Public Meeting: War on Drugs - or Time for Peace?

On Friday 13th May, Professor David Nutt and Danny Kushlick will take part in a discussion on drug policy at Cotham School, Bristol. Join us from 6.30pm.

Click on the image below to view details:

Media Review: Prof Ian Gilmore calls for decriminalisation and regulation to be considered

Transform issued a press release last Monday about Sir Ian Gilmore's comments in his final Newsletter as president of the Royal Society of Physicians:

"I feel like finishing my presidency on a controversial note. I personally back the chairman of the UK Bar Council, Nicholas Green QC, when he calls for drug laws to be reconsidered with a view to decriminalising illicit drugs use. This could drastically reduce crime and improve health. Drugs should still be regulated, and the argument for decriminalising them is clearly made by Stephen Rolles in the latest edition of the BMJ."

The press release led to a huge amount of media coverage and debate in print and broadcast media over the following days, with Transform at the heart of much of it; having broken the story and with the BMJ piece on Transform's 'Blueprint for Regulation' specifically cited. Amongst the coverage detailed below, especially in the following days, were some very significant developments. 

Print coverage on the day included:

• Cocaine should be legal, says top doctor - front page coverage in the Telegraph (mentions BMJ piece and quotes Transform's Danny Kushlick), story also ran on Fox news website
• Legalise heroin and cocaine to cut crime and improve health, top doctor says in the Daily Mail (included quote from Danny and an online poll that asked 'should we legalise drugs in a bid to cut crime and improve health'  currently running at 56% in favour, 44% against. Also well worth looking at some of the 284 comments the story attracted - the most up-voted being supportive, the most down-voted against)
• There was also coverage in the Guardian (quoting both Danny and Steve), as well a coverage in the Times, Independent, the Herald Scotland, the Mirror, and many other regional papers.

during the following days:

• The Guardian ran an excellent leader editorial that cited Transform and the BMJ piece 'The War on Drugs: bring out the peace pipe', effectively joining the Observer in its critique of drug war and call for consideration of both decriminalisation and regulation:

"Politicians could prepare public opinion for change by a public assessment of what Britain's war on drugs has achieved. It should ask whether better results could have come by a less damaging route. A policy that results, via the Afghanistan poppy harvest, in financial support for the Taliban, boosts international organised crime and is the underlying problem for more than half of the UK prison population will require some defending.

Decriminalisation would not be an answer in itself. Legalisation is no quick fix. But prohibition's defenders need to show how, against its dire results, their policy can still be justified."

• Arguably more significantly was the interest of the tabloids: Gilmore had a very welcome opportunity to speak to a wider audience when given space for an editorial piece in the Sun, titled 'treat addicts like patients, not cirminals' (when it first appeared online, missing the point entirely, it was daftly titled 'treat junkies like patients, not criminals' - we are not sure which ran in the print version)
• At the weekend the Sunday People - hardly famed for its progressive position on drug policy - went further, dedicating a two page spread to the drug law reform debate, quoting Transform, listing famous supporters of reform, and detailing Portugal's experience with decriminalisation. Better still, they joined the Observer and Guardian in taking a clear editorial position in favour of reform,  their 'Voice of the People' leader column titled 'Time for a new look at drug laws':  

"When the Misuse of Drugs Act was passed in 1971 our politicians, lawyers and medical experts still dreamed of creating a drug-free society.

If we locked up all dealers and users the market would dry up... wouldn’t it?

Forty years on it is clear that the war on drugs was a naive policy that failed miserably and injured more people than it protected.

The huge profits of the international drugs trade fund terrorism, drive crime, and wreck lives across the globe.

But jailing users does nothing to break the cycle of those who commit crime to fuel their habit.

Now, at last, the Government is ­looking at the bigger picture and considering radical plans to decriminalise hard drug use. As we reveal today, 12,000 addicts could be moved out of jails and into hospitals to be treated as patients and not criminals.

Top doctors believe it is the only way to cut crime, improve health and save public money. But it will be a hard pill to swallow for the thousands of victims of druggie muggers and burglars who steal to fund their habit.

It’s a bold move. But if Ministers are finally having a “mature debate” on drug strategy they then need to discuss the “L” word. Legalisation. Criminalising some drugs while ­allowing a free market in others, such as alcohol and nicotine, makes no sense.

Our leaders need to think the ­unthinkable and consider bringing the entire drug industry, from production to use, out of the shadows and under ­legitimate controls.

Could we allow adults to buy limited supplies of drugs from licensed and regulated outlets and tax them as ­highly as possible without creating a black market?

Legalisation may spark an initial ­increase in the number of adults who use drugs, albeit in safer and healthier circumstances. But should adults be ­allowed to make that choice – when many already choose to wreck their lives, quite legally, with alcohol?

Tough questions – but the Government must seize the moment and ask them."

OK, so not exactly how Transform might argue it but we have to welcome the fact that this -mostly reasonable- editorial appeared in a national paper new to the reform position and, like the Sun coverage, is reaching much wider audience than the same Guardian and Observer readers, most of whom are already sympathetic to the drug law reform position. The positive tabloid coverage in particular is a sure sign that this debate is moving into the mainstream and moving in a positive direction.

Broadcast media 

On the Tuesday the story broke, Steve did 17 broadcast interviews and Danny did 10, in addition to the various interviews Gilmore himself gave, and a further 7 picked up by our colleagues over at Release. Highlights of Transform's coverage included appearances on

• BBC Breakfast TV (live interview)
• SKY breakfast news (pre-recorded interview for news segment)
• BBC Radio 4's Today program (quotes and Today audio clip on BBC coverage)
• 5 Live breakfast (pre-record for new segment), and 5 live morning debate (with David Raynes)
• BBC News Channel (debate with Neil McKeggany)
• SKY lunchtime news
• Talk Sport radio
• BBC Radio Wales (debate with Ian Oliver)
• BBC World Service (international broadcast)
• BBC News International TV (international broadcast - debate with David Raynes again)

The following day there was an additional appearance on CNN International, a 'Connect the World' half hour special on drug policy and law reform, with Steve debating former DEA agent Bob Stutman.

In addition there was plenty of blog action around the issue, all attracting many comments (mostly positive) - notably including:

• Fergus Walsh's BBC Blog 'Would decriminalising drugs work?'
• Mark Easton's BBC blog, writing about the 'British System'
• Tom Chivers' Telegraph blog Another top doctor has backed a rethink of drug policy. Maybe it's time to listen
• CNNs Connect the World blog 'should we decriminlize drugs?
• Tory peer Lord Norton calling for Royal Commission on the drug laws 'decriminalising drug use' on Lords of the Blog (a very interesting Lordly debate ensuing)

There was also a steady stream of op-eds, including efforts from:

• Antonia Senior (call for legalisation/regulation in the New Statesman and the Times - unfortunately now behind a paywall),
• Libby Purves, also in the Times (supportive of decrim)
• Paul Thomas in the New Zealand Herald 'drug decriminalisation makes sense'
• James Bell in the Guardian 'why not tax my drug addicts'

And even some satire from the Daily Mash legalise drugs, says some crazy president of the Royal College of Physicians.

Critical voices were, of course, also in evidence but curiously muted - the sense being that the media were struggling to find many. If there were pro drug war op-eds in any of the nationals we must have missed them. There were some quotes in the news coverage, however; In a widely quoted comment by Keith Vaz MP he stated that the legalisation of drugs "would simply create the mistaken impression that these substances are not harmful, when in fact this is far from the truth". This rather facile misconception about what a public health approach to drug regulation would entail is exactly the same one that he carried through the mostly awful 2010 Home Affairs Select Committee report on cocaine.

The Home Office response was even more inadequate, and missed the point to a such a staggering degree as to not deserve or warrant any further scrutiny:

'Drugs such as heroin, cocaine and cannabis are extremely harmful and can cause misery to communities across the country. The government does not believe that decriminalisation is the right approach. Our priorities are clear; we want to reduce drug use, crack down on drug related crime and disorder and help addicts come off drugs for good.'

 In a Mirror news piece (nominally about a separate 'legal highs' story that this blog will return too at a later date) we also learn that:

Leading doctors argue prohibition of heroin and cocaine has failed and they should be decriminalised and allowed for use under licence and tomorrow the Government will launch a major review of Britain's drugs laws. Home Office Minister James Brokenshire will rule out new legalisation but call for a more "mature debate" on how to control drugs.

You can only laugh (somewhat bitterly) at the Minister's concept of what constitutes a 'mature debate', one in which entire policy arenas he does not approve of are closed down before the debate has even begun. This despite the genuinely mature debate - one in which all options are on the table - that is happening in the real world (note links above for example), and being encouraged by the President of the Royal College of Physicians (not to mention the President of Mexico), and indeed Broke nshires own Prime Minister (albeit a while back). For the record decriminalisation of personal use, certainly non-prosecution of users, was also in the Lib Dem manifesto. They have been strangely and disappointingly silent during all this.

There was a predictably critical blog post from Kathy Gyngel from the Center for Policy Studies, but it is a lacklustre and scatter gun affair by her standards (see the comments for some critique of the factual analysis). 

Overall - this has been a hugely positive few days for the UK debate. Its always hard to gauge how much impact events like this have; maybe it was just a silly season story on a slow news day.  But it feels like part of a much more significant shift in the debate that has taken place over the last couple of years and appears to be accelerating- one in which the law reform arguments are being increasingly well understood for the principled pragmatic position they represent. Even Drugscope, usually very cautious in the debate, this week made a welcome call (in the Times) for decriminalisation to be considered (repeating a call they made back in 2001 but have been very quiet about since).

Small steps as ever, but the direction of travel is the right one. 

Minister for a Day

This is a piece I penned recently for a regular slot titled 'Minister for a Day' in Whitehall and Westminster World 21 April

Danny Kushlick
becomes Home Secretary for a day

7:00am Wake up, shaking myself into comprehending that yes, David Cameron has included me in his new government. My kids think it’s hilarious, having heard me sing: “Build a bonfire, build a bonfire; put the MPs on the top.” So shoot me, I’ve sold out. However, as young men we both experimented with cannabis, and he did call for a serious discussion of drug legalisation as a backbencher on the home affairs select committee back in 2002, so here we go. My brief is to kick into gear the process of getting the UK out of the drugs war. I’m looking forward to having fun.

For nigh-on 20 years I’ve campaigned against successive governments’ attempts to convince the Great British Public that the drug war keeps them and the wider world safe from the threat of ‘drugs’ (bar, of course, the legal ones: alcohol and tobacco). With the upcoming publication of a comprehensive impact assessment of global prohibition that I’ve commissioned, people will begin to see the flaws in that policy. Despite the evidence, my predecessor seemed more willing to discuss her husband’s viewing habits than legalisation and regulation of drugs.

I guess hiring me for a day to deliver this message is probably the easiest way to deal with the inevitable controversy. It’s got to be better than wasting some genuine ministerial talent, like David Davis.

8.00am First meeting of the day is with the permanent secretary and senior departmental colleagues. No love lost here, but a job’s a job. Like George Best in his heyday, Sir David Normington turns on a sixpence and says he has convened an interdepartmental meeting to announce the end of UK support for a prohibitionist drug policy.

I begin by letting the assembled group know that there will no longer be a need to mislead voters into supporting the very regime that creates the ‘drug menace’. Drug policy will now protect the public, rather than party political interests. No more will the UK support a policy that operates as a price-support mechanism for illegal drug traders, and turns plants into products worth more than their weight in gold. We will be taking £160bn a year away from the international criminals and at the same time drastically reducing crime (government figures suggest half of prison inmates have some kind of drug habit). No longer will drug policy punish the poor and disadvantaged the world over.

Concerns about half-empty prisons, redundancies amongst customs officers and organised criminals, and lack of material for draconian commentators such as Peter Hitchens, Melanie Phillips and Simon Heffer to froth over are raised and rebuffed. We’ll talk about resource reallocation later, I tell my officials.

The real concerns about increasing levels of drug use are discussed within Mr Cameron’s newly adopted framework of promoting overall wellbeing. It is now widely recognised that high levels of use and misuse are most closely associated with high levels of inequality and more general disparities in health. The Home Office will now be tasked with genuinely identifying and tackling low wellbeing as a cause of crime.

Oh, and we will also be releasing documentation, withheld under the misnamed Freedom of Information Act, that shows that UK governments have privately discussed the benefits of legalisation for at least 20 years.

Just as they stand up to leave, I tell them that the PM is minded to abolish prisons entirely. “Only joking,” I tell them – sadly.

10.00am The interdepartmental meeting. Chancellor Vince Cable begins by informing the group that we will no longer spend £4bn a year fighting a battle that creates £16bn worth of costs – and a living hell from Afghanistan to Colombia, and on the streets of every industrialised nation on earth. UK policy will now follow the sage analysis proffered (but then buried and ignored) by the PM’s strategy unit in their drugs report of 2003: that prohibition is the problem. Defence, intelligence and Foreign Office bods seem delighted that a significant source of insecurity will disappear from their in-trays. As we leave, two senior officials tell me sotto voce that they used to be warned away from discussing legalisation, lest it damage their careers.

12.00pm Time for a legally boozy lunch with Hillary Clinton (you didn’t seriously think that Cameron would go it alone, did you?). Time for the ‘special relationship’ to work for peace rather than war, methinks.

3.00pm As I walk back to my (very temporary) office, I am about to call key journalists but feel an infinitesimally brief pain in the side of my head. As the afternoon sunlight fades to grey, the last words I hear are my own: “And I thought I was on a roll. I was so looking forward to being president for a day. I could have ended world poverty… So shoot me…”

4.00pm The PM wrings his hands (eat your heart out, Tony Blair) as he issues a press statement confirming that a gunman of Colombian origin was shot while fleeing from a book depository overlooking Parliament Square. Meanwhile, rumours persist that Damian McBride and former drugs tsar Keith Hellawell had been emailing each other about the whereabouts of a grassy knoll.

TV documentary: Prime Time Investigates: War Without End

An extraordinary documentary marking a new level in broadcast journalism critiquing the international war on drugs was shown on Irish TV last night (3 June 2008).

Filmed in Colombia, Ireland, England, the US, The Netherlands, Switzerland and many more, it includes a veritable who’s who of drug policy experts on all sides of the debate (Including Transform's Danny Kushlick).

It is absolutely unequivocal in demonstrating the futility and massive costs of fighting the war on drugs, as well as suggesting legal regulation as a viable alternative. A must see for anyone interested in the debate.

The entire program can be viewed online here

Transform in the Guardian's Comment is Free

The following article from Transform director Danny Kushlick was published in the Guardian's online comment is free section yesterday evening. There is an active discussion forum below it to which you can contribute for the next three days (after which it closes - this blog forum remains open of course). Note: The slightly odd title to the piece is the work of the Guardian copy editors BTW, not Danny.

A drug on the market

Today's report, revealing the extraordinary scale of the UK's drug trade, admits only one conclusion: the policy of prohibition has failed

A Home Office report published today estimates the size of the UK illicit drugs trade at over £7bn. Using phrases like "market dynamics" and "enterprise structures", the report reads rather like a large business's annual report to shareholders. Except that this trade is entirely illegal and therefore totally beyond the reach of HM Treasury and the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform. It is the ultimate in deregulated markets, with absolutely no red tape for traffickers, suppliers and dealers.

To quote from the report (pdf): "There were very large mark-ups along the supply chain, from production to street level, for cocaine (circa 15,800%) and heroin (circa 16,800%)". Yes, you read it correctly, that's 16,000% mark-ups, unheard of in any other commodity market. The reason, pure and simple, is global prohibition. Is this a surprise to anyone in government? No.

The PM's Strategy Unit produced a report (pdf) in 2003 demonstrating in detail how this happens: it explained that "over the past 10-15 years, despite interventions at every point in the supply chain, cocaine and heroin consumption has been rising, prices falling and drugs have continued to reach users. Government interventions against the drug business are a cost of business, rather than a substantive threat to the industry's viability." (p94)

What the Downing Street report shows is that prohibition cannot prevent drug production, cannot prevent drug-trafficking, cannot prevent drug use, but that it does create huge volumes of acquisitive crime. But worse than all this, prohibition actually creates the vast unregulated market and all the misery and degradation that goes along with it from Afghanistan and Colombia to New York, Moscow and London.

These illicit profits are one of the single greatest corrupting economic forces in operation globally today. It is a policy of mass destruction, with dodgy dossiers to support its continuation and a group of senior politicians the world over which proclaims its success, despite its all-too-obvious horrors.

Now, however, there is an increasingly influential group of individuals and institutions demonstrating their opposition to the status quo. Given this growing opposition and sustained critique, one wonders why the Home Office continues to draw attention to prohibition's shocking failings. But, to the extent that they do, it gives us all the opportunity to see the reality of prohibition's impacts for what they are - and to let government know that the "war on drugs" is not being fought in our name.

Transform on BBC Radio 4's 'Law in Action'

BBC Radio 4's Law In Action broadcast a special programme devoted to the drug laws on Tuesday 24 July.

Danny Kushlick, Transform Director, appeared on the studio panel. The Drugs Minister, Vernon Coaker, declined to take part. Is this perhaps because defending the status quo under close scrutiny would have been impossible?

Below is the BBC blurb to accompany the programme.

Drug Laws

It's an unpalatable fact that the UK has the highest level of dependent drug use, and among the highest level of recreational drug use in Europe.

Our drug problem worsened steadily during the 70's, 80's and 90's and yet the drug laws which are largely governed by The Misuse of Drugs Act, is now 36 years old.

When the Act came into force in 1971, there were a just few thousand heroin users in the UK. It's now estimated that there are more than 280,000 in England and 50,000 in Scotland.

Tomorrow, (July 25th), the Home Office publishes its long awaited consultation on its drug strategy, and on today's programme we examine whether our current laws and criminal justice system are working effectively?

Joining Clive to discuss that are:
Danny Kushlick is the Director of the Drugs Charity, Transform, a think tank committed to reform of the current laws and policy on drugs; Diane Mark is chair of the bench at Wimbledon Magistrates Court and Paul Hayes is head of the National Treatment Agency, a body created by the Government in 2001 to ensure that there is more, better and fairer treatment available to all who need it.

Other contributors to the programme:

Professor Colin Blakemore, Chief Executive of the Medical Research Council, "Paul," a former drug addict and offender, Greg Foxsmith, a criminal lawyer working in London, Deputy-Chief Constable of Nottinghamshire Police, Howard Roberts (and also representing the Association of Chief Police officers on drugs issues),

The Drugs Minister, Vernon Coaker, declined to take part.