in a symptom-focused, remedial, reactive world. I have purposefully left any mention of symptoms out of the title of the book. One reason is the awareness that a wide variety of symptoms are the result of some common conditions. Designing separate systems for remedial work may make some sense, but addressing the common conditions which promote those systems calls for a different approach. If we can get beyond the notion that prevention is only “stopping something from happening” to a more positive approach, that creates conditions which promote the well-being of people, we can begin to view human services quite differently. This, in turn, can transform and enrich our approaches to helping people and building communities that are relatively free of the symptoms we have designed the services around.

The wider significance and potential of this finding is enormous. It means that if we can only produce and effect truly comprehensive prevention strategies there is the promise of society empowering itself to achieve improvements across a broad spectrum. Nothing solves everything, of course, and like many good strategies it is likely to fall foul of such factors as professional and/or parochial jealousies, myopic policies, etc. Prevention workers are therefore unlikely to need to plan a fresh career for some time to come.

Taken from “Drug Prevention – Just Say NOW”, by Peter Stoker
David Fulton Publishers, London 1992.

 

THE CANNABIS DEBATE
Re-printed from the Daily Mail Monday 30th July 2001
by David JonesSenior politicians have suggested the laws on cannabis should be revised after a new survey for the department of Health shows drug use among children is soaring. But should cannabis be legalised? On Saturday in the Mail we asked people from all walks of life for their opinion – and intriguingly it was those in medicine and law enforcement who warned against liberalisation. Today, we publish a special investigation comparing two very different policies on drug use in two European countries to see which is most effective.

The unmarked police patrol van suddenly brakes and two plain clothes officers step briskly on to the pavement, blocking the path of a group of teenagers wandering, apparently innocently, through their leafy suburban housing estate. “Hi, kids, how are things going?” begins Inspector Alex Hermansson. His tone is affable, but the youths, aged between 15 and 18, are apprehensive, for they know full well that this is more than a friendly chat. As Hermansson engages them in conversation, his colleague, Lars-Hakan Lindolm, checks each one for signs of drug abuse. First he looks into their eyes. Are the pupils dilated? Then he examines their jaws: is anyone chewing excessively – a classic symptom of Ecstasy use – or grinding their teeth, as amphetamine takers often do? This time, all the friends appear ‘clean’ and within a few minutes they are allowed to walk on. Yet the merest hint that they had taken any drug would have seen them arrested, their urine or blood tested, and brought before the courts.

Contrast this scene with another, which I had witnessed a few days earlier, in an equally respectable looking residential area only a few hundred miles away. It was a warm summer’s evening and children were playing in the streets, but all around the Lucky Luke ‘coffee shop’ the air was redolent of sticky sweet marijuana fumes. In theory, the people who go there to get legally stoned or buy their takeaway cannabis supplies – characters ranging from jobless hippies to smart business executives – are not supposed to smoke their reefers out of doors.

However, in practice, several of the licensed dope den’s customers casually lit joints, knowing the police would admonish them at worst, but would more likely smile and wave them on their way.

This is a tale of two countries whose attitude towards drugs could not be farther apart.

The first, Sweden, is hell-bent on creating a drug-free society. Its relentless pursuit of this seemingly unattainable ideal is taking the fight against drugs to tough new levels, unprecedented in the Western World. The second, Holland, has – willingly or not – won a reputation as Europe’s drugs capital. Hordes of tourists go there to take advantage of its liberal cannabis laws, which could soon be relaxed still more to allow production and bulk sales, as well as personal use.

In recent weeks, Britain has been lurching ever closer towards the Dutch model, with politicians to the left and right supporting the growing clamour to legalise cannabis. The question is: Which of these two contrasting societies would you prefer to live in?

The statistics might help you to make up your mind. In Sweden, only 2 of every 100 people aged between 15 and 25 are likely to have smoked cannabis in the past year; in Holland it is about seven times more (and a staggering eight times more in Britain).

Surely not coincidentally, the use of hard drugs, such as heroin, cocain, ecstasy and amphetamines, is appreciably lower in Sweden, too. So is the prevalence of drugs-related crime, though this is rising in both countries.

In Sweden, the mass production of drugs remains negligible, while Holland – which churns out up to 80% of the worlds ecstasy and truckloads of powerful ‘Nederweed’ cannabis – has been branded the drug baron of Europe. Despite these alarming facts, I leaned towards legalisation before embarking on this comparative study. The prospect of a few hash cafes seemed unlikely to threaten the fabric of society. And the casual use of cannabis is imbued so deeply in British youth culture that decriminalisation seemed, if not desirable, wearily inevitable. Ten days touring Holland and Sweden has changed my thinking completely.

The trail began with Amsterdam and the Grasshopper, a vast neon-lit dope-fiends’ mecca that shimmers invitingly in the vice-ridden part of the city. As I arrived, I was instantly disabused of the myth trotted out by Dutch drugs policy apologists. If we listen to them, the tolerance of cannabis in a controlled environment has succeeded in separating the hard and soft drugs market.

When you buy hashish in a ‘coffee shop’, the accepted wisdom runs, at least you’re not being hassled to buy something worse, such as heroin. This is nonsense. Even before I had paid my taxi driver I was being harassed by a scruffy Middle Eastern pusher who tried to press sugar-cube sized rocks of crack cocaine into my hand – something that has never happened to me in Leicester Square or Piccadilly. Such dealers target the major cannabis cafes, where stoned youths provide easy pickings.

Away from the squalid red light area, smaller coffee shops such as Dutch Flowers, a quaint canal-side establishment, can mislead the first-time visitor into thinking Holland’s dope houses are no more dangerous than the Rovers Return. As I perused a menu, featuring Spirit of Amsterdam (a Dutch grown favourite) and Morocco Unique (a medal winner in the annual cannabis cup), Marcel, the friendly manager, smoked the profits and extolled the virtues of Holland’s approach.

The cafes were largely peaceful and well run, he said. Bosses such as his own, who runs four coffee shops, upheld strict licensing laws that banned anyone under 18 and restricted the amount a customer could buy to five grams – sufficient for perhaps five strong joints. Listening to Marcel talk, and watching his young customers – some British dope tourists – quietly smoke themselves into a stupor, it all seemed rather harmless. But then, as the weed loosened his tongue, a darker picture began to emerge.

The law states that the cafes can keep only a kilogram of cannabis on their premises at any time. On busy days, this stash can run out several times. But the production and large scale supply of cannabis remains illegal – so where did replenishment come from?

“It’s a real back-door story,” Marcel said, lowering his voice. “Mostly we buy from middle men. Much of it is smuggled in from Morocco or Afghanistan. Let’s just say we have to be very discrete.”

The ‘back-door story’ has been one of Europe’s great untold scandals since Holland relaxed its cannabis laws more than 25 years ago. Ridiculously, the country allows cannabis to be sold in approved outlets (currently, 800 are licensed by local authorities), yet everything else to do with the drug is illegal – from growing it to importing it. Anyone who cultivates or imports cannabis is committing a criminal offence. This double standard has been exercising the Dutch parliament, and MPs recently voted to end the hypocrisy by regulating the entire cannabis market, from plant to pipe.

So far, however, the government refuses to sanction these proposals. Even it is not sufficiently laid back to risk the international outcry that would result. While the debate goes on, the shadowy figures who control the Dutch trade thrive.

The following day, I discovered just how easily they make their fortunes, right under the noses of the authorities, when I crossed the famous wartime ‘Bridge too Far’ and entered Arnhem. There, at the Lucky Loop coffee shop, I met an amiable, attractive couple, both 21, Denis Holdyk and Krysta Slykhuis.

Though they shared the strongest joint on offer – the mind-blowing White Widow – they remained remarkably lucid, their tolerance bolsted by smoking cannabis almost every day since they were 13.

Somewhat recklessly, Holdyk soon disclosed that he was one of around 500 cannabis growers who supply the cafes in and around the city. He began business three years ago, with five plants, but was now renting two apartments as cannabis nurseries, and reckoned to make around £80,000 a year. One day, he said, he would leave Holland and launder the money. “Then I will retire to my yacht and get high all day,” he smiled.

My first reaction, I confess, was one of muted admiration. After all, here was a young man who seemed to believe in what he was doing, and had turned a small (albeit illegal) business into a roaring success.

As the evening wore on, however, I realised that Holdyk and his girl friend were not the earnest, untroubled entrepreneurial couple they presented. Both suffered recurring psychiatric problems, and it was impossible to believe their blind insistence that smoking huge quantities of cannabis (and, in Krysta’s case, taking almost every other drug) was not to blame. They also boasted of helping a jailed associate to smuggle drugs into prison.

“We wrapped a big piece of hash inside some silver paper and he swallowed it,” said Holdyk. “that man became the richest guy in the prison”.

If I still needed proof that the great Dutch drugs experiment has failed, I found it in the Southern frontier town of Venlo. Two decades ago, this 90,000 strong community supported just one licensed coffee shop selling cannabis. Today, there are more than 60, but of that number only five have licenses – the rest are illegal.

And, to the horror of its citizens, Venlo has become a drugs cash-and-carry for droves of German shoppers, who need to drive only three miles across the border. To stroll along the River Maas, even at lunchtime, is like stepping into some oriental opium bazaar. The peddlers, almost exclusively Turkish, urge you inside seedy shops selling cannabis paraphernalia. But many offer harder drugs, too.

Parking my car opposite these dubious shops, I glanced through the window of a grubby, white van. Inside, a middle-aged man was smoking heroin from silver foil. Small wonder that most parents have banned their children from walking beside the river.

Belatedly, the burghers of Venlo are endeavouring to reclaim their once safe town. With the backing of the Dutch government, they have launched Operation Hector, a £25 million project aimed at shutting down the drugs denizens.

Andre Rouvoet, an MP for the small Christian Unison party, is among the small number of Dutch politicians who wish they could turn back the clock. Asked what he thought might happen if Britain were to legalise cannabis, he said:”Let me give you some good advice. Don’t. Just don’t.”

And so to Sweden. A generation ago, this fiercely independent nation of nine million souls might easily have gone the way of Amsterdam, but at the height of the bohemian Sixties, something went wrong. The Swedish government had empowered certain named doctors to prescribe narcotics to anyone claiming to be addicted.

The system was widely abused and one of the junkies supplied an overdose to his fiancée, who died. The story caused a national scandal. At roughly the same time, a Swedish professor, Nils Begerot, published a major study of drug misuse. He concluded that soft drugs invariably let to harder ones and that abuse was akin to an epidemic, which spread inexorably through the population.

Thus was Sweden’s hardline policy born. The first laws were drafted in 1968, but they have been sharpened over the years, so that now all narcotics, from cannabis upwards, are regarded seriously, and even their presence in the bloodstream is punishable with prison.

The police camp on the doorsteps of known drug sellers and users, continually stopping and searching them. No drugs offence, however petty, is overlooked. Even small-time cannabis smokers can expect to be arrested and fined, over and over again. If they don’t kick the habit, they might be sent for compulsory treatment in an addiction centre. Some are jailed.

Constantly badgered like this, even hardened habitual offenders throw in the towel. In Malmo’s central prison I spoke to Faruk Haliti, 25, who started using drugs at 14 and later joined a notorious, violent Gothenburg gang. Tired of being hounded, he has opted to end his latest sentence – two years for possessing a machine gun and cocaine – in a therapy unit.

“I’ve been in prison maybe ten times and I’ve had enough,” he said “I’m going to try to straighten myself out.”

The Swedes are determined to prevent more children from growing up like Haliti. To that end, school pupils are required to fill in questionnaires about their drug habits, and where there is evidence of abuse, action is swiftly taken. I saw the evidence of the programme’s efficacy when I ventured into Rosegarde, Malmo, one of Sweden’s toughest high-rise estates, where 70% of its largely immigrant population are jobless.

If this were Peckham, say, or Moss Side, a smorgasbord of drugs would have been on offer. Yet all the teenagers I spoke to there were horrified when I asked whether they smoked cannabis to ease their boredom. “None of our friends takes anything like that,” said Petric Takiri, 15, a Kosovan. “We value our health”.

Whether the Swedish model could ever succeed in Britain is open to question. It would demand huge resources and require a monumental cultural shift. According to Malmo police chief Thomas Servin, it is already too late. “I would like Britain and all the EU countries to follow our example, but I don’t think it will happen,” he said.

“In your country the attitude is different. They sell cannabis openly, and you have this liberal view.” Perhaps he is right, but I have returned home convinced that we should seriously consider giving Swedish-style zero tolerance a try.

Because, faced with the choice of raising my children in dope-fugged Holland or squeaky clean Sweden, I know which country I would choose.

Where school-based prevention programmes disappoint, family interventions have a better record. According to an authoritative review, the one with the best record of all is the US Families Programme now being tried in Britain. Where does it come from, and what is the evidence? Karol Kumpfer originated the programme. The Strengthening Families Programmei is one of the few whose substance use prevention credentials have survived rigorous inspection by independent scholars, in this case a British team who singled it out as the most promising “effective intervention over the longer-term for the primary prevention of alcohol misuse”. Their judgement carries considerable weight because it was based on one of the scrupulously scientific Cochrane reviews. An added attraction is that Strengthening Families’ benefits potentially extend to youth crime and anti-social behaviour, educational attainment, and child welfare, consistent with advice that family interventions should not deal with drugs in isolation. Though the programme and most of the research are US-based, at least one British centre is using it to gain these broader benefits ( The British experience) and at another an evaluation is under way ( Accolade from Cochrane review). Roots: drug using families and primary school children The study which caught the Cochrane reviewers’ eyes involved a version of the programme designed to be universally applicable to the families of secondary school children and tested on mainly rural, white, intact families. However, its origins were in an attempt to help drug using parents do the best for their primary-school age children.5 Patients at a methadone clinic in Salt Lake City provided the impetus. By improving their parenting, they hoped to help their children avoid replicating their own fates and to achieve happiness and success. In response Karol Kumpfer, a developmental psychologist at the University of Utah, created an intervention to reduce the chances that the 6–10-year-old children of problem drug users would themselves later develop drug problems. She planned to achieve this by “improving parent-child relationships … We try to change the family dynamics, to create a more democratic family where they actually have family meetings, talk together, and plan activities together.”  Careful construction Work started in 1983 with a review of research on how drug problems and of existing family programmes which might divert this trajectory. Based largely on the Utah team’s own research, a careful unpicking of how the drug problems of parents affect their children established that disorganised stress in the household often results in a lack of consistent and responsible parenting.7 Parents spend relatively little time with their children, particularly ‘quality time’ enjoying joint activities. Stigma and fear of exposure lead to the social isolation of the family and of the child. To their peers, children from these families can seem ‘strange’, unable to engage in the normal give and take of social interaction or to share their homes and their families with their friends.ii The result is an impoverished social environment which lacks adult supports. Family dysfunction takes its toll on the child in the form of emotional stress, low self-esteem, under-achievement at school, conflict at home, and avoidance of intimate relationships. To meet these needs elements were adapted and blended from existing approaches.8 Despite the achievements of some parent-only approaches, Dr Kumpfer believed that the best response would involve the whole family – parents and children. Ironically given its later transformation into an across-the board (‘universal’) prevention programme, she was also convinced that there was a “qualitative difference” between trying to prevent drug abuse in these high-risk families and preventing recreational and experimental drug use by the children of more typical families. What emerged was the first Strengthening Families Programme. Its basic format has remained unaltered. The weekly sessions last two to three hours. For about an hour parallel groups of children and parents from four to 14 families develop their understandings and skills led by two parent and two child trainers. In a second hour parents and children come together as individual family units to practice the principles they have learned.9 The remaining time is spent in logistics, meals, and enjoyable family activities.5 Its tripartite nature (parents only, children only, then the whole family) departed from previous approaches as did the fact that parents put their learning into effect during the 14 sessions – an opportunity to receive immediate feedback from the trainers.8 During parent-child play sessions parents are coached in how to enjoy their children and to reinforce good behaviour. At first the accent is on building up the positives before tackling the more incendiary issues of limit setting and discipline. The programme is highly structured with detailed manuals, videos and activities, but also highly interactive and designed to be adapted sensitively to the participating families.  The first test: parents in drug treatment The approach was first trialled in Salt Lake City on 90 families with parents in outpatient substance abuse treatment. Though its findings were convincing enough to generate further federal funding, the study was never fully reported in a scientific journal 10 and the accounts we have seem inconsistent. Many studies followed but this remains one of the few to have randomised families to the programme, eliminating the risk that the apparent benefits arose simply because families who opted to undergo it differed from those who did not. Thirty families were randomly allocated to continue with the parent’s normal substance abuse treatment (the controls)9 while 20 each additionally received the Strengthening Families parents’ sessions, these plus the children’s sessions, or the full programme including the parent-child family sessions1 At issue was which approach would generate the greatest before–after improvements. The clear answer was the full programme. Compared to controls, families offered the full intervention improved in parenting, children’s social skills and family relationships. Parents became less depressed and cut their drug use. Children became less aggressive, better behaved, said relationships with other children had improved, and felt more able to express themselves. Among older children could be seen a reduction in the use of tobacco, drugs, and alcohol. The differences were usually substantial and statistically significant. Without family sessions there had been gains in parenting and child social skills but these had not gelled into improved family relationships. It was the package ‘wrapped up’ by parents and children coming together which had made the difference. Adapted for new populations A series of trials followed in which Strengthening Families was adapted for and tested on high-risk families with pre-teenage children from disparate backgrounds.Except for two as yet unpublished studies, none were randomised and only one has been published in a scientific journal.Results from one of the randomised studies are still being analysed. It involved not just US but also Canadian families, probably culturally closer to Britain. Participants were families with children aged 9–12 one of whose parents had a drink problem. They were randomly assigned to a minimal contact control group or to Strengthening Families. An initial report on 365 families who completed before-and-after interviews found significant extra parenting gains in the Strengthening Families group, particularly when the child was a boy. One of the largest of the non-randomised studies involved a mainly poor, multi-ethnic sample of 421 parents and their 703 youngsters aged 6–13. Strengthening Families was compared with a local variant which omitted the joint parent-child sessions found so important in the original study. Again their importance was shown when the full programme led to significantly better family environment, parenting, and child behaviour/emotion outcomes. A five-year follow-up of just the Strengthening Families sample found that the gains had largely persisted, but without a control group this finding can only be considered suggestive. In Hawaii an attempt was made to disseminate the programme throughout schools, churches, and public service organisations. Though multiply flawed, a local evaluation which compared a longer ‘culturally appropriate’ version against the original came up with the interesting finding that the customised version was less beneficial – a warning that though they improve recruitment, such modifications can also undermine the programme by departing from core content or principles. In this case a shift from behavioural training to ‘family values’ sessions could have been the culprit. Hawaii also demonstrated that the prospect of multiple benefits can stimulate support from disparate agencies, enabling large-scale implementation. It also underlined the importance of skilled trainers, these big families numbers were best kept low) if drop-out is to be minimised.  Rural black mothers benefit For America with its large black drug treatment caseload, whether the programme would work with these families was a major issue. An adapted Strengthening Families’ 14-session version has been tested mainly on high-risk families with primary school children, the seven-session version as a universal substance use prevention programme for secondary school children, but both have been used in other roles. For both there is evidence of improved family, parental and child functioning and of a retardation in the uptake of substance use and a reduction in its severity. For drinking in particular, the seven-session programme is considered the most promising approach we have, but research on this version is confined to a few studies in US rural communities, while most research on the 14-session version has consisted of uncontrolled studies. Nevertheless the consistency and bulk of positive findings warrants serious consideration of the approach not just for substance use prevention but as a means of promoting pro-social child development in general. It is feasible to implement in Britain and a formal evaluation is under way. A version was tested on 62 black, single-mother families in rural Alabama in a study which featured a one-year follow-up.Four results echo other work on the programme. First, recruitment beyond women already in treatment at a mental health centre proved difficult. The solution was to employ a recruiter from the same background who enrolled participants from venues such as housing estates, churches, and classes for problem children. ‘Indigenous’ recruiters also proved valuable in later trials. Secondly, over 80% of the recruited families virtually completed the 14 sessions, typical (perhaps after teething problems) of the programme. Thirdly, the most at-risk families made the greatest gains – in this case mothers who used illicit drugs as well as alcohol. Here there was more scope to normalise the children’s and the parents’ functioning, including their drug use. Children of less at-risk families improved only in the areas where they happened to be problematic in the first place. The implication is that the programme works by helping families with relatively severe problems move closer to the normal range. For those already within this range, it makes less difference. Lastly, the degree to which parents spoke up in the group sessions made no difference to how much they and their children profited from them – a finding later replicated. Black drug using fathers queue up to join The replication came in research on black fathers with 6–12-year-old children. In preparation the Alabama manual was tailored for the inner city and renamed the ‘Safe Haven Programme’. It was trialed on the residents of a Salvation Army drug treatment centre in Detroit, using drug counsellors as leaders. Again the recruiting agent was crucial, a charismatic ex-addict drug counsellor. Another typical feature was the integration of the programme into the life of ordinary community venues (local churches at night), destigmatising participation and enhancing sustainability. Also typical was the provision of child care, meals, transport, and other basic supports, much from church members or the treatment agency. These promoted recruitment and retention as did the advent of the specially tailored programme.vii At first low, the retention rate rose to 80% where it remained for four years as applicants came to exceed capacity. Within two years, 88 families had entered the programme. Most had below-poverty incomes and half the children had fallen seriously behind at school, but still 58 families came to at least 10 of the 12 sessions.For the analysis they were split into families whose adults (not just the father) consumed higher versus lower amounts of alcohol and illicit drugs. Before-to-after gains were concentrated in the high drug use families where there were substantial improvements in family and parental illicit drug use, parental depression, confidence in parenting ability, time spent with the children, in the childrens’ delinquency, aggression, and withdrawn or compulsive behaviour, and some improvements in family ‘atmosphere’. Parents also reported significant improvements in their child’s relationship with school.  Feel the weight Though encouraging, in both studies of black families parents chose to commit to the sessions,viii giving the intervention a head start by selecting out less committed families, and neither had a control group who did not go through the programme. Without this we cannot know whether in these families the improvements would have occurred anyway Practice points from this article This systematic review points to the potential value of the Strengthening Families Program … for the primary prevention of alcohol misuse. Accolade from Cochrane review Strengthening Families received a boost when a Cochrane review team led by Professor David Foxcroft singled it out as the most promising “effective intervention over the longer-term for the primary prevention of alcohol misuse”. Foxcroft’s team examined over 600 reports of studies of psychosocial or educational interventions intended to prevent alcohol use or misuse by young people. Just 56 were relevant and rigorous enough to be included in the review, and just three reported alcohol use or misuse reductions which persisted over a follow-up period of at least three years. One was the seriously flawed study of Life Skills Training analysed previously in  and another investigated an approach tailored for Native Americans. That left Strengthening Families, specifically the study in Iowa where the seven session version was offered across the board to families with children in the early years of secondary school. This featured a “strong design, and … a consistent pattern of effectiveness across the three drinking behaviour variables”. Unusually, its effectiveness“seemed to increase over time,reflecting the developmentally orientated …model on which the intervention is based”. To the original analysis David Foxcroft added one accounting for children not reinterviewed at the last follow-up. This assumed that their behaviour matched that of children from control group families. The result was an estimate that for every nine children whose families had been offered the Iowa programme, one was prevented from starting to drink, to drink without permission, or getting drunk; the last two were statistically significant. These ratios were around twice as good as those for the other two programmes and more consistent across different drinking measures. It was enough to persuade Professor Foxcroft to call for a project to “translate, develop and pilot the Strengthening Families Programme in the United Kingdom”. One such trial is under way, but using it to help troubled families rather than as a universal intervention. Run by the Trust for the Study of Adolescence, the project’s main aim is to test whether involving young people in a family programme is more effective than parenting programmes focused on parents or carers. Participants will be drawn from families referred by the courts because of the behaviour of their children. One of the five services in the study is using Strengthening Families as an example of a whole-family approach. The project ends in August 2004. Source: DRUG AND ALCOHOL FINDINGS ISSUE 10 2004

By Daniel Bent Lasers are beams of ordinary light that are made powerful by the fact that the individual waves of ordinary light are in sync, aligned and concentrated in a manner consistent with the laws of physical science. Our efforts at drug prevention policy can be made extraordinarily more powerful if we understand the science of what makes members of a community intolerant towards drug use and concentrate our individual messages consistent with that science to motivate the majority to actively stand up against permissive drug policies. This paper explains how. What is necessary is educating the vast majority who don’t use drugs about how other people’s drug use negatively affects them. This can create a social climate hostile to drug use. Such a change can bring back an America where drug use is negligible. Achieving that change in public attitude should be a major element of the future strategy against drugs. Educating Drug Users is a Waste of Resources: Here’s Why – Attempting to educate current drug users is a waste of drug education resources. For drug users, drug education is up against the basic reward or survival mechanism of the brain. Reason and cognitive thought are simply no match for a chemically stimulated reward center of the brain. A drug user who has had the pleasure or reward mechanism of their brain intensely stimulated by cocaine or crack, as obvious examples, or those who use depressants and thus avoid anxiety and pain are unlikely to modify their drug using behaviour in response to drug education. An explanation of the brain and its operation demonstrates why. First, pleasure is the brain telling the body that what it did to achieve the pleasure was what it should do and that it should do it again. Two familiar primary natural stimulators of the pleasure or reward mechanism are food and sex. This principally takes place deep in primitive areas of the brain. It is our basic survival mechanism. Areas of the human cortex were added to assist humans to achieve such pleasure and avoid pain to improve the chance of survival. For example, some of the cells added to the cortex enabled humans to see in colour and thus enabled the more successful gathering of edible fruit. Thus the additional cortex was not a substitute for the existing reward mechanism but served it. Second, the forebrain which is a large part of the cortex which allows us to learn in the sense of drug education or indeed any “thinking” process was also designed to increase our ability to obtain those things that stimulate the reward mechanism with pleasure or increase our ability to avoid pain. It allowed us to engage in cooperative hunting, planning, and other behavior to improve our survival. When the reward mechanism is “hot-wired” by drugs, an attempt through education to change drug-using behavior is likely to be rejected. When the reward mechanism already has its pleasure, the operation of the forebrain is superfluous and the natural process of reward from the use of the forebrain is unused. This was demonstrated during an experiment at Concordia University in Montreal where rats were given unlimited access to cocaine. They rejected opportunities for food and sex in favour of the drug.