by Kathy Gyngell on Tuesday, 04 August 2009 09:51 Last week brought a new twist to the myth that law enforcement – hyperbolically designated as ‘prohibition’ by the pro drugs lobby – rather than drug use itself is the root of the country’s drug problem.
Tom Feiling, an advocate of legitimising of cocaine, a drug which pretty much he alone rates as neither dangerous nor addictive, started off the week’s drug debate. Plugging his new book, the equally hyperbolically titled, ‘The Candy Machine: how cocaine took over the world’, he pushed the view that pro drugs activists want us to buy – that you can’t stop people using drugs so don’t try. Conveniently bypassed was the fact that cocaine has only ‘taken over’ those countries where enforcement is weak and penalties and asset stripping are rarely or ineffectively imposed. He did not point out that the UK, far from being draconian in anything other than its imposition of methadone, is one such country – hence its rates of cocaine use 2 to 3 times higher than nearly every other country in Europe.
Not everyone bought into Tom’s take on the subject, Stuart Holmes, a medical student, for one. Expressing his horror at the impact of cocaine ‘on swathes of the population to whom the NHS directs so many of its resources’ he found ‘Tom Feiling’s tirade against the illegality of cocaine and other hard drugs a little galling.’ Instead of the balanced exposition of cocaine use in this country, discussion of the source of cocaine and the legal framework surrounding the drug here that he had expected, he found ‘a thinly veiled manifesto for the legalisation of hard drugs.’
Nor, did former Police Commander, Brian Paddick, he who infamously instigated the Brixton experiment of warning rather than arresting people found with cannabis (and many of the negative consequences that followed). Forcefully dissociating himself from Feiling on Sky News he stressed the total unacceptability of both cocaine and crack cocaine, outlining the violence and destruction of lives its use has led and does lead to, quite apart from that involved in its trafficking. He should know.
Nor, clearly, did he think much of the UK Drug Policy Commission’s (UKDPC) contribution to the debate also published this week disingenuously titled “Moving towards Real Impact Drug Enforcement”. When confronted with their innovatory contribution that some drug dealers but not others – the less violent ones – should officially be tolerated because (according to the UKDPC) arresting them ‘can increase violent crime’, he made clear this approach was both impracticable and wrong. His scepticism and his call for nothing less that a total change of social attitudes to a non acceptance of drug use – something singularly missing from any of the UKDPC reports – was an unexpected breath of fresh air. If we can change attitudes to smoking in a generation we can change them to drug use, he declared.
So where have the UKDPC’s ideas come from? They are premised on a variant of the discredited policy idea that only some drug use is harmful which, in this wishful two world view of drug use, can be isolated. That this lobby should make the tactical switch of applying their ideas to enforcement now their preferred but ethically dubious policy of applying liquid handcuffs to so called HHCU’s (high harm causing users) to stop their acquisitive crime has so categorically failed, is perhaps not surprising. After all if you believe that most drug use is non harmful then you are bound to have to think that most dealing is not harmful either – or only if the strong arm of the law comes down on it.
Unbelievably this is the gist of the UKDPC’s Alice in Wonderland view of the illicit drug trade – that the violence that ensues is a function of police actions/enforcement not of the trade – so good dealers can be tolerated while only bad (i.e. violent) dealers will be targeted. Well that’s all right then – all dealers can no doubt be ‘good’ if no one gets in their way. But heaven protect the children, families and communities exposed to the plying of a sanction less trade on their doorsteps with no police to support or protect them. To say nothing of how such a policy would make the UK an even softer target, turn us into an even larger market and encourage more use and incremental damage.
This is political correctness or liberalism taken too far. Will we be blaming the police action as opposed to inaction for murder and robbery next?
Yet startlingly in all the prime time coverage respectfully devoted by the BBC’s Today programme to the report – summaries thoughout the morning each with Home Affairs Editor Mark Easton’s imprimatur – none of these points were raised. The premise of the report was uncritically accepted. Yet as well as being numbingly illogical the report is nothing less than a formula for the backdoor legalisation of drugs’ trafficking – ‘a harm reduction stepping stone to legalisation’, as drugs policy expert, Professor Neil McKeganey, has called it.
According to McKeganey, “the form of policing UKDPC are advocating would in reality give rise to the creation of areas of our cities and our rural communities in which drug use had effectively become legalised. Such a policy raises the frankly idiotic scenario in which we are punishing drug users in some areas and accepting them in others (hardly a sound basis for English law).”
For my own part I would like to see Roger Howard (CEO of the UKDPC) or Dame Ruth Runciman (its Chairman) going to those communities they would designate as suffering minimal harm from drug dealing and which, as a result of their counsel, would be forced to accept the existence of local drug markets. My guess is that these are unlikely be the ones in which they themselves reside.
To judge by the reported comments of Bill Hughes, the agency director of SOCA, following the report’s publication, the thinking of some of those currently involved in senior drug enforcement positions may be equally muddled. He, it would seem, accepts the idea that the report asserts that we focus too much on seizures and arrests, has abdicated the idea of vigorous enforcement and is misguidedly advocating this implausible approach. The UK’s already declining drug seizures and arrests, seen in this context, are even more revealing (see my report, The Phoney War on Drugs) not least by contrast with Holland’s rising cocaine seizures and drug arrests.
The need for smarter enforcement is undeniable. But not of the UKDPC’s interpretation of the concept. Nothing less than a top to bottom rethink – a new, committed and well resourced national strategy with local action to protect our borders, to hit middle and local markets, keeping operations flexible, adaptable and most importantly ongoing – is called for.
This, not the UKDPC’s policy of quasi legalisation, will protect Antonia Senior’s daughter as she grows up; and not her mother’s appallingly ill thought ideas in the Times second ‘legalising’ article in 5 days; the one which brought this particular week’s drug debate offerings to an exhausting end.
Category: prisons and addiction
Comments
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Backdoor legalisation
John J. Coleman, PhD, presiden 2009-08-04 13:22:17
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An excellent commentary that exposes the illogical premise that more of a bad thing is good for us. It is not the poor of the world who beg for the legalisation of drugs but the elite who can afford to destroy the lives of the poor to preserve their own self-indulgent mandarinic lifestyle. Have they no shame in calling up the hallowed symbols of liberty and compassion to justify their drug lust? The tyrant always seeks to convince the innocent that the effect is causal and not the other way around. To understand this, one only needs to look at the level of violence wherever weak, corrupt, or non-existent government intervention in the drugs trade has produced de facto legalization.
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Professor
Neil McKegney 2009-08-04 15:24:29
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The UKDPC have called for enforcement resources to be targetted at those areas within which the drugs trade has caused greatest harm. This is a variant of the current drug policy that is focussed on the most harmful drugs (heroin and cocaine) and which by implication increasingly accepts other forms of drug use. However enforcement needs to tackle the fledgling drug markets with as much vigour as it tackles the well developed drug markets if it is to offer an effective deterrent to drug use and drug dealing. The idea that enforcement agencies increasingly desert those communities where drug use is occurring but not yet reaching the level of harm of other communities is simply a recipe for enforcement failure. What one wonders would the UKDPC say to any community that was seeking enforcement protection but which did not yet reach the bar of high harm that the UKDPC envisages? Communities need protection from the drugs trade and that more than anything else is what enforcement needs to provide. The idea of triaging enforcement resources and concentrating on the most harmed areas may sound attractive on paper but in reality may amount to no more than an abrogation of our responsibility to protect all of the communities affected by the drugs trade.
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UKDPC-Alice in Wonderland policies
David Raynes 2009-08-04 17:18:23
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If the ideas of UKDPC on allowing drug dealing/trafficking in some places but not others were to be followed (and Bill Hughes of SOCA apparently & allegedly gave it some positive consideration!)-the limited current system of control would be further undermined. Is that what UKDPC want? Actually this idea and the adverse consequences were demonstrated in several recent episodes of “The Wire”. Of course it is necessary to prioritise, THAT is a different thing from what is being suggested.
Give some dealers/traffickers (even relatively) safe passage in some areas
of activity by location or by methods and experienced law enforcers KNOW, dealers will gravitate there and expand their activity there and grow operations through that ignored system/location/method.
The objective of enforcement policy should be to make dealing and
trafficking a risky business and UK Plc a hard target rather than a soft target for external traffickers, most especially for those who are not British based. Internally to the UK, the objective of enforcement policy should be to make dealing/traficking a risky and unpredictable
business-everywhere. A clear secondary objective is to deter new entrants to the business. To suggest otherwise, as is simply nonesense. It is very much against the experience and evidence of the last 35 years of enforcement and of course would further undermine the current very weak overall UK Plc efforts. Seizures & arrests are not always the answer but they certainly help. Attrition and deterrence without those measures eg by seizing cash & assets can be undertaken but it has not been wonderfully effective so far. Local addict dealers can be persuaded into treatment by making their efforts non viable. Police need to work in partnership with other agencies to achieve this. Of course there has to BE some treatment available!
Containment of traficking IS possible, especially for an island nation. It needs, in the UK, much better coordination of effort between the Border Agency/Customs, SOCA & Constabularies. Does the Home Office understand why this has not happenned? Who was tasked to lead this? Was anyone? If not, why not?
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Drugs & Law Enforcement
Terry Byrne 2009-08-04 21:39:07
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UKDPC is right – but only so far as it calls for smarter law enforcement and says that law enforcement cannot eradicate drugs markets. Beyond that, UKDPC shows a low understanding and no sensible ideas about focusing law enforcement effort that is only matched by Bill Hughes of SOCA it would seem. Law enforcement can, at best, only provide a framework of deterrence and prevention so that other vital factors – parents, families and communities, schools, public figures, employers and health agencies – can secure and maintain our UK society’s rejection of drug misuse.
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correcting a number of errors and misconceptions
Steve Rolles 2009-08-04 22:03:50
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“the myth that law enforcement – hyperbolically designated as ‘prohibition’ by the pro drugs lobby – rather than drug use itself is the root of the country’s drug problem.”
- ‘prohibition’ is a term in wide use to describe the current approach to drug control – in contrast to regulated markets or free markets. There is no controversy over this and nothing ‘hyperbolic’ about it; it is a purely descriptive term – one used by the UK Government in drug strategies, and by the UNODC.
- ‘The pro-drugs lobby’ is an deliberately derogatory term based on the absurd premise that because you determine your views as anti-drug, those who disagree with you must be ‘pro-drug’. This is a classic example of a false binary, ignoring the obvious reality of many people who are passionately anti-drug but also support reform of ineffective and unjust policy and law – including a debate on legal regulation. Transform’ supporters include bereaved parents, religious leaders and public health professionals. Law Enforcement Against Prohibition is made up of over 10,000 serving and enforcement professionals – are they ALL pro drug? Please stop using this offensive and childish slur.
- finally, the central point of your opening sentence is wrong. Reform advocates such as Transform make a clear distinction between harms created by drug use – for which we advocate a public health response (treatment, education, prevention) and harms created or exacerbated by prohibition/ illicit markets – for which we advocate a rational exploration of regulated market alternatives. You should be aware of this from our meetings, and our publications in which it is clearly stated and which you have referenced.
Regarding Tom Feiling’s piece – it was clearly an opinion piece, and he is entitled to his opinion, just as you are . The reality of cocaine use/demand is a fact – it is the idea that an enforcement response can eradicate it that is delusional, as evidenced by the past 40 or so years. You, again, provide no evidence that increased enforcement is a key variable in decreased use (there is little/none as the WHO found in a massive global research project published last year to which I have directed you previously), beyond your cherry picked examples. Interesting that you again bypass the US experience again re cocaine use and enforcement spend / punitiveness.
Paddick’s views, like Cameron’s, seem to have shifted since he moved into the political mainstream, but clash with those of another met commander you have failed to mention, who responded in the Times this week: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/letters/a rticle6736613.ece
likewise Eddie Ellison former head of the met drug squad, and numerous other police (www.LEAP.cc’ etc).
I don’t have time to deconstruct your analysis of the UKDPC report, beyond highlighting that you have confused legalisation (legal regulation of markets and supply) with de-facto decriminlisation through tolerant policing of certain activities (use or low level dealing). The two are entirely different propositions, the UKDPC having made great efforts to distance itself from the former, whatever conspiratorial silliness you appear to be implying.
Again you provide no evidence that increased enforcement reduces use or more importantly (as a pragamatist) reduces harms, and fail to engage with the overwhelming evidence that enforcement has been largely counterproductive.
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Drug Free Scotland
Bill Cameron 2009-08-04 22:47:13
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As a parent for whom the jargon and politics of the battling “pro” and “anti” lobbies is confusing, the latest suggestion from UKDPC to allow drug dealing in certain areas and not in others, merely adds to our confusion. Surely some member of UKDPC can imagine the scenario from a parent’s point of view and conclude that the dealers will expand their activity in the areas relatively ignored by law enforcement. Current drug policy does not, as it seems to have been accepted, focus on only the most harmful drugs and dismisses any other form of drug misuse. UKDPC would be hard pressed to single out one area in Scotland where the uncontested violence and corruption due to drug abuse does not exist.
Why are parents lulled into a false sense of “ your kids are going to use drugs anyway, so just let’s stop trying to stop them”? Rubbish! – not in my home – and anyway who told you that? And are we also to ignore the effects of drugs: stealing; violence; corruption; family breakdown; illness’ death? Certainly not – sorry boys, the two go together.
No one wishes legalisation but currently the state exists where at one side of the street a young person can be lifted for possession of Cannabis (even perhaps for his parent’s M.S.) and at the other side of the street there are lines of young addicts waiting to collect their kit from a needle exchange (no exchange of needles ever evident) after which the go home to use Cocaine or Heroin – legally?
Smarter enforcement? Cooler catching? There is no argument that we require countrywide change across the board, adequately resourced to squash local drug markets. In my own unhappy and tiresome experience that has ever happened.
I am told it was Antonia Senior who quoted “Drugs are evil. Legalise them now” and who went on to protest her fear that her daughter would join the “addict” club. I would advise her to speak to a parent whose child is already a paid up member of that elite club.
Harm reduction, legalisation – call it what you like – is a paraphrase or extension of what the snake said to Eve. “You will surely NOT die……………..(implied) for I will teach you how to sin safely!”
So let’s get smart and expose such things so that social thinking people are able to promote their human rights in their own society. Everything else has not failed. It has not happened yet!
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The effect of increased enforcement
David Raynes 2009-08-04 23:08:18
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Steve Rolles you say:
“no evidence that increased enforcement is a key variable in decreased use”.
There is plenty of evidence & well founded suspicion that REDUCED enforcement in the UK has been a variable in increased use of drugs and pecifically certain drugs.
Some recent examples:-
Post 1999, Customs stopped targetting the main importers of cannabis, (though still acting aginst it when found), the market became flooded and in the words of one academic analyst “mature”. That led on to-may indeed have influenced- the unwise declassifying of cannabis, the weird “Lambeth experiment” (wider drug dealing effects conveniently forgotten by UKDPC?) and also the ubiquity of supply and use that we experienced around 2003/4. (Though just maybe I agree, use is falling a little now in older, better educated age groups as a result of increased publicity about harms and reclassification upwards). Even that conclusion is uncertain, cannabis may just have become unfashionable, in favour of cocaine, crack and other drugs.
At the end of the 1990s Customs to a certain extent, ignored or were by what was considered THEN, as pragmatic prioritisation choice, under-active against the organisers of cocaine courier traffic targetted into black communities. This was done in favour of targetting larger bulk consignments. It was significant in effect because the courier traffic was quite suddenly, in mid to late 90s, feeding a crack explosion. This crack explosion-forcast at the end of the 80s by Bob Stutman had been succesfully held off for nearly ten years.
More recently SOCA has focussed on “upstream disruption” and been noticeably unsuccsessful against both heroin and cocaine, direct, UK imports. SOCA has also often neglected to service Customs/Border Agency cold finds (having taken in the resources that previously did that work). They may have learned from that major error though by now and are changing their approach. SOCA is to date, much less successful against serious drugs traficking into the UK than the agencies that operated before it was formed. Cocaine is now ubiquitous in a way it was not, even five years ago. Seizures are down, arrests are down, interdiction of direct smuggling by boat is ata 15 year low.
I do not expect you to know about these things, they are not within your experience nor are they easy to understand from published sources but if you leap in to defend the silliness of UKDPC you ought to make a better effort to understand the history.
There is no defence for the utter garbage of what UKDPC are trying to suggest. Nature abhors a vacuum, so self-evidently does crime. Without a reasonable level of enforcement against any type of organised & profitable criminality it is highly likely to increase. For your evidence look at societies where the power of the state breaks down or the writ of the limited authority that exists, does not run.
It is not just the experience in the examples I have given you, I could give you many more.
Are you supporting UKDPC because legalisation of drugs is what you campaign for and because, having failed to persuade the public and the two relevant dominant political parties, you see causing a creeping breakdown of the present system as your best way forward?
Observers are entitled to be suspicious of both your motives and those of UKDPC. Neither of you in my opinion, are likely to be part of any solution to the UKs worsening drug problems. You have been part of the paid advocacy for liberalisation/legalisation, about which I so often complain and which I suggest has been part of the mixed messages about drugs which has so worsened the UK position in comparison with some neighbours.
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Steve Rolles 2009-08-05 09:41:11
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David – none of the examples you cite demonstrate that enforcement has a major impact on overall use, misuse or harm. Its impacts – when they do occur – will largely be displacement – between regions, or criminal networks(or occasionally between drugs) – this is true from producer country activity through to domestic street dealing. I think you identify the real issue re cannabis when you note that the fall in use was probably due to a shift in fashion. Determinants of drug use are largely social, cultural and economic, not enforcement/punishment related.
The fact that there is no international correlation between levels of enforcement and levels of availability and use is an inconvenient reality that you and Kathy both choose to avoid, instead cherry picking examples that support a link (eg sweden)and ignoring those that don’t (eg the US). Neither of you has ever cited or responded to the WHO study I have repeatedly flagged up.
Re UKDPC – we support their call for better evidence and I have personally been impressed with some of the research and analysis they have commissioned and published. We have, however, been publicly critical of much of their analysis (I had a critique of a previous report published in the Guardian – and a recent blog critiqued their new crime report – search the blog for UKDPC), where we disagree with it or feel it misses the point. This is as it should be and is no different from our engagement with Kathy’s work or anyone else’s.
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to enforce or not…
simon aalders 2009-08-05 10:05:44
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For the UKDPC to arrive at the conclusion that we should hand over communities to drug dealing, to avoid conflict between gangs was what i heard in the report, is astounding.
As has been stated, if the UKDPC think this is a good idea perhaps they should live in an area blighted by drug dealing and gang culture, or talk to the families trying to bring up children and live fulfilling lives in those areas before making such crass public statements.
There are numerous failed examples of apeasement to criminal gangs across the globe we do not need another failed experiment in the UK. The victims would not be shown on TV, nor gain the headlines as they struggle through the consequences of increased criminal activity. Those that propagate such policies will be long gone and deffinitely nowhere near any of those areas.
In my local area the community praise the Police for sustained enforcement activity, they want the public services to act vigourously to deal with drug/gang culture, and they want drug addicts treated properly – by that I mean taken off drugs to give them the best opportunity to turn their lives around.
They don’t want society to throw up it’s hands and say we give up, it’s too hard.
If the UKDPC have run out of steam and this idea tells me they have, there are plenty of others out here actually making a difference for communities.
Legalisation is no solution.
Decriminalistaion is not a solution.
Proper treatment, enforcement and community involement are.
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Displacement of criminal activity
David Raynes 2009-08-05 10:10:06
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Steve Rolles you say :
“Its impacts – when they do occur – will largely be displacement – between regions, or criminal networks(or occasionally between drugs) – this is true from producer country activity through to domestic street dealing”.
Well exactly. You make my very point. THAT is why UKDPC are fundamentally not just misguided, they are categorically wrong. They demonstrate no understanding of how crime operates. What they suggest is intellectually unsound. Displacement quite obviously operates in both directions. It was once said, I think by Da Costa, that countries get the drug problems they deserve. The UK has one of the worst drug problems in Europe now, it was not always thus (my historical view on high level traficking extends back 40 years) and it has got worse at an accelerating rate in the last 15 years compared to some of our neighbours. Precisely the period during which those at the top of UKDPC (Ruth Runciman & Roger Howard) have been most influential on policy and most active proselytising. Correlation is not causality but it is certainly a starting place for analysis. It should cause policy makers in the Home Office to think more clearly about why we are where we are and the history. They should do that and you should not ignore it.
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Good and bad drug dealers
Derek 2009-08-05 10:31:34
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Kathy wrote:
“Unbelievably this is the gist of the UKDPC’s Alice in Wonderland view of the illicit drug trade – that the violence that ensues is a function of police actions/enforcement not of the trade…”
So the likes of Al Capone were not a function of alcohol prohibition then? How come the off licence down the road here in Norwich isn’t run by the mob? It is, after all, the same drug being sold and only the regime it’s sold under is different.
Likewise whilst we’re discussing drug harms was not the existence of moonshine or bathtub gin down to the prohibition laws? Quite clearly they were Kathy. Quite clearly the prohibition law creates problems all of its own and these are in addition to any harms drugs can cause.
To deny any connection between the violence and other harms of the illegal drugs supply side with the application of prohibition is surely to deny reality and worse, to ignore the lessons of history.
Almost worse is to write that “law enforcement – hyperbolically designated as ‘prohibition’ by the pro drugs lobby”. Please Kathy, call a spade a spade. What we have is prohibition and is correctly called prohibition. Defend it by all means, but please don’t pretend it’s something else.
It’s interesting also that you claim cocaine use has become established in countries with liberal regimes whilst ignoring the situation in the USA, the leader of the war on drugs and hardly a “liberal” regime. Actually the most compelling reason for the growth of the Euro zone cocaine market is probably the Euro with its usefully high denominations.
It’s very telling though that after all this time the issue of drug law reform not only hasn’t gone away but is again gaining ground. The fact that it’s gaining ground not only here, but in the home of prohibition the USA is most illuminating.
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Corrigendum
ukdpc 2009-08-05 11:13:07
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We would like to correct some of the misreading of the UKDPC review on enforcement which Kathy and others have made.
In fact the review is all about making the best use of enforcement resources. It is thus about targeting supply side interventions more effectively, not giving up on enforcement as some have suggested. The thrust of our approach is about using a focus on the wide range of harms that individuals and communites experience from drug markets to stimulate innovation and to encourage assessment of impact to ensure that the maximum benefit is achieved.
We would urge people to read the reports themselves rather than assume that all that is written about them in the media or on blogs is accurate. The full reports can be found on our website at
http://www.ukdpc.org.uk/publications.shtml
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Drug enforcement and Drug Prevalence
Neil McKeganey 2009-08-05 11:56:15
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It is puzzling that UKDPC having authored the report on enforcement have not contributed to its blog discussions. However taking up the point made by Steve Rolles that there is no evidence of a link between enforcement and drug consumption. Quite the reverse is indeed the case since none of the currently illegal drugs are consumed at the same level as the legal drugs (tobacco and alcohol). The experience with these two legalised drugs is powerful evidence of the potential level of consumption of the illegal drugs were they to be legalised. As I have pointed out to Steve Rolles before in China at the time of the opium wars an estimated 20% of the population were thought to be addicted to opium. This shows us that there is nothing in the drugs themselves that necessarily limits their appeal to only a tiny minority of the population. If organisations like Transform truly believe that enforcement has no evident impact on level of use one wonders why they spend so much time lobbying for a change in drug laws and enforcement practices.
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Prohibition
Alison Hughes 2009-08-05 11:58:00
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If prohibition is so good – why isn’t Kathy Gyngell campaigning for the prohibition of the two most dangerous drugs in th UK – alcohol and nicotine? Instead she focuses her attention on an emotional and ill-informed attack on methadone, which is a useful treatment in helping people come off street drugs and changing their lives around. This does happen and a lot of people do eventually come off methadone but it takes a long time.
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legalisation and drug prevalence
Neil McKeganey 2009-08-05 12:00:18
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Taking up the point made by Steve Rolles that there is no evidence of a link between enforcement and drug consumption. Quite the reverse is indeed the case since none of the currently illegal drugs are consumed at the same level as the legal drugs (tobacco and alcohol). The experience with these two legalised drugs is powerful evidence of the potential level of consumption of the illegal drugs were they to be legalised. As I have pointed out to Steve Rolles before in China at the time of the opium wars an estimated 20% of the population were thought to be addicted to opium. This shows us that there is nothing in the drugs themselves that necessarily limits their appeal to only a tiny minority of the population. If organisations like Transform truly believe that enforcement has no evident impact on level of use one wonders why they spend so much time lobbying for a change in drug laws and enforcement practices
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legalisation and drug prevalence
Derek Williams 2009-08-05 13:04:16
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Neil McKeganey wrote: “none of the currently illegal drugs are consumed at the same level as the legal drugs (tobacco and alcohol)”.
Whilst this may be true, illegal drugs aren’t (or haven’t been) advertised and promoted. This is especially true for alcohol of course which is marketed ruthless at young people with designer drinks and drug speak advertising. Tobacco use in recent years has dropped considerably partly due to advertising bans and suchlike.
Regarding illegal drugs, we don’t really know how many people take them of course. The number of people who use cannabis is of a comparable order to the number who smoke tobacco and no-one would pretend the estimates for that number are anything better than an underestimate.
If the law was so effective, how are the high levels of use in the US explained? Or come to that the success of the Portuguese regime?
And please, we are all agreed that despite what Kathy might think, what we have out there is prohibition, isn’t it?
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Your Times letter 30/07/09
John Watson 2009-08-05 15:00:28
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Kathy,
In your letter to The Times 30/07/09, you say: “As cannabis use rises so, too, does psychosis.”
I have been looking for statistics that show this, as it would be almost certain proof that cannabis causes psychosis. However, I have been unable to do so.
I have found “Assessing the impact of cannabis use on trends in diagnosed schizophrenia in the United Kingdom from 1996 to 2005.” (PubMed: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19560900 ), “Between 1996 and 2005 the incidence and prevalence of schizophrenia and psychoses were either stable or declining. [...] In conclusion, this study did not find any evidence of increasing schizophrenia or psychoses in the general population from 1996 to 2005.”
Which seems to contradict your statement.
Where did your statistics come from, please?
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Director Crew 2000
John Arthur 2009-08-05 17:18:05
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‘If we were starting with a blank canvas which drugs would be legal and which illegal’ is a well practiced tool in substance use training (attitudes to substance use) which we have used with professionals, young people and community groups for many years now. It is amazing how many would put alcohol in the illegal bracket and allow many of the currently illegal drugs to be sold ‘under regulation’. This is not people who are ‘pro drugs’ or indeed soley people who have suffered alcohol or other drug probems themselves or in their family, but a wide range of professionals across health, social work, police and the justice system. Kathy, as someone who has lost a lot of family & friends through addiction and dependency and who thinks that there are serious flaws in our present system I am saddened by your Bush-esque like pronouncement that everyone who is not happy with the present drug laws and think there may be other solutions must be ‘pro drugs’. Nothing could be further from the truth and I’d like you to at least take that comment back and consider your rhetoric in the future. Of course you are entitled to your opinion as we all are, how else are we to achieve consensus as a society, however your remarks are at best often ill considered and increasingly appear to be deliberately provocative and insulting. To what ends I can only imagine.
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Steve Rolles 2009-08-05 18:52:32
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I await – from Kathy, David, Neil, or anyone, some evidence showing a statistically significant link between enforcement spend or punitiveness of enforcement and levels of use or drug harm between states (or regions), or some comment on the WHO (not pro-drug crazies) study last year the headline conclusion of which was;
“Globally, drug use is not distributed evenly and is not simply related to drug
policy, since countries with stringent user-level illegal drug policies did not have lower levels of use than countries with liberal ones.”
Degenhard et al, World Health Organisation, 2008 ‘Toward a Global View of Alcohol, Tobacco,
Cannabis, and Cocaine Use: Findings from the WHO World Mental Health Surveys’
Available in full online
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Drug harm and enforcement
Neil McKeganey 2009-08-06 06:24:28
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Steve an absolutely fundamental assumption of the legalisation position adopted by Transform and other organisations is that the greatest harm associated with drug use arises from the enforcement and what you call punitive drug policies. It is that assumption which in essence underpins your arguments for legalisation as being the most effective means of reducing drug harm. But where is the quantitative evidence that shows enforcement is a greater source of drug harm than drug use itself?
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drug harms vs policy harms
Steve Rolles 2009-08-06 10:47:47
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Its more complicated than that Neil. The nature of the drugs used, the way in which they are used and the environments in which they are used – are all negatively impacted by prohibition and the illicit anarchic underground culture controlled by criminal entrepreneurs it has created. So drug use itself becomes more harmful under prohibition than it would under a regulated system controlled by the appropriate state authorities, one in which a regulatory environment could progressively encourage a shift in culture towards safer products, behaviours (including abstinence), and using environments.
This is quite aside from the secondary harms created by prohibition in terms of crime, corruption, destabilisation of producer countries, conflict, environmental damage, human rights abuses, erosion of respect for authority and so on. I have made this argument very clearly in a number of publications comparing a user of illicit heroin to one on a heroin prescription.
Which causes more harm is impossible to gleam in this context – its the wrong question. More important is that harm is greater under the current regime than it would be under alternative approaches – which is the core of our argument – (something that in no way makes us ‘pro-drug’ as Kathy, Costa, David and others -but not you Im pleased to say- continue to childishly parrot). We also argue that the political nature of prohibition interferes with the development of evidence based responses, by immunizing the policy from scrutiny and diverting resources away from proven public health interventions into demonstrably counterproductive enforcement ones.
I’m wary of blaming enforcement per se, as that appears to put the blame on the police/army, when in fact they are merely the expression of a political program or ideology – ie prohibition; which is punitive by its very nature (it establishes a set of rules and punishements for breaking them) and place within the criminal justice system (not something I have determined). Would you say prohibition was non punitive, and if so how would you describe it?
And meanwhile, how about an answer to my other questions?
Kathy – why do you never get involved in the blog discussions that follow your comment pieces? I think you are possibly missing the point of blogs – which are supposed to be about dialogue.
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Drug Harm and Enforcement
Neil McKeganey 2009-08-06 17:54:24
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Steve I take your point that the ways in which drug use may be harmful are many and varied but in essence you must surely be operating with some notion of the amount of harm associated with the legal position of certain drugs relative to the quantity of harm associated with the consumption of those drugs in whatever legal context. If you are not then the prospect arises that you may well be arguing for the legalisation of substances that are substantially harmful in their own right and where the quantity of harm associated with their use may be only minimaly reduced by a change in their legal status. My sense is that the legalisation position has to assume that harm would be very substantially rather than minimally reduced by a change in the legal status of the drugs concerned. But the question remains as to what you base that assumption on. In the combined article you wrote with Danny K you said that:
The question is not whether human rights or public health comes first. Rather it is whether we collude with a policy that invariably degrades and sometimes destroys our clients and the communities in which they live, or whether we speak out against it, both as individuals and organisationally…More importan(t) is the question of how organisations can most effectively challenge the status quo, terminate prohibition and replace it with an effective system that is effective, just and humane (Kushlick and Rolles 2004:245).
That extract rather assumes that the health harms associated with drug use come a long way second to what you regard as the harms arising from the illegal status of the drugs concerned. If that is indeed you view then surely you need to make clear what your assessment of relative harm is actually based upon.
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Steve Rolles 2009-08-06 19:00:43
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We assume that harms to individual users would diminish (as argued above and in the CBA paper we discussed recently), and that harms associated with illegal markets would diminish (for obvious reasons). I don’t think even the UK government or UNODC would disagree with this.
I understand your argument (and theirs) that these gains would be more than outweighed by an increase in health harms associated with an increase in use were drug markets legally regulated – but I don’t agree with your assumptions that underpin this argument – and i also dont think you understand the sort of regulation we are calling for. I find the Chinese peasant opium use in the 19th century a particularly non-useful parallel for modern drug culture in urban Britain, and also do not agree that the experience with alcohol and tobacco supports your contention. Not only are alcohol (which is a deeply culturally embedded food and beverage, as well as drug)and tobacco (which does not intoxicate like most drugs – so does not seem to raise the same degree of moral indignation, despite its awful public health impacts)qualitatively different from most drugs we are concerned about (particularly problematic use of heroin and cocaine), they have also been subject to decades, even centuries, of aggressive marketing (something that would be forbidden under the regulatory models we advocate for other drugs), and had few of the other controls over product, price, vendors, outlets, users etc that we are calling for. Where such have been begun to belatedly implemented use has fallen without resorting to blanket prohibitions – e.g. tobacco in the UK – use of which continues to fall whilst cocaine (7 years in prison for possession, billions spent annually on interdiction) continues to rise.
We have, from the outset, called for better, indeed stricter, regulation of alcohol and tobacco as well – something entirely consistent with finding the optimum regulatory models, re outcomes, for all drugs. The reason we do not focus on these issues more is because there are plenty of agencies (Alcohol concern, ASH, the royal colleges etc) who already do it very well.
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Legalisation and Drug Harm
Neil McKeganey 2009-08-06 20:14:51
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Steve where is the template (evidence) for successfully regulated drug markets that Transform clearly aspire to extend to other currently illegal substances? I can see why you do not want to accept the Chinese opium situation fostered by the UK against the expressed wishes of the Chinese government because it does indeed indicate a level of opium consumption that Transform would rather discount as an impossibility within a developed “regulated”heroin market. But of course these awkward historical events are not se easily dismissed simply because they do not mesh with ones preferred view of hisotry and future drug policy and in that sense the examples do have to be considered for their possible relevance to current discussions.
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Steve rolles 2009-08-06 21:30:42
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surely a more relevant ‘awkward historical event’ (than opium use in peasant china 150 years ago) for you to respond to would be the steady increase in drug availability, use, misuse, crime, and overall harms (by any measure) under prohibition in the modern world – despite ever increasing resources being thrown at its enforcement. Wheres *your* evidence base for the policy we have now, and how much failure do you think is required before alternatives are regulatory are meaningfully explored. its fine to keep throwing questions at me but what about answering a few of mine?
I obviously cant produce an evidence base for the regulation we are advocating as it has not happened yet – beyond limited and often flawed/problematic models (coffee shops, heroin prescribing etc) or equally problematic – although useful paralell examples (e.g. regulation of gambling, and sex work), so you will always win on that front – I cant provide evidence from the future. I can only speculate with the evidence we have, whilst pushing for more to be gathered.
The problem is that, perhaps uniquely in health and social policy, an entire avenue of policy options has been closed down in perpetuity, on ideological grounds not evidential ones, not just re implementation – but even experimentation and research. This is particularly peverse and anomalous given that regulating risky commodities and and activities is absolutely the social policy norm, indeed it is one of the primary functions of Governments.
To be able to have flexible policy options in almost all aspects, except one; legal regulation of production and supply – is intellectually offensive and profoundly anti-science. Are archaic drug laws create an arbitrary line in the sand that should be an affront to everyone in public health or social policy. By all means make the evidential case for prohibition (and ill argue with you), but not on the basis of preventing others from exploring the alternatives. For ever.
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Drugs and Enforcement
Neil McKeganey 2009-08-07 09:32:20
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Steve although you cite the continuing use of illegal drugs as a failure of existing drug laws surely the fact that the level of use of those drugs is not comparable in any country to the level of use of the legal drugs in all countries is the clearest evidence there could ever be that existing drug laws have indeed succeeded in limiting the use of certain substances. I don’t know of any scientific study that could in any way provide evidence on a par with the consistent international pattern of illegal drug use consumption falling a long way short of the level of consumption of the legal drugs. However to argue for a change in our existing drug laws surely has to be based on something more than an ill-defined belief that in some vague ways things would be better under a legalised or regulated regime- better for whom, by how much and for how long? and with what unintended consequences? The standard response that organisations arguing for legalisation provide is to ask for the evidence of success of our current drug laws and then to claim that the failure of drug laws to entirely cease such drug use is a sign of their inevitable failure. This of course is a deeply ironic position for a legalisation group to adopt since illegal drug consumption is not something that they themselves wish to cease anyway. However your point that there is some kind of international policy conspiracy stopping the experimentation with different types of drug laws including legally regulated markets seems a bit strong to be honest since there are many countries that could be cast as having experimented with widely different drug laws including those that have adopted heroin prescribing safe injecting centres lower level penalties for drug possession etc.
Our debate started with the UKDPC publication of their report on evidence and Kathy Gyngell’s blog on that report I still think that it is strange that an organisation such as UKDPC that is clearly wanting to make a contribution to public and policy debate on the drugs issue is so reticent at contributing to this debate leaving you largely on your own as it were to argue for the position they have set out in their paper on harm reduction focussed drug enforcement.
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steve rolles 2009-08-07 13:49:06
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(im not arguing for the UKDPC position – which, I repeat, is distinctly NOT legalisation / regulation – this debate took a different turn)
I think you ignore the fact that there are plenty of legal drugs that are not so widely used (inhalants for example), and that amongst illegal drugs some are used far more than others – cocaine use is about ten times that of heroin for example, but it is equally illegal. This – along with the fact that trends in drugs go up and down apparently independtly of legal changes and even price, suggests that people’s drug choices are primarily determined by factors other than legality/punitive sanctions and related deterrence. The evidence base for a deterrent effect is incredibly poor – and just repeating alcohol and tobacco does not fill this yawing evidential abyss at the heart of entire prohibitionist paradigm.
There is no conspiracy against experimenting with legal regulatory options for supply – there are 3 UN conventions that that specifically prevent it, the single convention in particular (much of which was drafted in the 40s) tying states into a system that is no longer relevant to the world today. Challenging the conventions would raise unacceptable political and diplomatic costs (largely in terms of US pressure – but also potentially undermining the valuable aspects of the drug treaty system, and indeed the wider treaty system). Countries can experiment with decrim of possession and medical prescription models but decrim does not involve supply and prescription only covers a tiny proportion of users and the illicit market. Wider exploration of regulated legal supply remains undeniably off limits. The brief experiment with BZP in New Zealand is the only one I am aware of anywhere in the world; whilst not a total disaster, the regulation was inadequate and it has been reversed when the political pressure got too hot (and BZP is also not covered by the Conventions).
Trying to establish a link in international comparisons between levels of enforcement/punitiveness and levels of use is reasonable if done with appropriate methodological caveats (indeed it is something that many people, including Kathy and Costa, like to do – albeit in a cherry picked methodologically laughable fashion -in comparing UK and Sweden – the whole thing about ‘getting the drug problem you deserve’). The WHO did it more systematically and found no link (still waiting for a comment on this).
Significant correlations have, however, been found between levels of use/misuse and income inequality (Wilkinson/Pickett) . I doubt Kathy would want to push on that fascinating finding and see where it leads, but for me it once again highlights the key role in social, economic and cultural factors in determining the contours of drug culture, and relative marginal nature of enforcement policy.
The critique of prohibition’s failure on its own terms (reducing availability,use) is surely legitimate, as is highlighting the unintended consequences. Long term failure of this policy is not the only reason to explore alternatives but it is a perfectly rational and reasonable catalyst. We want to see reduced overall harm (to users and the wider community) and maximised health and wellbeing (rather than obsessing over reduced use). This obviously does not preclude reduced demand, but pragmatically focuses on reducing problematic use (which the UNODC interestingly acknowledges says is only 5% of total illicit use). Reducing non-problematic use is not the priority because it is, well, not problematic (unless one sees it as a issue of personal morality in which case it is a different debate to the pragmatic public health policy and law one).
