Home Office internal document reveals bunker mentality of secrecy and suppression

23.00 update: this story has now been picked up by PA news: Ministers 'covered up drugs report'
and is also discussed on BBC Home Affairs correspondent Mark Easton's blog: Critical public interest (see update below)

 30.06.10 update: complete memo now available on the Transform website in original Word doc format

An internal Home Office memo, accidentally leaked to the BBC’s Martin Rosenbaum (see his blog here), today exposes a culture of playing fast and loose with Freedom of Information (FOI) requests that might expose Government policy to criticism. The fifteen-page document demonstrates in detail how officials at the Home Office discussed withholding a Home Office commissioned value for money study (of the UK drug strategy) from Transform because of fears of bad press for its much vaunted drug policy. The epic 3 year saga of how we finally obtained the VFM study is detailed here. The internal document was inadvertently sent to Rosenbaum (the deleted portions were still visible) along with a letter that the Home Office sent him as a part of an unconnected FOI request. It has allowed for a brief peep behind the curtain of obfuscation and spin that has characterised so many of our dealings with the Home Office.

For reference the complete (inadvertently) leaked memo is on the Transform website here -unaltered in original Word document format.

In the memo, which was copied to the Home Secretary and the Permanent Secretary, in Annex D under the heading ‘Potential issues arising from the Report’, it says:

“The release of the report entails the risk of Transform, or other supporters of legalisation, using information from the report to criticise the Government’s drug policy, or to support their call for the legalisation of drugs and the introduction of a regulated system of supply. These risks should be considered in reaching a decision on whether to release the report, as recommended.”

This is an extraordinary comment to write in a document like this as it so blatantly goes against the spirit of FOI. But more importantly demonstrates that the Home Office was not applying the guidelines that say that all FOI requests should be dealt with 'blind'. (i.e. not taking into account who has made the request.) . In this context it is particularly odd, indeed faintly ridiculous that the Home Office in response to Rosenbaum state that 'The Freedom of Information Act is applicant blind. Regardless of who the applicant is, all requests for information are assessed and answered in the same manner' - when this is obviously not the case as evidenced by the actual document they were being asked about. Bizarre. (See update below).

A document is either exempt under the Act, or it is not. It is not for civil servants to make decisions about releasing information based upon its potential to provide ammunition for those challenging Government doctrine or policy. That is not and should not be the function of the Freedom of Information Act.

The document even contained worked up reactive media positions, should the report eventually be released and recieve media attention. You have to ask: Shouldn't they be developing effective policy, rather than suppressing evidence, censoring criticism and working up reactive press soundbites?

This is all reminiscent of the Government’s handling of the Prime Minister's Strategy Unit Drugs Report released in July 2005.

One of the series of entirely spurious reasons originally given for withholding the report (see here for details of this and the various others) was that the National Audit Office was soon to realease a review of drug strategy value for money and that release of the report at the same time  

“risks misinterpretation of the findings of the [NAO] report”

As the Economist coverage of this development noted (‘Inconvenient Truths’ Dec 3rd 09):

 ‘This is believed to be the first time that a public body has openly refused to release information in order to manage the news better’

Ironically the NAO report and Public Accounts Committee report that followed it berated the Home Office for having nothing approaching an effective drug strategy evaluation framework, which was one of the key points the VFM review was making in the first place.

One thing that this memo will hopefully do, is to bring the issue of drug policy's value for money to the attention of the coalition Government, and we have long suggested that the very obvious evidence vaccum could begin to be filled by conducting an Impact Assessment of current enforcement policy and related legislation.

This ought to be a Government interested in Impact Assessment. In the current economic climate the Government's mantra is: 'What should we cut? You decide.' Well, what about at least costing out the war on drugs and comparing it with alternatives.

Let's not forget that David Cameron called on the UK Government to initiate 'a discussion within the [UN] Commission on Narcotic Drugs of alternative ways—including the possibility of legalisation and regulation—to tackle the global drugs dilemma' as a back bench member of the Home Affairs Select Committee in 2001/2. Or that Nick Clegg's Lib Dem's Election Manifesto all but called for decriminalisation of personal use. Or indeed that Alan Duncan is the first member of Government to have written a book with a chapter advocating in favour of legalisation.

Transform will be making official complaints to the relevant parliamentary bodies, not only to bring pressure to bear on those mishandling FOI requests with regard to drug policy, but also to encourage better FOI practice more generally for the future. There is a bigger issue here that has nothing to do with drug policy or Transform.

That said, if we are to move towards a more effective drug policy this culture of secrecy and suppression of  evidence must end. The focus must shift from the futile defence of a broken and failed policy paradigm, to developing effective, just and humane alternatives. This can only be done in an atmosphere of openness and with a commitment to what works (for the public that is), not defending to the last what so obviously does not.

Lastly, we are aware of another value for money document that has still not been released. Maybe releasing this and other relevant research would help draw a line under this depressing episode and signify a fesh start under the new Government, as well as obviously helping inform a mature policy debate based on evidence of effectiveness. That's not too much to ask is it?


Update 26.06.10  Mark Easton's blog quotes The Information Commissioner who asked about the revelations reposnded that:

"Requests should not be refused simply on the grounds that disclosing the information would reveal gaps in the evidence base for a policy. There is a public interest in openness and transparency...

"The fact that the information may not reflect well on the public authority in question is not in itself a reason for it to be withheld."

PAC report update: Home Office forced to evaluate drugs strategy

We promised to keep you updated after the powerful Parliamentary Committee of Public Accounts (PAC) extracted a verbal promise from the Home Office to (finally) evaluate the efficacy of its own drug strategy.

The failure to properly scrutinise the efficacy of drug policy spending is an urgent concern, and the need for such evaluation on a consistent and transparent basis is something Transform has been calling for since 2002, most recently through our campaign for an Impact Assessment of the UK drug strategy.

Well, the PAC has now published its report on those hearings titled "Tackling Problem Drug Use". Despite all the election froth the report was reasonably well reported in the media (including some good duscussion from the BBC's Mark Easton; "Hard drugs and weak evidence").

The PAC report includes some very useful analysis and its recommendations include:

1. The Government spends £1.2 billion a year on measures aimed at tackling problem drug use, yet does not know what overall effect this spending is having. We welcome the Department's commitment to evaluating this spending. From 2011, the Department should publish annual reports on progress against the strategy's action plan. These should set out expenditure on each measure, the outputs and outcomes delivered, and progress towards targets.

So the Government is not just being asked to evaluate its current strategy properly, but to do so each year, which, from a PR perspective at least, makes it much harder to gloss over failure than a mega-review every 5-10 years.

2. Around one-quarter of problem drug users are hard-core offenders who resist measures to reduce their offending or 'drop out' of drug treatment. The Department's action plan should set out specific measures directly aimed at driving down offending by hard-core problem drug users for whom the Drug Interventions Programme and drug treatment does not work.

This should mean looking at new approaches, including wider provision of heroin prescription which the PAC was particularly interested in (and which is, of course, one of the models of legally regulated availability Transform advocates).

6. Measures to reduce problem drug use by young people have had limited impact. The Department should include reliable and consistent estimates of the number of new young problem drug users each year in its annual report on progress against the strategy. It should evaluate the effectiveness of measures aimed at reducing problem drug use by young people, including long-term residential care services, and should set targets to bring down the overall number of problem drug users, over time.

There used to be just such targets, but they were dropped because they underlined the failure of the Government's current approach. Their reintroduction should increase the pressure to come up with new ways to tackle drug related problems.

I asked the National Audit Office (NAO) what happens next. They explained that:

"The Government is required to publish its [formal] response to the report by the Committee of Public Accounts. This response is called a Treasury Minute.

In the Treasury Minute, the Government will state whether it accepts or does not accept each recommendation in the Committee of Public Accounts report. The Committee of Public Accounts examines the Government response to assess the degree to which the Government responds to recommendations from Parliament.

The National Audit Office examines the commitments made by the Government in the Treasury Minute and follows up the degree to which Government Departments carry out the commitments made in the Treasury Minute. This can result in a follow up examination and report by the National Audit Office. The follow up report may be taken by the Committee of Public Accounts. The Committee can then summon the Accounting Officers (heads of the relevant Government Departments) to account for their role in carrying out the commitments and the resulting impacts."

OK, it's a bit convoluted, but given the Government has already agreed to put in place an evaluative framework, and given the clout of the NAO and PAC, this is potentially a useful route to hold the Government to account. Particularly at a time when public spending is going to be increasingly scrutinised.

All the same, we should probably wait and see what that "Treasury Minute" says first...likely to be at least a month away. So keep watching this space.

It is also useful to see how other countries have addressed the drug policy evaluation issue, and the US, as the chief architect of global drug enforcement policy and the historically dominant influence on the evolution of UK drug policy, warrants particular examination. In 2001 the National Academy of Sciences produced a two hundred page report for the White House Office of Drug Control Policy called 'Informing America’s Policy on Illegal Drugs: What We Don’t Know Keeps Hurting Us'. The report shows that the US faces many similar problems to the UK in evaluating effectiveness, with much of its analysis a clear echo of the new PAC report:

"The committee finds that existing drug use monitoring systems are useful for some important purposes, yet they are strikingly inadequate to support the full range of policy decisions the nation must make."

"The central problem is a woeful lack of investment in programs of data collection and empirical research that would enable evaluation of the nations investment in enforcement."

"Because of a lack of investment in data and research the country is in no better position to evaluate the effectiveness of its enforcement than it was twenty years ago."

"It is unconscionable for this country to continue to carry out a policy of this magnitude and cost without any way of knowing whether or to what extent it is having the desired effect."

There is, of course, a simple and obvious reason why the Government is so reluctant to subject its drug policy to the sort of serious scrutiny that is routine for most other areas of social policy. They know precisely what such scrutiny would reveal, namely that the policy has been a failure on almost all meaningful measures, and offers terrible value for money to the taxpayer, particularly the elements of the budget directed at supply side enforcement. We got some hint of this from the suppressed 2007 Home Office value for money study (that we finally got to see this year after a three year FOI battle), and the 2002 Treasury ‘Stock Take of Anti-Drug Interventions and Cost Effectiveness' (that we also required a protracted FOI saga to access).

The Government are terrified of where meaningful analysis of such historic failings would lead - to a politically unpalatable shift in drug policy away from the criminal justice led punitive prohibitionist paradigm - and instinctively do whatever they need to, by way of obfuscation, spin and propaganda, to avoid facing reality.

Whatever one's take on our approach to drugs, there can never be an excuse for poor evaluation of policy outcomes. Inadequate evaluation means bad policy, and bad policy comes at a huge personal and financial cost to individuals and society at large.

Another contemptuous Home Office rejection of a request for better evidence in UK drug policy

In April 2009 Transform published a groundbreaking report, titled 'A Comparison of the Cost-effectiveness of the Prohibition and Regulation of Drugs'

We sent a copy to the Secretary of State in July 2009 with the letter below. Our tardiness was to put to shame however, by the time it took the Home Secretary to respond - we received his response today, 15th Feb 2010 - eight months later. According to the Home Office the delay was partly due to awaiting Gordon Brown's response to our call for an Impact assessment. Clearly this delay wasn't because of the effort that went into the content of the response, which is as ever, contemptuous.

Our letter and the response from the Secretary of State are shown below.

The civil service manual for answering correspondence is:

1 agree with what you can,
2 ignore the rest and
3 restate government policy whilst you're at it.

The response from Alan Johnson shows the manual being followed to the letter.

Here's our blog on the saga of the withholding of the Home Office 2007 (Christine Godfrey) value for money study mentioned in Alan Johnson's response. That report took almost three years to emerge after our initial request...

The letter to the Home Secretary and his response speak for themselves. To enlarge the view just click on the page you want to see.

Those moved to do so might want to contact their MP or prospective parliamentary candidate to suggest that they support our call for an Impact Assessment of the Misuse of Drugs Act.

Epic three year FOI battle to release suppressed Home Office drug strategy evaluation reaches its denouement

Update: 13.30pm 21 January

We are delighted to announce that the Home Office has finally made the report available: Drugs Value for Money Review July 2007 Report . See below (end) for an update commentary    



Update 2: 26 June


New information on this case has been inadvertently revealed by the Home Office: see Home Office internal document reveals bunker mentality of secrecy and suppression

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Introduction

Transform is not unique in being given the runaround during the process of making an application under the Freedom of Information Act. But even we were surprised by the absurdity of what ensued when we requested a seemingly innocuous report in mid 2007.

Danny Kushlick, Head of Policy at Transform, intermittently spent the next two and a half years jumping through a series of FOI hoops to get hold of a document that most who have seen it acknowledge is indeed fairly innocuous, in so far as it is not dissimilar to public domain publications by the same author, and was presumed to consist largely of data publicly available via the Home Office Development and Statistics site, and elsewhere, for anyone with the determination and know-how to hunt it down (see update above - this has proved to be the case). There are no state secrets here, just some fairly straightforward statistics and value for money analysis.

Nor was this the first time Transform has faced this sort of hurdle. In 2003 Tony Blair requested a report on UK and international drug policy from his Number 10 Strategy Unit. Transform's FOI requests for this document were met with a series of rejections, firstly on the basis that it was a 'private piece of work' and later that it contained 'security sensitive' information. When it was finally leaked in full to the Guardian in 2005 it became clear that it did not contain anything remotely security sensitive - indeed the 50 or so redacted pages in the censored version that was belatedly released by the Cabinet Office appeared to be entirely random (background and document summaries here).

What follows is a time line of the process that Danny had to go through in order for Transform to access factual and statistical research material of the kind that democratic governments ought to make available as a matter of course.

We should perhaps not be surprised; punitive responses to drugs are rooted in distinct moral ideologies and political posturing, not evidence of effectiveness. Any juxtaposition of the rhetorical prohibitionist fantasies with empirical reality is untenable for a Government deeply committed to a 'war on drugs'. In the context of a rhetorical and actual war on drugs, especially one that has evidently delivered increasingly counterproductive outcomes, despite ever more resources being poured into it, the Government's only recourse is to propaganda. Anything, certainly anything based on credible academic research, that might contradict the view that the war is being won must be either suppressed, spun or sacked, lest reality be exposed to meaningful public scrutiny, at which point the whole prohibitionist paradigm is threatened.

This sorry FOI tale could not make that political reality more clear.


Freedom of Information Request Time Line

July 2007

The ten-year drug strategy review is announced, and a review consultation process for the next ten-year strategy launched – an event of potentially huge significance for drug policy in the UK.


August 2007

Transform felt that this public review and consultation process, billed by the Home Secretary as the ‘largest ever public consultation on tackling illegal drug use’, would usefully be informed by any research the Government had undertaken or commissioned to evaluate the effectiveness of the different elements of the strategy, on various criteria.

The Government has made repeated commitments to ‘evidence based policy’ – so we asked to see the evidence - not least the evidence they were nominally basing their decisions on.

Transform was aware that various unpublished research existed, although we lacked specifics beyond information that a ‘value for money’ study had been commissioned by the Home Office to inform its strategy review process. This piece of work – undertaken by independent academics (including the highly respected Christine Godfrey from York University) – was precisely the sort of objective evaluation that should be informing the public review and consultation process. As this was publicly funded research, was purely evaluative and did not contain advice to ministers, and did not contain security sensitive information, it seemed to be clearly in the public interest for it to be made available to inform the public strategy review/ consultation process.

As this study was unpublished (our direct requests for it had been summarily rejected), and because we were unclear what other potentially useful research was also languishing unpublished in the Home Office archives, on the August 2nd 2007 we make a broad-scope Freedom of Information request to the Home Office for copies of:

• All unpublished research undertaken or commissioned to inform the strategy review process.
  
  
• All unpublished research undertaken or commissioned by the Home office since 1997, including research that was not completed or is still not completed, into the effectiveness and/or efficiency of the Government's Drug Strategy in preventing drug use and drug harms, or reducing drug-related offending.
  
  
• Any unpublished research undertaken or commissioned by the Home Office since 1997, including research that was not completed or still is to be completed, which examines the value for money of the Government's Drug Strategy.

We additionally asked for details of any other research (not the research itself):

• undertaken or commissioned by the Home Office since 1997, including research that was not completed or still is to be completed, into the effectiveness and/or efficiency of the Government's drug treatment programme; or into the effectiveness and/or efficiency of the Government's drug education/prevention strategy in reducing drug use and drug related harms amongst young people
  
  
• any unpublished options appraisals undertaken or commissioned by the Home Office since 1997, including any that were not completed or are still to be completed, into the Government's Drug Strategy

September 2007

In an experience that was not to be repeated, we received a rapid response to this initial FOI request. In what would become more a more familiar experience, the request was rejected. The reason given was that:

"We have estimated that the cost of answering your requests would exceed the £600 limit and we are therefore unable to comply with it"

this was made on the grounds that:

....the Home Office is not obliged to comply with any information request where the prescribed costs of supplying you with the information exceed £600. The £600 limit applies to all central government departments and is based on work being carried out at a rate of £25 an hour, which equates to 3 1/2 days work per request.

(more detail/discussion on this first rejection here)

August – December 2007

Instead of publishing an evidence based evaluation and review objectively considering the successes and failures of the previous ten years, the Government produces a consultation document that is a quite shameless piece of political propaganda (critiqued here and here in detail as part of Transform’s consultation submission). It receives widespread condemnation:

• In November it is savaged in the House of Lords
  

• It is then criticized in unusually strong terms by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (which remember, also operates within the Home Office) which notes that:

"it is unfortunate that the consultation paper’s ‘key facts and evidence’ section appears to focus on trying to convince the reader of success and progress; rather than providing an objective review and presentation of the current evidence. The ACMD found the consultation paper self-congratulatory and generally disappointing.’

‘It is of concern that the evidence presented, and the interpretation given, are not based on rigorous scrutiny."

• Following a complaint from Transform, the consultation document is also condemned by the Government’s own Statistics Commission which accused the Home Office of spinning the data to make it look more favorable and failing to ‘provide a balanced presentation of the relevant statistical and other evidence’. This is covered by the Guardian newspaper: ‘Whitehall accused of drug cover up’

October 2007

The Government’s public drug strategy consultation process closes, with the various Home Office strategy evaluations requested by Transform resolutely unpublished and unable to inform public debate or any aspect of the review consultation process.

The Observer reports on the obvious failings of the consultation process: Drug strategy debate ‘is a sham’


February 5th 2008

Following a separate FOI request to the Treasury, Transform secures the release of a previously unpublished ‘Stock Take of Anti-Drug Interventions and Cost Effectiveness’.

The overall impression from this document is one of quite staggeringly poor evaluation, based around ill thought out targets, themselves based on meaningless process measures or proxy measures, all built around a rudderless, and politically determined policy. The quality of outcomes, even based on the data available, clearly does not support the strategy as it is presented.

This is most obvious regards supply side interventions which, despite costing between £1 billion and £3 billion a year even in 2001, can demonstrate no evidence of effectiveness whatsoever;

“There is little evidence on cost effectiveness of CJS activities. However, while insufficient to form robust conclusions that little we do have does not offer strong support”.

This received Coverage in the Economist (09.02.08): ‘Hard to Swallow’


February 7th 2008

Despite failing to secure release of the relevant documents in time for the consultation and review process a renewed FOI request is made to the Home Office, this time specifically for the single named document, the 'value for money' study (with which Christine Godfrey was associated) - to avoid any potential for the £600 cost exemption to be re-deployed. A response is promised by March 6th.


February 26th 2008

The new ten year drug strategy is published; aside from some populist window dressing it is the same as the previous strategy. Transform’s press release states that:

“The new drug strategy arrives after ten years of disastrous policy failure, yet during last year’s sham consultation and review process the Home Office utterly failed to acknowledge failure or meaningfully engage in a debate on policy alternatives. Instead, success has been claimed with a shameful parade of cherry picked statistics and Home Office spin.”

May 15th 2008

More than two months late Transform finally receives a response from the Home Office to the February 2008 FOI request (refined from the August 2007 FOI request). It states that:

“We have very carefully considered whether the material should be disclosed but we have decided that this is exempt from disclosure by virtue of section 35 (1) (a) of the Freedom of Information Act.”

The basis for this rejection is given in full as follows:

“This exemption is a qualified exemption and provides that information can be withheld because the material was used for the formulation of Government policy. Our reason for this is because the work informed the policy development work undertaken by the Home Office and Other Government Departments in formulating and publishing the new Drug Strategy. The material is also reflected within the published appendices within the new strategy document pertaining to the most recent evidence review on the strategy and on the resources being invested by Government Departments for delivery of the Drug Strategy.

Section 35 is a qualified exemption under the Freedom of Information Act and therefore requires the public interested balancing test to be considered, I have outlined this below.

Public interest in favour of disclosure:

In favour of the release of this information is the general public interest in openness and transparency in policy making and discussion which may lead to increased trust and engagement between the public and the government. Such openness makes government more accountable to the taxpayer in terms of the quality of decisions taken, and the spending of public money. In addition openness enables individuals to gain a better understanding of decisions which directly affect them, and therefore make informed contributions to public debate.

Public interest against disclosure:

Reasons in favour of withholding the information under section 35(1)(a) are that advice should be broadly based, there may be a deterrent effect on experts or stakeholders who might become reluctant to provide advice because it might be disclosed. Further reasons are that the impartiality of the civil service should be protected; it might be undermined if advice was routinely made public as there is a risk that officials could come under political or public pressure not to challenge ideas in the formulation of policy, thus leading to poorer decision making. The analysis work helped inform the development work on the new Drug Strategy and is reflected within the evidence review and resources appendices within the new strategy document.

On the basis of the factors outlined above, I am of the opinion that the balance of the public interest currently favours withholding this information under section 35.”

It is important to be clear that the requested document was an independent academic evaluation of the drug strategy's effectiveness as related to its costs. It was factual/statistical analysis, not advice to ministers, and it had absolutely no bearing on the impartiality of the civil service - who were not responsible for it.

The reasons given for withholding it were clearly spurious. On May 19th Transform therefore took the only available course and requested that the decision be subject to an internal review.


June 26th 2008

The Home Office informs Transform, in response to a follow up inquiry, that the original request for an internal review has been ‘lost’. August 21st is given as the date by which a full response will be provided.


August 21st 2008

The Home Office informs Transform that the review process is taking longer than anticipated and ‘with regret’ the date for a full response is moved back to October the 2nd.


October 6th 2008

The Home Office informs Transform that the review process is taking longer than anticipated and ‘with regret’ the date for a full response is moved back to November 2nd.


November 14th 2008

The Home Office informs Transform that the internal review report is complete but ‘still in the process of being approved’


December 3rd 2008

The internal review finally reports back with a detailed and highly technical 9 page letter concluding that whilst the non disclosure of document under section 35 (1) (a) of the Freedom of Information Act, at the time (May 2008) was applied correctly, it is now considered that these stipulations no longer apply. Although this shift would only apply to a ‘redacted’ version (some content still not deemed in the public interest for security reasons), seemingly, progress at last :

“In summary, I consider that the exemption provisions of s35(1)(a) were correctly applied to the information held at the time your original request was being handled. Now that the 2008 Drugs Strategy has been approved and published, and given that this information in the analysis is both statistical and factual in nature – i.e. not solely opinions or thoughts, but based on hard-facts and calculations – the provisions of this exemption, the supporting harm, prejudice and Public Interest Test arguments no longer favour withholding this information under this exemption"

However, the review also concludes that non-disclosure of the document can and indeed will be maintained for the entire document on the basis of (the previously unmentioned) section 36 of the FOI act which covers ‘Prejudice to the effective conduct of public affairs’. Transform also learn that invoking section 36 of the FOI requires ministerial approval, and that such approval has been sought and granted.

The letter informs Transform, after a lengthy (and in the context rather unnecessary) discourse about why drug policy data is of such interest and importance to the public, that:

“It is of little or no doubt that the information contained in the analysis would be of great interest to a large number of people. What is of interest however, even to a majority percentage of the population, is not necessarily in their best interests to disclose.”

The specific reasons given for why non-disclosure is in the public’s best interest (requiring a ministerial level invoking of section 36) are that firstly:

“given that this strategy is still in the early stages of being implemented, it is felt that the likelihood of prejudicing the delivery of all areas of this strategy is fairly significant at this time.

One of the key considerations here is that the premature disclosure of the preliminary thinking behind this strategy may end up closing off better or alternative options that might become available because of adverse public reaction.”

And secondly that:

“appropriate expert advice might not be sought in the future because of a possible reluctance of those who might supply it to engage in a debate where their contribution might not be disclosable. This would ultimately be likely to lead to poorer decision making as the relevant contributions to support that process may not be forthcoming.”

December 4th 2008

Transform entirely rejects both of these arguments as both unfounded and mis-applied, and immediately appeals the Home Office decision to the Information Commissioner’s Office.


August 27th 2009

The Information Commissioner makes a full review of the case including a number of discussions with the relevant Home Office officials, finding against the Home Office, ordering them (and legally obliging them under the FOI act) to revisit the decision to withhold release of the document, the presumption being that release will be forthcoming on the basis that the public interest arguments made were inadequate to justify non-release.


November 20th 2009

The Home Office finally concedes, and agrees to release (a redacted version of) the report.

But........not until after March 2010

Still maintaining that the Section 36 exemption was valid at the time it was invoked (no mention is made of the section 35 exemption deployed previously) the Home Office state that:

“In light of the passage of time since the development of the 2008 drug strategy, which was informed in part by the Christine Godfrey report, we now consider that the majority of the report may be disclosed.”

But that:

“After careful consideration we have decided that some of the information contained within the report is exempt from disclosure by virtue of section 23(1) of the Freedom of Information Act. This provides that information supplied by, or relating to, the bodies dealing with security matters, is exempt from release. Section 23 is an absolute exemption, and as such no further consideration is required.”

The reason given for this delay until an unspecified date after March 2010 is that the National Audit Office (NAO), is due to publish a report of its own on local efforts to combat drugs in March 2010 and the Home Office says that to have two reports about drugs out at the same time “risks misinterpretation of the findings of the [NAO] report”

As the Economist coverage of this latest development notes (‘Inconvenient Truths’ Dec 3rd 09):

‘This is believed to be the first time that a public body has openly refused to release information in order to manage the news better’.

Richard Thomas (who stepped down as information commissioner in June 09), speaking to the Economist, questioned the novel defence:

“Certainly my office was always quite sceptical of anything which said publishing information is going to confuse the public. If that’s the case, normally you need to put out some extra material alongside it to provide adequate explanation. It’s not a reason for withholding something.”

Also speaking to the Economist Sir Alan Beith, the chairman of the parliamentary Justice Committee, which oversees the FOI act, said of the Home Office’s excuse:

“That’s really scraping the barrel. On those grounds you would have to ban the various hospital reports that are coming out at the moment [see article] because the public are confused about that too. It’s not an argument for censorship, it’s an argument for an even more open and clear debate.” The Home Office was making “a quite ridiculous attempt to hide from freedom of information,”

The Economist also notes that ‘the legality of the decision is also in doubt, after the department admitted that its refusal to release the document had not been approved by a minister, as is required by law. A Home Office spokeswoman called it an “administrative error”. Retrospective ministerial authorization was being sought as The Economist went to press.’


December 14th 2009

Following the Economist coverage, the Information Commission informs Transform that the Home Office has now agreed to release the document before the NAO document is published. It has requested that it is released before Christmas.


January 2010

Home Office informs Transform that the document will be released on 21 January 2010 – two and half years after the initial request, and two years after the public consultation on the drugs strategy it could usefully have informed has closed.

• Check the Transform blog in the next few days for updates on this story - and a full report on the (un-redacted portions of) the report when we have finally read it.
  
  
• And finally, if anyone reading this far has an unredacted version of the report - please send it (anonymously if you prefer) to Transform (info@tdpf.org.uk). Seriously, we are all grown ups here and this has gone on for far to long.

Update: 13.30pm 21 January:  It's worth a look to discover what the Home Office thinks is too sensitive for public viewing.

What it shows is a basic lack of meaningful evaluation, and that what little evidence they do collect is clearly unable to demonstrate effectiveness or value for money, especially on the enforcement side where most of the resources are expended. It provides a stark contrast to the absurd rose-tinted picture painted by the 2007 consultation document produced by the Government (see below). That we were presented with that piece of shameless propaganda and not this (only now released) academic research is scandalous and should rightly be a source of anger and concern to all in the drugs field involved in the review consultation process, regardless of their policy views.

Nor were the problems of poor evaluation/data and poor outcomes that the report demonstrates previously unidentified. The CSR Treasury stock take from 2001, released under a separate Transform FOI request (see Feb 5th 2008 entry in the Time line below), tells an almost identical story. They had 6 years to address these obvious failings (in data collection and evaluation - let alone outcomes) and utterly failed. There can be no excuses.

The report also demonstrates that the various justifications (see below) given for its suppression during the strategy consultation, and for the following 2 years, were entirely spurious. The Home Office have behaved pathetically, like children in a playground with a secret, and treated the public with contempt in the process. They still are; note the ridiculous redaction of 'SOCA' throughout, except in a footnote referring to one of the redactions (they can't even do censorship properly).

This saga was an attempt to conceal a piece of research that showed the policy in an unflattering light, and its censorship was purely political; a disgrace for the Government and particularly for the Home Office and ministers directly involved.

We will provide a more detailed analysis later, but worthy of note is the item in table 3 on page showing expenditure by police in 05/06 - £2 billion out of £3 billion total expenditure, £1.7 billion of which is 'indirect costs of dealing with drug-related crime'. It looks suspiciously as if it fits with Transform's analysis that enforcement creates the very costs that prohibition is supposed to reduce.

Danny Kushlick said:

"The withholding of this report demonstrates yet again how the Government is committed to the rhetoric and fantasy of success of the current strategy, whilst doing its damnedest to keep the truth out of sight of the public. The edifice of prohibition comes crashing down as soon as evidence is pitched up against it. Ultimately we are being duped into supporting a policy that is demonstrably failing to deliver anything even approximating to value for money"

Previously on the Transform Blog:

• CCJS report: Home Office suppresses research that contradicts ministers
  

• Home Office refuses to release strategy evaluation research - September 2007
  
  
• New UK Drug Strategy publication: background press briefing - February 22 2008
  
  
• Transform FOI requests; old reviews released, latest ones withheld (also in the Economist) February 07 2008

Transform submission to the Home Office review of the ACMD

Transform have prepared a response to the Home Office review of the ACMD available in pdf here*. The introduction is copied below.

Introductory Comments

Transform is supportive of the concept of an independent expert Government advisory body on drugs and drug policy. In such a highly emotive and politicised policy area as drugs, the existence and independent functioning of such an entity becomes all the more critical; able to objectively review and speak to the evidence and make pragmatic recommendations on key questions based on science and rational analysis, rather than politics or ideology.

Whilst Transform have been impressed by the consistent level of expertise, thoroughness and rigor of the ACMD’s outputs, we have also been critical of them on a number of fronts, both analytical and procedural. Some of these criticisms are outlined – with proposed solutions – in this submission.

However, it has become clear that the ability of the Council to function properly is critically, undermined by the nature of its constitution within the Misuse of Drugs Act (MDA), and its corresponding operation within the ambit of the Home Office. The discussion and proposals made in response to the questions posed by this review can hopefully offer some short term improvements, but are essentially band-aids for the wider malfunctioning of a system in urgent need of root and branch reform.

We have touched upon the more profound systemic problems with the ACMD, the classification system and the MDA throughout the following discussion as they inevitably frame other responses – but have not explored them in the depth they deserve as they are clearly beyond the remit of this narrowly defined review.

We would, however, hope that one of the recommendations to emerge from this process is for the review of the classification system, promised to Parliament by the then Home Secretary in January 2006 and then dropped by his successor, be revisited and undertaken with some urgency. The proposed review enjoyed, as far as Transform is aware, universal support in the drugs field, as well as from two Select Committees, and indeed the ACMD itself. The reasoning given by Government for abandoning the review - that it ‘believes that the classification system discharges its function fully and effectively and has stood the test of time’ - is entirely unacceptable given the widespread consensus beyond Government that the system is not fit for purpose.

*The online version has some small typo/corrections to the submitted version

Transform FOI vs Home Office suppression of research - Part V (in The Economist )

The following article is the latest installment in Transform's long running campaign to get the Government to release its publicly funded research into the effectiveness of UK drug policy . It appears in this week's Economist magazine here. For more background see the links after the article.



Secret evidence on drugs policy

Inconvenient truths

Dec 3rd 2009
From The Economist print edition

The most creative attempt yet to get around freedom-of-information laws?

STRETCHING the law on the disclosure of public documents has been a competitive sport among civil servants ever since the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act was passed in 2000. It requires public bodies to reveal information on request, but provides 23 get-outs, designed to protect secrets that ought to stay under wraps because they threaten national security, personal privacy and so on. The rules are often interpreted in a creative way.

Now The Economist has discovered a contender for the most inventive interpretation to date. After thinking about it for nearly two years and trying out various exemptions, the Home Office has refused to release a confidential assessment of its anti-drugs strategy requested by Transform, a pressure group. The reason is that next March the National Audit Office (NAO), a public-spending watchdog, is due to publish a report of its own on local efforts to combat drugs. The Home Office says that to have two reports about drugs out at the same time might confuse the public, and for this reason it is going to keep its report under wraps.

This is believed to be the first time that a public body has openly refused to release information in order to manage the news better. The department argues that releasing its internal analysis now “risks misinterpretation of the findings of the [NAO] report”, because its own analysis is from 2007 and predates the NAO’s findings. The argument uses section 36 of the FOI act, which provides a broad exemption for information that could “prejudice the effective conduct of public affairs”.

The information commissioner, who polices the FOI act, declined to comment because the case was still open. But his predecessor, Richard Thomas, who stepped down in June, questioned the novel defence. “Certainly my office was always quite sceptical of anything which said publishing information is going to confuse the public. If that’s the case, normally you need to put out some extra material alongside it to provide adequate explanation. It’s not a reason for withholding something.”

Sir Alan Beith, the chairman of the parliamentary Justice Committee, which oversees the FOI act, was sharply critical of the Home Office’s excuse. “That’s really scraping the barrel. On those grounds you would have to ban the various hospital reports that are coming out at the moment [see article] because the public are confused about that too. It’s not an argument for censorship, it’s an argument for an even more open and clear debate.” The Home Office was making “a quite ridiculous attempt to hide from freedom of information,” he said.

The legality of the decision is also in doubt, after the department admitted that its refusal to release the document had not been approved by a minister, as is required by law. A Home Office spokeswoman called it an “administrative error”. Retrospective ministerial authorisation was being sought as The Economist went to press.

Legally or not, the Home Office will be able to hang on to its report for now because the FOI act takes so long to enforce. The commissioner’s office is said to be ready to order the release of the report now. If it does, the Home Office has 28 days to launch an appeal, which could take a year. In the meantime, drugs policy will continue to be shaped—or not—by research that the public paid for but may not see.

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Previous coverage/background from the Transform blog:

• Home Office refuses to release strategy evaluation research - September 2007
  
  
• New UK Drug Strategy publication: background press briefing - February 22 2008
  
  
• Transform FOI requests; old reviews released, latest ones withheld (also in the Economist) February 07 2008

There will be more discussion and background on this story next week.......

Loads of people taking drugs shock!

There are two main official UK drug use surveys each year, the British Crime Survey, and the Department of Health drug use school survey, now compiled together by the NHS Information Centre each year published today along with various other data from the DoH, the Home Office, Office for National Statistics, the Health Protection Agency and NTA. Notably (pay attention journalists) 'most of the data contained in the bulletin have been published previously', in fact the only unpublished figures are on drug-related admissions to hospital.

It is now a calendar fixture that each time these surveys are published the media will run 'loads of people taking drugs shock!' stories, demonstrating their goldfish-like ability to forget the 4 monthly repeated fact that, unbelievably, loads of people are in fact taking drugs. As regular as clockwork, this morning sees the Independent lead with one of its tabloid style front page headlines:

None of these facts are new or significantly different from last year, when loads of people were similarly taking drugs. The Home Office, with similar predictability will spin the prevalence figures as best they can, and try and show that drug use is actually falling, when it clearly isn't - especially when you look at the area that matters most - problematic use of heroin and cocaine which remains more or less stable at its historic Euro-league topping high.

The Sun front page has a similar theme:

As does the Daily Mail

If anything this tri-annual media ritual only serves to highlight, yet again, what stunningly poor value for money we are getting from our disastrous drug strategy and just how hollow all that political posturing about 'cracking down', 'getting tough', 'turning the corner' and 'zero tolerance' really is. But nothing it seems will prompt the Government to change course or give alternative approaches even fleeting consideration (even though many evidently think we should in private). Not the relentlessly bad news on drug use, misuse, drug related crime, or the spiralling catastrophes in Afghanistan or Colombia, nor the endless stream of authoritative high level reports spelling it all out in tedious detail. More of the same is all we are promised, with a bit of populist window dressing if you're lucky.

The DoH is quoted in the Independent parroting the usual line that:

"More people than ever before are getting into and staying in treatment, drug-related deaths are down and the level of drug-fuelled crime has fallen substantially."

Scratch beneath the surface and even these claims are either untrue or misleading. They dont measure drug related crime, drug deaths are not down, and even if treatment numbers are up no amount of throwing money at the problem or diddling the stats can hide the fact that treatment outcomes remain obstinately awful.

The Independent at least gives the Transform position a nod in its coverage :

Danny Kushlick, the head of policy at the drugs think-tank Transform, said the Government was burying its head in the sand by refusing to acknowledge that millions of people used drugs safely. "In order to maintain its position on prohibition, the Government has to show that all drug use is dangerous. Politicians find it very difficult to admit that 90 per cent of those who use drugs either have a boring or a fun time. Drug policy is overwhelmingly focused in a very skewed way on problem drug users. We should focus our attention more on managing use rather than mismanaging misuse.

"We need legal control and regulation of drug use. That is how we manage use of alcohol and we need the same for drugs."

Ecstasy reclassification meltdown; it begins again

Thought the reclassification ridiculousness was over? WRONG. It's only just starting. The miserable cannabis reclassification saga (as chronicled on this blog over the last couple of years) may be done and dusted for the time being but the next installment is about to begin with the imminent ACMD review of ecstasy's classification status. And if it was possible to find a drug that works tabloids and politicians into more of a irrational lather than cannabis, then that drug is ecstasy.

buckle up folks, its about to begin again. And it'll be even worse this time.

The first trickle has begun with the media reporting the fact that Sir Micheal Rawlins has resigned (more accurately stepped down at the end of his tenure) as chair of the ACMD, to be replaced by Professor David Nutt, the coverage leading with the hook that Nutt wants to reclassify ecstasy downwards to class B.

The Telegraph for example, reports that 'The Home Office Considers Reclassification of Ecstasy' . For a start it is the nominally independent ACMD, not the Home Office per se, that has decided to review the drug's classification. We can be certain that the Home Office would be delighted if the committee would leave the whole question well alone; they are painfully aware the review will once again highlight the absurdities and injustices of the classification system and the crumbling edifice of the Misuse of Drugs Act in which it sits. Secondly, the 'news' of this 'admission' is actually neither. The ACMD have been very open and clear since 2006, yes that's over two years, that the ecstasy review would be undertaken. Indeed it has already begun, with a review of the literature already commissioned and underway. All made fully public. The Telegraph are either guilty of lazy journalism or, surely not, whipping up some non-news into a sexy headline.

Almost the exact same story ran in the Sun (which informed us that ' BRITAIN’S new drug Czar wants to DOWNGRADE mind-bending ecstasy and LSD, it was revealed last night.') , and minus a few gory details but using much of the same (presumably agency supplied) text, on Politics.co.uk . Nutt, it should be made clear is not the new Drugs Czar - that absurdly titled post (it was actually on the job application form) was created and inhabited by Keith Hellawell in 1998, until he was rather ungraciously shunted into retirement and the post quietly dropped into to the stupid-populist-ideas-bin in 2002.

Anyway, the ACMD ecstasy review will report later this year and will almost certainly call for ecstasy to be reclassified as a class B drug. Just as happened with the cannabis saga, opponents of the move, or the Government, or both, will say repeatedly and entirely incorrectly that this is 'sending out the message' that 'ecstasy is harmless/safe'. Now, as has been explored in detail by Transform for a number of years, the classification system is riddled with conceptual and intellectual holes rendering it almost completely devoid of public health or criminal justice utility. None the less it is at least nominally based on ranking drug harms and Nutt and his brainy academic colleagues have recently, if rather belatedly (a mere 35 years late) made it clear how they think this ranking should work. Moving ecstasy to B will no more be saying 'it is safe' than moving cannabis to C did. It will merely indicate, correctly as far as it goes, that the risks (addictiveness, toxicity, mortality, social harms etc) are relatively less than other drugs in A, such as cocaine and heroin, just as the cannabis move to C described it as less harmful than class B drugs such as amphetamines. Nutt has also suggested that LSD be moved to B, and moving ecstasy and LSD out of the 'most risky' category has been supported by the Police Foundation report back in 2000 and the Home Affairs Select Committee drugs inquiry back in 2002. Its far from hot news this.

We can fully expect to see all the same confused, emotive and partisan nonsense from the cannabis debate regurgitated once again as ecstasy classification rears its head over the toilet bowl. The ghost of the Leah Betts tragedy will no doubt return to haunt and misinform us, lazy journalists will trawl scientific papers for ecstasy-shock statistics to cherry pick and mis-report, meaningless monkey brain-scans and unclever headlines about 'The agony and the ecstasy' will make a unwelcome return to our newspapers, and the David Davis sending-out-the-wrong-message-ometer will light up like a Christmas tree.

Now before I conclude by pointing and laughing at the anti-science political posturing of drugs minister Vernon Coaker (that has a particular bearing on this story) I would like to say a couple of words to the ACMD on the off chance that any of them are reading this; Reviewing the safety of ecstasy is a very tricky business. Not only is the literature painfully thin (I wrote my undergraduate thesis on the subject in 1992 and was able to read everything ever published) but the drug's effects on individuals, or on populations, is nigh on impossible to ascertain for a number of reasons:

• Ecstasy is rarely used in isolation - poly-drug use with alcohol, cannabis, cocaine, ketamine and / or amphetamines is very much the norm amongst ecstasy users and teasing out which negative effects can be pinned on ecstasy alone is highly problematic. The ABC classification system is woefully inadequate for describing or tackling such complex interactions of variables and behaviours.
  
  
• Ecstasy death statistics are an epidemiological minefield. What is recorded on death certificates does not imply direct causality with ecstasy use as raw death stats suggest. As the Leah Betts case demonstrated, related behaviours can cause or contribute to deaths, as can poly-drug use or other individual predispositions. 60% of recorded 'ecstasy deaths' are of people 'known to drug services'. Think about the significance of that.
  
  
• What is taken as 'ecstasy' is not always MDMA, indeed testing suggests it rarely is. I have done pill-testing at parties (using the maquis reagent) when none of the pills tested contained any ecstasy at all. Are you examining the risks of MDMA or the 'pills' containing a range of different unknown substances that are now sold as ecstasy? (I have discussed this briefly with Prof Nutt and I'm glad to say he acknowledges the difficulties)
  
  
• The nature of the ecstasy pills, and patterns of use has changed dramatically in the last 20 years - they have become far cheaper and (generally) weaker (consequently used in much greater volume) as well as less often containing MDMA - is the research you are looking at still relevant to today's patterns of use? (probably not)
  
  
• There is also a split in the market between cheap ecstasy 'pills' and more upmarket crystal MDMA powder (I predict this to be the new ecstasy version of super-potent 'lethal skunkabis' around which the imminent media ecstasy panic will, er, crystallize). Again, patterns of use are very different and generalised conclusions about harms are not useful for making policy decisions.
  

• As the above points suggest, drug harms are directly impacted by legal status. Pills and powders of unknown strength, purity and often containing unknown drugs are (unless they contain no drugs at all, which is not uncommon) intrinsically more risky than pharmaceutical grade drugs from legally regulated sources with dose, purity and safety information on the packaging. Comparing the safety of pharmaceutical ecstasy (and there is some literature on this) with the safety of illicit use and related behaviors would not only be scientifically sensible but also very illuminating for policy considerations. This point highlights the significant missed opportunity from the 2007 Nutt et al Lancet study on drug harm rankings, discussed in more detail here.

Also, please remember that translating rankings of rather vague population wide harms of a certain drug into criminal penalties for individuals is neither scientific nor ethical and there is no evidence that such and approach, even if the rankings made more sense, delivers any useful policy outcomes. The classification system is long overdue a major review and overhaul, that goes a long way beyond an occasional alphabetical re-jig. The ACMD supported the call of the Science and Technology Select Committee classification inquiry for such a review in 2006, as promised by a previous Home Secretary to the House of Commons in January of the same year. In line with the responsibilities of the committee, the appointment of the new chair provides an apposite moment to repeat this call.

And while you wrestle with all the above remember that whatever the review determines regards ecstasy, the cannabis classification debacle demonstrates with absolute clarity that the government do not give a stuff about science and rational policy making when it does not fit their political prerogatives or pre-ordained 'beliefs'. For those in any doubt let us revisit the follow up oral evidence session to the publication of the Science and Technology Select Committee’s devastating 2006 critique of the classification system, when the the committee re-interviewed then ACMD chair Sir Micheal Rawlins, soon to be chair Prof Nutt (who both acquit themselves very well) and drugs minister Vernon Coaker MP (less well).

By any stretch it is a truly remarkable interrogation, with the Minister not having a leg to stand on when he is repeatedly challenged on the lack of evidence base for the classification system's effectiveness, or the justification for certain howling anomalies within the system. He falls back on evasion, changing the subject or the excuse of decisions being ‘political judgements’ , or worse, merely that it is his ‘belief’ that the system works. There is not even the pretence that the system is evidence based. So here you go folks, just so you know what you're up against.

First is a section about the reclassification of ecstasy:

Q109 Mr Newmark: If the ACMD discovered new evidence when it undertook the review, would you consider reclassifying ecstasy?

Mr Coaker: We would consider their evidence. As I say, we have no plans to reclassify ecstasy. The ACMD is independent of government, we obviously respect what they say, and they will bring their report forward, but the Government has no plans and no intention of reclassifying ecstasy.

Q110 Dr Harris: You say that you do not propose to move ecstasy and it will remain a Class A drug. Is that an evidence-based policy?

Mr Coaker: That is a judgment the Government makes on the basis of what we believe to be something that is in the interests of the public at large to keep ecstasy as a Class A drug.

Q111 Dr Harris: Is it an evidence-based view?

Mr Coaker: It is a judgment that we make based on all the evidence we have had no recommendation from anybody to reclassify ecstasy from an A to a B. We think it is a drug which is harmful. There is no safe dose of it. We were talking about alcohol earlier on and one of the problems you have with alcohol is there probably is a safe dose. Like many here, I have a drink now and again, but there is no safe dose of ecstasy, we think it would send out totally the wrong messages and, as I say, we have no intention of reclassifying ecstasy.

Q112 Mr Newmark: Because it kills unpredictably?

Mr Coaker: As I say, there is no safe dose. This is the point, just half a minute—

Q113 Dr Harris: There is no safe dose of tobacco.

Mr Coaker: It just does make the point very well, the exchange that we have just had between two members of the Committee, quite rightly, about the difficulties that there are in this area and the different views and opinions that people have. I think what we all wrestle with is using evidence and using science and also trying to think about it from a non-scientific point of view in the social judgments and the individual judgments and the community judgments that we make. We wrestle with that and, as I say, as a Government we have no intention of doing anything with respect to ecstasy because we do not believe there is a safe dose, it is harmful, it kills unpredictably, as Brooks has said, and we just think that it is a very important way to use the classification system.

Q114 Dr Harris: If the ACMD reviewed the evidence and that review made recommendations to you, are you saying now it is not worth them doing it because your decision on this will not be evidence based, it will just be a reassertion of your "no intention to reclassify ecstasy"? Even if they said there will be fewer deaths, for whatever reason, if it is reclassified, are you saying that you will never consider an evidence-based decision on this drug?

Mr Coaker: I am not saying that at all. What I am saying is the ACMD, of course, can conduct research and look at whatever they wish to with respect to drugs and make recommendations to the Government. What I am saying quite clearly is that we have no intention of reclassifying ecstasy.

Q115 Dr Harris: I am keen to pursue this one. I understand you have no intention and I assume that is current because I do not think you could bind your successors if the evidence changed. Is it your view that all drugs for which there is no safe dose should be in Class A or is there something special about ecstasy which means it is one of the drugs for which you say there is no safe dose which means it must be in A?

Mr Coaker: In talking about ecstasy, it kills unpredictably, we do not believe that there is a safe dose; we will not reclassify ecstasy.

Q116 Dr Harris: Does that apply to all drugs that meet those criteria?

Mr Coaker: What we try to do where we have evidence and where people come to us with recommendations is make individual judgments, as we will do whenever people come to us. All I am saying with respect to ecstasy is that we have no plans and no intention of doing so.

Q117 Dr Harris: So do you think you are wasting your time, Professor Rawlins, if you end up doing a review in this area?

Professor Sir Michael Rawlins: No, I think we will give advice on whatever we feel is appropriate but perhaps in a way more importantly we will also be able to, I hope, give better advice on harm reduction, which is actually rather important, and on what further research is needed in order to understand the dangers of it.

Q118 Dr Harris: Will the fact that the Minister has said quite categorically that he is not going to change the classification have any bearing on whether you follow through and do a report?

Professor Sir Michael Rawlins: None at all because we are going to do it*.

*please take note, James Kirkup, Political Correspondent at the Daily Telegraph

Now here is a second section from slightly earlier in the session. Creationism gets a mention in reference to the Minister's scientific discourse; it seems an appropriate analogy:

Q45 Chairman: Vernon, in response to us, you said that the Government "fundamentally believes that illegality is an important factor when people are considering engaging in risk-taking behaviour . . . It believes that the illegality of certain drugs, and by association their classification, will impact on drug-use choices". Where is the evidence for that?

Mr Coaker: That is the belief and the judgment that the Government have.

Q46 Chairman: I did not ask you that. People believe in creationism and they are entitled to do that, though I do not agree with that, but I am asking you, where is the evidence?

Mr Coaker: To be fair to the response that we tried to make in response to the Committee where the Committee has challenged us, we have ourselves said that we need to do more research into the deterrent effect, that we need to establish a better evidence and research base for that, so we have accepted the point of the need to actually do something about it, but we do believe, and strongly believe, that the classification of drugs in the current system, A, B and C, with respect to Class A does act as a deterrent system. That is a judgment we make, it is a belief that we have and we have accepted that there is more to do with respect to that.

Q47 Adam Afriyie: If when you carry out and conduct this research the evidence shows that you are completely mistaken in that view, will change your view?

Mr Coaker: I cannot prejudge what any research is going to tell us. Clearly you make judgments about the research that you receive and that is obviously the point.

Q48 Chairman: Vernon, you have not commissioned any research and nor have the ACMD.

Mr Coaker: No, but what we have said in response to where the Committee challenged us and said, "Where is your evidence base for that?", as we have done with a number of other things, we said that we understand that point, we accept that point and we need to look at establishing a better evidence base for that, but it does not alter the fact or change the fact that the Government believes that the tripartite system, the classification system, does send out a strong message and does impact on, and affect, behaviour.

Coaker's speaking in political tongues couldn't help but remind me of this:

CCJS report: Home Office suppress research that contradicts ministers

Whilst not using drugs policy as a specific example these latest essays from the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies considering political distortions of the Home Office research and publication agenda will come as no surprise to anyone in the drugs field. well worth a look.

To see how this analysis plays out in drug policy see Transform briefings: submission to the drug strategy consultation and Drug policy 1997-2007 - The evidence un-spun (for starters)

On 31 March 2008 the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies published, 'Critical thinking about uses of research' (available here).

The monograph includes two essays, one written by Professor Tim Hope and the other by Professor Reece Walters. They put forward a thoughtful and challenging critique of the commissioning, production and dissemination of Home Office research.

Professor Reece Walters, argues:

'Home Office suppression of criminological research that contradicts ministerial policy and opinion is a feature of this arm of government. The Home Office remains silent on all those topics that have the potential to reflect poorly on government and is not an institution that represents the British public'.

Professor Walters calls for an academic boycott of any Home Office sponsored research.

In his essay, Professor Tim Hope, reflecting on his experience of working on Home Office research, argues that:

'having placed such a premium on evidence based policy the government has failed to live up to that promise and has resorted to fixing both the process and publication of Home Office research to meet the political needs of the time'.

Professor Hope is worried that officials and politicians can be tempted to be selective in their choice of the evidence used to illustrate success of programmes thus resulting in the exclusion of some data and the simplification or misrepresentation of others.

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