Transform's submission to the Drugs Strategy Consultation

The summary and conclusions are copied below, the full document (in Pdf format) is available here. 

Transform has a number of serious concerns about the consultation process and the contents of the consultation paper itself. These concerns are explored first with reference to the consultation document where relevant, and the Governments consultation code of practice. We then highlight and discuss key areas of policy that are absent from the consultation. 

On the specific questions in the consultation document not covered in this response Transform wishes to endorse the detailed submissions made by Release ( www.release.org ) and UKHRA / NNEF. (www.ukhra.org ) 

Summary: 

The consultation does not adhere to the first three criterion of the Government’s consultation code of practice regarding when to consult, duration of the consultation, or clarity and scope of impact.

There is no Impact Assessment for proposed policy changes, or research data / analysis presented in support of any proposals.

Key areas of the public policy debate are entirely absent from the consultation, specifically:

• Harm reduction – a key pillar of UK drug policy receives no mention 
  
• Sentencing / decriminalisation – the growing body of evidence, high level backing and active public debate are ignored
  
•  Supply side enforcement – its efficacy is unquestioned (despite the absence of evidence) and its impacts unexplored
  
• The classification system / ACMD – none of the high profile public debates and controversies on this important issue are addressed
  
• International drug policy – there is no mention of or engagement with the international dimension of UK drug policy
  
• Evaluative framework – there is no engagement with how policy should be evaluated – regards targets, KPIs and or how they should be prioritised
  
• Tobacco – there are many mentions of alcohol, but none of the drug associated with the greatest number of addictions and chronic deaths in the UK

 

Discussion / Conclusions 

There are some positive things in this consultation. We are pleased to see the call for ‘a more holistic approach with drugs issues being assessed and tackled alongside other issues such as alcohol abuse, child protection, mental health, employment and housing’.

Transform have long argued that levels of problematic drug use primarily reflect a complex interplay social, economic and cultural variables. In addition to those above we would certainly include social deprivation, inequality and broader measures of personal and social wellbeing. The corollary of this, of course, is that the impact of drug policy as traditionally conceived (prevention, treatment, and enforcement) should not be overestimated and may be marginal, in many cases irrelevant, relative to the underlying social determinants of drug using behaviours.

This analysis – that problematic use is essentially a barometer of a social wellbeing (or lack of) - has obvious implications for longer term prevention and harm reduction strategies. It suggests that success is likely to flow more from investment in social capital and addressing multiple deprivation and inequality issues, particularly as they affect young people, rather than from pouring ever more money into more conventional interventions that are poorly supported by evidence. 

Whilst conventional drug policy may only be able to achieve, at best, fairly marginal impacts on prevalence of problematic use, the overarching prohibitionist legal framework can, however, have a dramatic impact on levels of harm associated with drug use. This can be both by increasing health risks associated with use, and through the wider social harms created or exacerbated by the illegal drug market. 

This goes to the heart of the drug policy and law reform position that Transform represents; a pragmatic position that accepts both the reality of demand for drugs as it currently exists, and that this demand will be met by illegal supply routes if no legally regulated supply option exists. Drug markets can be controlled and regulated by governments or by gangsters; there is no third option that involves a drug free society. 

We argue that legally regulating drug production, supply and use (as detailed in ‘After the War on Drugs; Blueprint for Regulation’) would deliver better outcomes than the anarchic criminal free for all and underground drug culture we currently have. The pragmatic mindset also requires that whilst we acknowledge  most people do not use illegal drugs, we must also acknowledge that most of those who do, do so relatively responsibly. Their use is not associated with significant personal or social harms, and as such should not be deemed problematic. Of people (globally) who report using illegal drugs in the last year The UNODC only describes 5% as problematic users. It is important to be mindful of the 95% of non-problematic users who do not need treatment – let alone criminal sanction.

Whilst there is a welcome and growing acknowledgement that treatment, prevention and education should be are tailored to individual and local needs - prohibition remains a blunt, inflexible and indiscriminate legislative tool, an absolutist position that criminalises all users regardless of their impact on themselves or those around them, similarly forcing all supply in the hands of criminal profiteers.

The reform position has its roots in the critique of the failings of this approach – both on its own terms, and regards the secondary unintended harms of the illegal trade it fuels. As has been alluded to in this response, the prohibitionist paradigm cannot stand scrutiny, which is at least part of the reason why scrutiny has been so studiously avoided for so long. Indeed the ‘war on drugs’ has required a monumental propaganda effort to sustain it – just as many other wars have.

We only need cast our minds back to the farcical drug strategy consultation of 2007. It was supported by a consultation document described by the ACMD thus:

"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.'

Of the same document the Government’s own Statistics Commission similarly accused the Home Office of spinning the data to make it look more favourable and failing to ‘provide a balanced presentation of the relevant statistical and other evidence’. 

 

Meanwhile a rigorous and critical ‘value for money’ study (referred to on page 10) that informed the Home Office’s internal review was not made publicly available – only emerging this year following an absurdly protracted 3-year FOI battle with Transform. 

Many the problems with that ill fated consultation (regards process, content and transparency) have unfortunately now been repeated, although this time around we do not even have crudely spun evidence to criticise – there is simply none.
 

This is why the core of our call in this response is to return to the evidence; to have, if you will forgive the oft-misused political clichés, a ‘mature and rational debate’ about ‘what works’.

But this time with all options on the table.
 

This requires open, honest and ongoing evaluation, and as a starting point; independently overseen Impact Assessments of all policies and legislation, new and old (including the MDA 1971). 

In terms of the general mindset, this will entail a move from misplaced moralising and outdated (but entrenched) drug war ideologies to pragmatic public health and social policy norms. If the Government follow the evidence it can only lead to better policies and the better outcomes we all seek. We are confident that if this happens it will only lead in one direction – and it will not be towards criminalisation and prohibition. 

Sadly this consultation falls short on almost every front – it is tokenistic, politicised, and entirely inadequate for the reasons outlined. It is more than a missed opportunity; it is entirely unacceptable as a basis for developing a new drug strategy. We therefore recommend that it be reviewed by the Cabinet Office (and will be requesting this from the Cabinet Minister) with a view to being re-launched. The new consultation process should address the identified shortcomings by adhering to the Government code of practice, including evidential support and Impact Assessments for all proposals, and covering all aspects of UK drug policy of concern to stakeholders.

Transform transformed - our new strategy and structure

Transform’s Board has recently carried out a comprehensive review of the organisation and the challenges we face over the next few years.

It has become clear that attaining a rational drug policy cannot be achieved by an exclusive focus on the Home Office and relevant politicians. To accomplish change we need to engage with opinion formers and decision makers on a much wider basis. We need to achieve policy climate change. Transform’s Board has agreed to prioritise work over the next five years in three key areas.

Firstly we will be highlighting the international dimensions to drug policy. Drug policy in the UK and other states is underpinned by a number of international treaties that are based on the principles of prohibition. The harms caused by drug policy and the ‘war on drugs’ are international, with the trail of harm generated by prohibition stretching from producer countries, through transit nations to user countries. In all cases these harms are disproportionately experienced by the poorest and least powerful members of society. As well as highlighting these international consequences within Transform’s work we will be looking at developing a number of alliances, that will include both organisations based and operating in other countries and UK organisations who work internationally.

Secondly Transform will be focusing on promoting wellbeing as the key paradigm for drug policy. In partnership with a number of academics we are looking at developing methodologies that allow the wellbeing impact of both existing and proposed drug policy regimes to be evaluated. This work will underpin our continued campaigning for the transfer of drug policy responsibility away from criminal justice agencies to public health authorities. The law enforcement strategies central to current drug policy generate considerable additional harms and have clearly failed. A public health and wellbeing approach to drug policy would be much more effective. However, to achieve this we need to build a wide coalition within the heath and allied professions in support of such an approach.

A major aspect of this work will be supporting the development of the Drugs and Health Alliance (DHA). The DHA is a coalition of agencies campaigning for drug policy to move away from failed criminal justice approaches and instead adopt a public health approach. Transform provides the secretariat for the DHA and in that capacity has recently received funding from the Pilgrim Trust which has enabled us to recruit Francesca Solmi as its co-ordinator. Francesca has a BA in International Relations from Sussex University and a Masters Degree in International Relations and Health Policy from SAIS – Johns Hopkins University. Before joining the DHA she worked with the World Health Organisation on Child Environmental Health issues. She has also interned for the Food and Agricultural Organisation in Rome, and for the United Nations Development Program’s liaison office in Washington DC. Francesca will be based in London and will be working for the Drugs and Health Alliance 2.5 days per week.

Thirdly we will be focusing on the economic impact of prohibition based drug policies. We will be carrying out or commissioning a number of studies to identify the cost of existing policies; both to public finances and to the wider economy. These will be supplemented by further work identifying the benefits of alternative policies based on legal regulation and control. This strand of our work will set out the strong economic case for adopting rational drug policies and further broaden the coalition supporting drug policy reform.

In addition to this refocusing of our research and campaigning work we have reviewed how we are organised and established a new organisational structure. This structure will see Transform’s staff organised into three teams, Research, Policy and Communications, and Operations. The Research team will be responsible for developing Transform’s ‘product’ both through directly produced work and by managing commissioned research projects. Steve Rolles, who has been the lead author of all our major publications would become the Head of Research and will work with Emily Crick our Research Associate. Steve is based in London and Emily in Bristol.

The Policy and Campaigns team will disseminate our material and communicating the case for change. Danny Kushlick moves to a new post as Head of Policy and Communications to head up this team and will be working with Martin Powell, our new Communications Associate. Martin brings with him extensive experience of working in the charitable sector having spent over ten years at environmental and international development campaign groups including Friends of the Earth, the World Development Movement and as Co-Chair of the Jubilee Debt Campaign. Martin has a degree in applied chemistry and a postgraduate diploma in environmental science, policy and planning. Office based volunteers, student placements and interns will supplement these teams. Francesca Solmi the DHA’s co-ordinator will be based in this team.

The third team, Operations will focus on Transform’s funding and organisational management. A new post of ‘Director of Operations’ is being established with overall responsibility for management of the organisation. This post will work closely with Jane Slater, Operations Co-ordinator and they will both focus on human resources, funding, finances and project management. John Moore is currently filling this post on an interim basis.

The new strategy opens up a range of exciting possibilities for Transform and the restructuring utilises the strengths of our staff, enabling us to maximise Transform’s impact and influence.

Drug dealer crackdown's have "no major impact"

Research carried out by the Criminal Policy Research Unit at Southbank University indicates that whilst police offensives against crack dealers netted a large number of arrests, it did little to hinder crime associated with the crack-cocaine market.

‘Mounted in two phases of two and six weeks in the winter of 2000/2001, Operation Crackdown netted over 1600 arrests from concentrated ‘sting’ or ‘test’ purchases and during raids on scores of crack houses and dozens of street drug markets...

A priority was to reduce street crime. Reported robberies and burglaries near the operation sites yielded no indication that this had occurred. Local police agreed, with the exception of areas where street robberies were strongly linked to adult users of crack houses. Where juveniles were the main offenders some police felt that the diversion of officers to Crackdown had allowed an increase in street robberies.’

The study goes on to note that crack users, police and community service staff agreed that the operation did not make buying drugs harder, or increase the prices. There is also evidence that crack houses merely moved to different areas.

Research into a separate crackdown in London’s Kings Cross backs this argument up. Evidence suggests that the impacts of the crackdown were transitory and dealing merely moved to near-by streets. Further studies in Manchester and the US found that drug dealers tend to be some of the most desperate and deprived people, therefore threats of harsh prison sentences have little impact.

The Operation Crackdown study also found that police were concerned that

‘Police said the centrally timetabled crackdown had distorted normal anti-drug enforcement and could only be mounted by drafting in less experienced staff, reducing effectiveness. They also agreed that Crackdown had diverted attention from potentially more effective ways of tackling drug markets. A major limitation in the operation’s ability to dent crack dealing was that most crack purchases are arranged over mobile phones rather than in street markets or crack houses.’

The researchers interviewed a large number of heroin and crack users after Operation Crackdown ended. Almost 1 in 5 said they felt that crack had actually become easier to buy since the start of the operation.

Not explored in the research is that more than just being ineffective (or having marginal/short term impacts), enforcement initiatives can actually make matters worse. New turf wars can be precipitated, and new dealers or gangs that appear to fill a void left from a major crackdown can impose themselves with increased levels of violence to establish their territory. They may well be unknown to user populations and police causing additional difficulties and tensions. Sanho Tree of the Washington-based think tank Institute for Policy Studies has also argued on this blog that enforcement can create a Darwinian ‘survival of the fittest’ effect, where only the most ruthless, cunning or violent within the criminal market will prosper.

In the UK Government’s recently launched Drugs Strategy much is made of the claim that over 1,000 crack houses have been closed since 2003. However, if as the above mentioned research suggests, those houses have merely moved somewhere else then there's little point bragging about numbers; it is just more of the familiar Home Office misdirection. The fact remains that crack was not a major problem in 1997, and it is now - despite the enourmous policing resources put into attempts to eliminate it.

further reading:

After the War on Drugs, Tools for the Debate (see p.41 Talking about Crack)

Controlling illegal stimulants; a regulated market model Mark Haden in the Harm Reduction Journal

How enforcing prohibition creates street crime

Transform in the Guardian: commentary on the new drug strategy

The following article is in todays Guardian online Comment is Free. Theres an open debate taking place below - the usual CIF knockabout stuff. There was also an abridged 'teaser' version in the Guardian print edition.

Policy Narcosis
The government keeps returning to a punitive-prohibitionist stance on drugs when every informed view, including its own analysts', advises otherwise

Steve Rolles

Despite the headline-grabbing new announcements, the new drug strategy is essentially a restatement of the previous one, and doomed to perpetuate the same disastrous failings, primarily because - as Paul Flynn observes - it remains dogmatically rooted in the outdated principles of a punitive prohibitionist approach. The big new initiatives on seizures of criminal assets, and linking benefits to treatment uptake, will operate at the margins of the strategy and will not have any meaningful impact on overall efficacy.

Asset seizures are nothing new and the move to seizures on arrest, as opposed to charge or prosecution, is quite simply illegal and unlikely ever to happen. The strategy's target is to raise asset seizures to £350m a year - a minor tax on the £7bn a year UK illegal market's turnover, even in the doubtful event of it being achieved. Notwithstanding the fact that it is the prohibition that creates the assets in the first instance, there is no evidence that asset seizures are a significant deterrent to the violent gangsters who control the trade (although the US experience demonstrates how linking seized funds to policing budgets or service provision can corrupt and distort policing priorities).

Linking benefits to uptake of treatment provision similarly bears the hallmarks of populist posturing. The reality is that, in any one year, the vast majority of problematic users are not ready or willing to stop. Coercing the least able or willing is offensive to most people's definition of treatment (despite the treatment industry's collusion with it), and its results no better than non-coerced interventions. Obvious concerns arise that the policy might lead to the withdrawal of benefits from some of the most desperate and needy members of society, most of whom already suffer multiple problems with mental health, housing and employment. The negative consequences could be serious: increased offending, increased social exclusion and decreased likelihood of engagement with treatment and support services.

The new strategy restates a series of highly misleading claims for the success of the previous one, based on misrepresented and cherry-picked statistics, or process successes that have no bearing on policy outcomes. The inability of the Home Office to tell the truth about what has worked, and what has not, is at the heart of the problem with the new strategy; there has been no critical analysis of past failings and no serious engagement with any new policy ideas or alternative approaches. Indeed, no policies were presented during last year's consultation on which to consult, certainly not the headline initiatives announced today. Forget the mature debate about legalisation and regulation that the Home Affairs Select Committee (including David Cameron) called for back in 2002. Nowhere in the consultation was there even any mention of the less contentious incremental reforms that have an extensive evidence base from around the world such as moves to civil, rather than criminal, penalties for drug possession, or proven harm-reduction measures such as supervised injecting rooms.

The strategy's most alarming failings are in the arena of supply-side drug control, where the Home Office claims of success have been the most outrageously misleading and the restatement of previous policy in the new strategy the most alarming. As Transform has repeatedly highlighted, a number of high-level internal documents, along with a whole series of authoritative parliamentary, academic and independent NGO analyses have demonstrated that not only are supply-side interventions hugely expensive (£3bn a year) and ineffective (drugs are substantially cheaper and more available than ever before), they are actively counterproductive - creating £16bn a year in crime costs. Assuming government maintains its commitment to prohibition, crime costs could approach £200bn over the next decade.

Can we assume ignorance on the government's part with regard to the counterproductive nature of their policy at home and abroad? Absolutely not. In June of 2003, the cabinet was presented with the PM's Strategy Unit drugs report, which informed them in devastating detail that supply-side enforcement was the major cause of drug-related harm, not only in the UK, but in Afghanistan and Colombia, too. The new strategy demonstrates, yet again, how evidence and sound analysis have become the latest casualties in the ongoing war on drugs and drug users.

note: this version is an edited version of what I submitted. The title and subheading are by the Guardian editor.

Also in CIF today:

Duped on dope

Amid all the hype about the government's new 10-year drug strategy, does anyone remember that the last one failed?

from Drug law reform legend Paul Flynn MP

New drug strategy ignores the terrible costs of past failures

Below is Transform's press release on the new drug strategy. By necessity it is quite sound bite-y but for those interested there are links to further analysis in the notes to editors. We will publish a commentary on the document when we have seen the detail at some point tomorrow.

New drug strategy ignores the terrible costs of past failures

The UK Government’s new 10 year drug strategy, and three year action plan, is published tomorrow (Feb 27th). Transform Drug Policy Foundation, the UK’s leading centre of expertise on drug policy and law reform, have highlighted how, despite £30 billion being spent on drug enforcement during the last ten year strategy, crime costs of over £100 billion have been accrued. Lessons from these failings have been ignored by the new strategy.

Transform spokesperson Steve Rolles said:

“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.

“In stark contrast, documents the Government attempted to suppress clearly demonstrate that they have known about the counterproductive nature of supply side drug enforcement for many years, yet continued to pour money into it – something in the region of 3 billion a year – despite the knowledge it was contributing to a further 16 billion year in crime costs.

“This deception and lack of rational debate and engagement with reality, has meant we now have a new drug strategy shaped by political needs rather than any evidence of what actually works. This political posturing and moral grandstanding means we face the prospect of tens of billions more being wasted on counterproductive supply-side enforcement initiatives over the next ten years, resulting in literally hundreds of billions more in crime costs. Tragically, the new strategy is nothing more than a miserable regurgitation of past mistakes with a bit of cosmetic spin and window dressing. Its prospects of having a meaningful impact on drug related harms to individuals and communities are zero. They are playing politics with peoples lives.

“The first step, if there is any hope of drug related harm being reduced in the long term, is for the Government to start telling the truth. This means acknowledging the failure of a predominantly enforcement led approach and beginning to shift the emphasis of policy towards proven public health led initiatives. This will involve investing money in education, prevention, treatment, and addressing the social deprivation that underlies most problematic drug use – instead of yet more heavy handed police and military enforcement that only serves to make drug problems worse, fill our prisons, and maximise drug harms.

Notes to editors:

Contact:

Transform spokesperson Steve Rolles.
Mob: 07980 213 943,
Email: steve@tdpf.org.uk

• Transform forward notice briefing on the drug strategy (pdf); providing the historical and political backdrop for the new publication, a description of its likely contents, critique of Home Office claims of success, details on suppressed documents, along with detailed notes and links to further information.
  

• Transform briefing on the drug strategy 1998-2008: the evidence un-spun; a detailed analysis putting Government claims for success under a critical spotlight.

• Media fact research guide; headline statistics and links, along with some commentary and critique, on a variety of statistics drug related topics including drug useage, drug crime, social and ecomics costs of drug use, prison population, drug prices, drug deaths, and the sioze of the drug market.

• The Prime Minister’s strategy unit drugs report, presented to ministers in 2003 (including Gordon Brown), and leaked to the media in 2005, demonstrates the historic failure of attempts to reduce drug supply and clearly explains why they will not be any more effective in the future.

“ UK importers and suppliers make enough profit to absorb the modest cost of drug seizures” (p.82)

“The long term decline in the real price of drugs, against a backdrop of rising consumption, indicates that an ample supply of heroin and cocaine has been reaching the UK market”(p.80)

“Despite seizures, real prices for heroin and cocaine in the UK have halved over the last ten years”(p.91)

“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.” (p.94)

The report goes on to show that even if supply side interventions were more successful, the result would be increased prices that could force addicts to commit more crime to support their habits.

“There is no evidence to suggest that law enforcement can create such droughts” (p.102)

[but even if they could…..]

“price increases may even increase overall harm, as determined users commit more crime to fund their habit and more than offset the reduction in crime from lapsed users”(p.99)

• Transform briefing on the strategy unit report
• Full strategy unit report (pdf)

Is three billion a year on enforcement good value for money?

According to the Governments own reviews they have been spending something in the region of 1 to 3 billion a year on drug enforcement (depending on how you measure it) - preventing the supply of drugs - with the express aim increasing the price of drugs as a way of deterring use. Increasing the price of drug may or may not deter use to the degree they suppose but that has been the plan. The particular target has been the two drugs identified by the Government as 'causing the most harm': heroin and cocaine. The big plan back in 1998 was to have reduced availability by 50%. By this week as fate would have it.

It would be easy to be fooled by the statistics put out by the Home Office that this endeavour has been broadly successful. More drugs are being seized we are told, usually in the form of how drugs are being 'prevented from reaching the streets'. We also learn that more drug gangs are being broken up, or 'smashed' as they like to say. Also, more criminal assets are being seized. Excellent. But what's all that got to do with reducing drug supply or availability? Measures that would actually give a real indication of heroin and cocaine availability have been studiously avoided by the Home Office and never seem to crop up in their publications, strategies, or consultation documents. Measures like drug prices, or surveys drug users - asking them highly technical questions like 'how available are heroin and cocaine?'. The Home Office deliberately uses 'availability' targets that are in no way measures of availability. (Call me cynical, but could it be they are trying to, whats the phrase I'm looking for...deceive us?)

Whilst we don't have much decent or consistent trend research in terms of drug user surveys (although we really should) we do have some pretty good drug price data, based on test purchases. This was most recently revealed, again, in a parliamentary answer last week, reproduced below:

Mr. Malins: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the street price of (a) heroin and (b) cocaine was in each of the last 10 years. [178111]

Mr. Coaker: The information requested is shown in the following table.

UK Average Drug Prices 1997-2007
£
As at December:	Cocaine (per gram)	Heroin (per gram)
1997	71	74
1998	77	74
1999	75	65
2000	65	70
2001	60	63
2002	56	61
2003	55	62
2004	51	55
2005	49	54
2006	49	50-55
2007	45	40-50

So heroin and cocaine prices have almost halved - having spent 20 billion of so on attempts to increase them. During the same period of time the UK has achieved the dubious position of number one in Europe for both heroin and cocaine use, the latter of which has doubled, the former plateauing at a historic highpoint since 2001. Oh, and we have a disaterous crack epidemic which we didn't have back in 97.

Bargain.

Miserable news indeed. Not that you will hear the Home Office talking about it next week; it is unlikely to feature high in their press releases for next week's big new strategy launch, which will be awash with the familiar propaganda about how great its all gone and some earnest talk about not resting on laurels and needing to do more.

Interestingly this price drop means that the country's growing population of problematic heroin and cocaine users (who are, thanks to the illegal market distribution networks, largely superimposed) don't now have to commit quite so much crime to buy their drugs. As a result drug related crime may have fallen slightly. We cant be sure about this since 'drug related crime' isn't actually measured, as a number of other parliamentary answers have made very clear (more discussion here). We will, however, hear a lot about this (unmeasured) fall in 'drug related crime' this week from the Home Office, credit for which will be give to the Government's new drug treatment programmes even though there is no evidence to suggest this is the real reason - the evidence of treatment outcomes is actually pretty terrible, with over 80% re-offending within two years. But the drop in crime is much more likely to be a fortunate side effect of the utter failure of that cheeky 20 billion or so in supply side spending to increase drug prices.

Cheaper drugs mean less crime committed by dependent users. Take this to its logical conclusion and you get; free drugs means no crime committed by dependent users (well, not to buy drugs anyway). Even though prices have been falling let us not forget that prices of heroin and cocaine are still inflated by over 3000% because of prohibition - turning low value processed agricultural products into criminal commodities literally worth more than their weight in gold. Still, given that 30,000 or so high harm causing dependent users are responsible for over half of all property crime, accruing something in the region of 16 billion a year in crime costs the idea of expanding the facility for controlled maintenance prescribing starts to become rather more appealing.

Spending 3 billion a year to create a further 16 billion in crime costs just doesn't seem like great value for money.

Maybe we should be having a serious debate about the policy alternatives instead of the sham policy consultation we were subjected to last year. Maybe if we invested that 3 billion in evidence based public health interventions: prevention and education, treatment, helping people rebuild their lives, addressing the social deprivation that underlies most problematic use and so on - then the number of problem users might actually start to fall, and if we took the illegal market out of the hands of gangsters and street dealers and brought it within the law then some of the terrible harms it creates might be reduced. How bad does it have to get before we have a serious debate on policy alternatives?

A good to start would have been for the Home Office to tell the truth about what's working and what isn't. But don't hold your breath during the new strategy launch this week. It will be a miserable stage-managed regurgitation of the old failed strategy with a bit of cosmetic window dressing. No debate, no new ideas, no change, no hope.

New UK Drug Strategy Publication: forward notice press briefing

The new UK drug strategy is due for publication next week, on Wednesday February 27th. This Transform briefing for journalists provides the historical and political backdrop for the new publication, a description of its likely contents, along with detailed notes and links to further information. Available online in pdf format here

Transform are available for print and broadcast comment and analysis: please contact the Transform spokesperson Steve Rolles on 07980 213 943, or the Transform Office on 0117 941 5810.

A Transform news release will be published on Tuesday Feb 26th, and a commentary on the new strategy will be provided soon after it is published

Background and summary

• The publication of the new strategy follows a consultation and review process widely condemned as a sham (see ‘Critiques of the Home Office drug strategy consultation’ p.8), with Government research and cost benefit analysis that showed the strategy in a bad light actively suppressed (see ‘Suppressed reports’ p.11)
  

• The drugs strategy consultation document was devoid of any policy proposals to consult on and awash with statistical distortions and misrepresentations (see p.4); effectively a Home Office propaganda document attempting to dress up ten years of overwhelming failure as success. The document has been widely criticised: by the Government appointed Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (that operates within the Home Office), by the Treasury based Statistics Commission, in Parliamentary debates, and by a wide range of NGOs in the drugs field (see ‘critiques of the Home Office drugs strategy consultation’ p.8)

• A series of reports at the highest levels of Government (that despite attempts to suppress them have found their way into the public domain) reveal that the Government has long been aware of the fact that current enforcement policy is both extremely expensive and demonstrably ineffective – often creating or exacerbating many of the harms it is supposed to be addressing. These reports include a 2003 report commissioned by Prime Minister Tony Blair from the Number 10 Strategy Unit (leaked to the Guardian in 2005), and Treasury Comprehensive Spending Review reports on the drug strategies effectiveness , one of which has recently been released following an FOI request from Transform, (see ‘suppressed reports’p.11).

• Policy development including the new strategy has systematically prioritised populist political agendas over the detailed and rational analysis and recommendations emerging from not only the Government’s own departmental reports and cost benefit analyses, but also work from a series of high level independent, NGO and parliamentary bodies. These include reports from The Police Foundation (2000), The Home Affairs Select Committee (2002), the Prime Minister's Number 10 Strategy unit (2003) , The Science and Technology Select Committee(2006), The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs(2006) and the RSA commission on Illegal Drugs, Communities and Public Policy (2007).

• The inevitable outcome has been a new drug strategy shaped by political prerogatives rather than what everyone in the drugs field had hoped for: a meaningful evaluation of ‘what works’ and an honest, open and rational analysis of the various policy options. Withholding vital research, and instead hiding behind spin and propaganda is in no one’s interest, regardless of ones position in the drug policy debate, and can only lead to the perpetuation of failure.

Transform in the Economist: FOI documents hit the media

I'm pleased to see that a cost effectiveness report (looking at the CSR targets for the drug strategy) released by the Home Office following a Freedom of Information request from Transform has received its first media attention in the Economist. The report in question can be read on the Transform website here. As the quote provided in the piece indicates, there is, in some respectrs, a bigger story here than the revealing analysis in the report itself. There have been more recent CSR reports that the Government have specifically refused to release on dubious grounds. The Home Office also undertook a Value for Money study on the various strands of the strategy spending last year - that they have also refused to publish or release, despite our FOI requests.

This suppression of this information is particularly galling given that last year we had the 10 year strategy review and consultation process - for which this sort of objective cost benefit analysis is absolutely vital. Instead we got the ridiculous rose tinted propaganda piece that was the strategy consultation document - about which Transform and various high level Whitehall authorities have already made their views abundantly clear.

Whatever your policy views, it is hard to see how restricting information and analysis on what has worked and what hasn't in the strategy (and how much it has all cost), is in anyones' interest apart from ministers trying to hide failure and avoid embarrassment. It is, quite simply, a total disgrace, and as time will no doubt show, deceit tends to be uncovered and the trouble caused by it far worse than that would have been caused by telling the truth in the first place.

click to read the pdf

More to follow including a Transform briefing next week and more media coverage over the weekend.

Brown on cannabis - it gets worse

On Monday the blog considered the fact that Gordon Brown was blithely steamrollering over the drug strategy consultation process by making announcements about his intentions before bothering to hear the views of the public or experts in the drug field. Views requested by his own Government.

"we are about to make changes in the cannabis law"

Specifically, the issue of views on cannabis classification have been added to the consultation document, although apparently this came late in the document's drafting process in response to the born-again tabloid canna-panic and various opportunistic Tory pronouncements calling for a move from C back to B.

Now there is something wierd about all this even before Gordon enters the picture. Drug classification is a strictly technical matter that, at least in theory, considers a range of social and health harms associated with a given drug as a way of determining if it should be A, B or C. There are all sorts of things wrong with this system (as discussed in detail here) even if it worked properly (which it clearly doesn't as the Science and Technology committee concluded in some detail after a lengthy and in depth inquiry last year). However, the system of determining drug classifications as is remains very clearly the remit of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, and its Technical Committees, as established under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. After years of criticism the ACMD has finally revealed its new drug harms 'matrix' by which it will in future be making these classification decisions, as published in the Lancet earlier this year (and discussed on this blog here).

Never before has their been a even a small public consultation on a specific drug classification change, its simply not a decision for the public (although anyone is, of course, free to make representations to the Committee and/or now attend meetings). It is unprecedented, and evidently has nothing to do with the technical drug harm classification evaluations undertaken by the eminently capable ACMD technical committee, and everything to do with party politics. The ACMD has now done two such detailed cannabis evaluations (2001, 2004), both supporting the committee's long held view that Class C is the appropriate place for cannabis to be in terms of relative harms.

Now just to remind those who may have been misled by some shoddy reporting or opposition party /Daily Mail wittering:

• Class C does not mean 'legal' (you can still get 2 years in prison for possession or a whopping 14 years - the same as for class B - for supply)
• it does not mean 'decriminalised' (only that there is presumption against arrest for possession in most circumstances - which there was, de-facto, under class B anyway)
• It certainly does not that it is 'safe' (read the ACMD reports detailing potential risks and harms).

Class C means only that it is relatively less risky than drugs in class B, like amphetamines, or class A like heroin and cocaine, as assessed by the ACMD and their fancy harm matrix thingy. It's a daft and grotesquely malfunctioning system but at least its conceptually easy to grasp for anyone with half a brain. To be fair to the Government they have been very clear about this in all their public pronouncements.

The late-doors cut and pasting of cannabis re-classification (or re-re-classification) into the consultation process, and the apparent negation/bypassing of long established structures for making classification decisions that this represents, is transparently political positioning on the part of the Government and the Home Office. Rational policy making, and intelligent debate based on evidence has once again been sidelined by populist drug war politics.....

The media are in one of their cyclical reefer madness frenzies (as documented on this blog here, here, here etc.) and the Tories, the Government's only realistic political threat at this point, are making hay wheeling out all the old school drug war moralising about sending out messages, accusing the Government of being 'soft on drugs', and vocally calling for reclassification back to B (notably without providing a shred of evidence or even argument as to how this would be a good idea or bring about any useful outcomes).

So, as discussed previously, the Government have once again kicked the issue off the political agenda as the next election looms by referring the issue back the ACMD for the third time in 6 years. Observant drug policy watchers will note that this is EXACTLY what happened before the last election: A few reports about cannabis related harms emerged (as they have done on a regular basis for all drugs for the last 100 years or so, because scientists sensibly like to research understand these things), then they were massively hyped and misrepresented by lazy journalists and opposition drug warriors. The then Home Secretary Charles Clarke didn't want it to become a big election issue so lobbed it back to the ACMD. Just to reinforce the sense of de ja vu, Clarke (like Brown) did this very publicly, with the then unprecedented release of his letter to the ACMD along with a press release (the whole saga is detailed and discussed here in Transform's submission to the second ACMD cannabis inquiry in as many years).

Needless to say many in the ACMD were, to put it politely, less than delighted to be having to trawl through the same stuff for the second time in two years, and unsurprisingly they came to the exact same conclusion they had before, and doubtless they will again.

So to Gordon Brown, who in his first breath as PM announces that (with nothing to do with media canna-panic scaremongering, the Tories, or the imminent election HONEST) he is going to refer cannabis back to the ACMD yet again. But this around time he is so concerned, and keen to publicly demonstrate this concern, that re-reclassification is also inappropriately squonked into the public drug strategy consultation document. BUT, unlike the previous (but one) Home Secretary, Gordon has gazumped both the ACMD and the consultation process long before either have reported. He has publicly claimed:

'I want to upgrade cannabis and make it more a drug that people worry about'.

Worse than this, we now learn (sorry for missing it at the time) that on September the 6th he said:

"We have made changes, for example, in casinos, we are about to make changes in the cannabis law, we are about to make a review happen in 24 hour drinking, all these things, it’s by listening to people, by hearing what they say”.

(Gordon Brown with Ed Balls at the 1st Citizens’ Jury in Bristol being interviewed by BBC Political editor Nick Robinson - unfortunately no longer available on the BBC media player)

So that's pretty unambiguous then: The decision is already made. The contempt he has shown for the consultation process and the ACMD review process makes something of a mockery of the bit about 'listening to people' and 'hearing what they have to say'. It will certainly be interesting to see what happens when the ACMD repeat their support for a Class C classification against Brown's wishes. Last time around there were threats of mass resignations if the committee was over-ruled for transparently political reasons - something that has never before happened. Brown has potentially made some considerable trouble for himself - and we must hope the the Committee can hold its nerve.

Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised that cannabis is still just a political football for the major parties to kick between each other, but there is something profoundly depressing about the way this saga has has unfolded and exposed the shamelessness of the political process and the shallowness of the ever more ludicrous claims that drug policy is evidence based. Moreover the cannabis classification issue continues to dominate political discourse on drugs in a way that it is almost entirely negative.

It prevents discussion of more substantive problems relating to problematic use of illegal heroin and crack (and their international consequences), it wrongly conflates a scientific debate about drug harms with the debate about prohibition and legalisation/regulation, and it suggests that classification of a drug has some meaningful impact on the level of the drugs use and related social and health harms, which it demonstrably does not.

Gordon Brown on Drugs: friend of the mafia, enemy of pragmatism

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Gordon Brown has made his first big party speech as PM and has well and truly nailed his colours to the mast regards drug law reform. In a seemingly unambiguous statement he has said, amongst other comments, that:

“drugs are never going to be decriminalised.”

We’ll come to this implications of this statement in a moment but first I think it is important to point out that the Government is in the midst of a major ten-year drug-strategy policy review and consultation process (closing on October 19^th), what it claims to be the 'biggest ever public policy consultation' in its history. Now maybe I misunderstand the meaning of the words ‘consultation’ and ‘policy review’, indeed, maybe the Government should have waited a few weeks until their consultation on how to do consultations had finished and reported before undertaking the biggest one ever. That said I’m absolutely positive that a key rule is that you don’t decide on policy – and announce it publicly - before the consultation has even taken place.

Gordon has now done this twice and we should all find it profoundly troubling.

Firstly, he has let it be known he wants cannabis was to be re-re-classified, rather than merely referred to the ACMD (as he had previously announced). This is odd since the ACMD, the expert body appointed by the Government specifically to advise on nominally non-political technical matters like drug harm rankings, haven’t even begun to look at this again, let alone report back to the PM. Also odd since the (endlessly tedious) issue of cannabis reclassification was specifically added to the drug strategy consultation. Yes, the one that hasn’t closed yet and isn’t due to report its findings till next year.

Now, with today's announcement, for the second time in his short PM-ship, Brown has done it again. He has ruled out an entire swathe of policy options regarding drug law reforms something that rather goes against the 'discussing the options' spirit of a 'consultation and review' . Now, whilst admittedly contentious, the reform position is held by a significant proportion of the public and the drugs field, as well as intellectual, media, academic, political, and religious opinion. Other countries have moved in this direction with considerable success yet, apparently un-bothered by rational evaluation of evidence, Brown has not only ruled out such a move in the short or medium term, he has effectively closed down the debate FOR ALL TIME.

Now I understand Brown wants to make a high-principles political splash, and that their may be an election looming, but these announcements are frankly offensive to all the 1000s of NGOs and members of the public who have, or still are, diligently contributing their thoughts and suggestions to the drug strategy consultation process. This remains true regardless of their opinions on classification or decriminalisation: there is a serious process problem here.

As we have said, and will be saying again more vocally in the coming weeks, the drug strategy consultation is horribly flawed in its design, content and implementation, and if we are being honest, a completely fraudulent waste of time. But couldn’t they at least maintain some vague semblance of it being meaningful, or that they might have not already decided what the next drug policy was going to look like (i.e. – EXACTLY like the last one)?

There is something alarmingly arrogant and contemptuous of your 'stakeholders' about saying you are going to listen to their views, and then decreeing entire arenas of debate are closed down forever and announcing policy decisions, before even listening to their answers.

From a pragmatic perspective the decriminalisation announcement also seems a peculiar one for Brown to have singled out in his maiden speech, and has the unmistakable whiff of political positioning (not wanting to be out-DailyMailed by tough-on drugs Tories) , combined with ill-informed moral grandstanding. The rest of the speech is about things he is going to do - not stuff he wont even engage with. All very strange. Consider some of the other things he said in the speech:

"I stand for a Britain that defends its citizens and both punishes crime and prevents it by dealing with the root causes"

As Transform have argued in detail for years: prohibition directly fuels vast amounts of crime at all levels, something not even the Home Office or the previous prime minister's own advisers dispute.

"I stand for a Britain that supports as first class citizens not just some children and some families but supports all children and all families"

We all remember that biblical saying: "suffer the little children to come unto me." No Bible I have ever read says: "bring just some of the children."

Odd then that he makes such play of supporting a law that criminalises around half of all young people and a third of the adult population, including those who elected his party to power. Now that’s gratitude. Not casual criminality either, a cheeky fine or warning for example. No, if Gordon's apparent re-re-classification plan comes to fruition, cannabis possession will return to its status of incurring a prosecution, a criminal record, and a potential 7 year jail term - for about 6.2 million people in the UK if the Lancet is to be believed (including half the cabinet).

A criminal record: just what the socially excluded and marginalised young people of Britain need to help them get on in life.

I must say, I despise the hypocrisy of those who cite the bible for self-righteous political brownie points, and in the same breath are happy to indiscriminately condemn millions to the stigma of criminality and punishment for a consenting personal choice, that happens to offend their personal morality (especially given that only some drugs, for no logical reason, are deemed illegal, whilst others, equally or more harmful, remain legal…see below).

Mass criminalisation of young people, how very Christian.

"To punish the evil of drug pushers who poison our children: I want the tough new powers that have already closed over one thousand crack houses in some areas of the country to be used in all areas of the country"

Ridiculous and shameless drug war posturing. Crack use has risen consistently and dramatically throughout his Government's tenure, as well he knows, and crack is cheaper and more available than ever before. No mention of the fact that cocaine use has doubled amongst young people under Labour, or that we now top the European consumption leagues. This is classic drug war spin and misdirection (something that has characterised the entire 10 year strategy and positively infests the consultation document)

And to encourage local police to use new powers to confiscate drug profits, more of the confiscated funds will go direct to the police and local communities.

Laughable rubbish. It is the policy of prohibition which gifts the lucrative drug market to gangsters in the first place. The Government have hosed literally billions every year enforcing it and billions more each year attempting to deal with the chaos it creates. Meanwhile they pull in a couple of million a year in recovered assets. It’s a total joke to proclaim asset recovery as a central pillar of current or future policy.

To prevent addiction: we will extend drug education and expand drug treatment and we will send out a clear message that drugs are never going to be decriminalised.

Your own appointed expert advisers say drug education/prevention has been almost completely ineffectual, and recent announcements have been clear that drug treatment budgets are going to be scaled back. As for the decriminalisation announcement – well this appears to be a classic case of misappropriating the criminal justice system to send out public health messages – something it is not designed for doing and when it has been tried has been a counterproductive failure, as 40 years of a growing drug problem under prohibition demonstrate rather clearly to those with eyes/minds open.

So yes we will strengthen the police. Yes we will strengthen our laws. But preventing crime for me also means all of us as a community setting boundaries between what is acceptable and unacceptable behaviour - with clear penalties for stepping over the line.

OK. That seems sensible enough, in theory.

Boundaries that reflect the words I was taught when I was young - words upon which we all know strong communities are founded: discipline, respect, responsibility

A bit school-teachery but fair enough, you are the Prime Minister I suppose

Binge drinking and underage drinking that disrupt neighbourhoods are unacceptable.

OK fine – but how come you make a distinction between acceptable and unacceptable drug use regards alcohol, but resort to the blunderbuss of indiscriminate blanket criminalisation for other drugs, Hmm? Why the moral absolutism for some drugs , but not others? (Reminds me of this.)

To punish: let me tell the shops that repeatedly sell alcohol to those who are under age - we will take your licences away.

Hang on. Why not give these ‘the evil of drug pushers who poison our children’ a walloping great big criminal record as well? Not being very consistent with your message about 'discipline respect and responsibility' now are you?

To prevent: councils should use new powers to ban alcohol in trouble spots and I call on the industry to do more to advertise the dangers of teenage drinking.

I'm forced to point out that your Government's record on alcohol advertising is a total disgrace.

So nothing new, and perhaps nothing we shouldn’t have expected, but there was brief moment when I thought that, just maybe, a new drug strategy and a new PM might herald some genuine reflection and even a reasoned debate on policy options (especially following on from an old drug strategy/PM combo that was such a complete disaster). This was particularly the case given that Brown comes from the Treasury and might have been expected to look more pragmatically at how spending on drug enforcement relates to policy outcomes.

Apparently not. Move along now, nothing has changed: if Gordon gets his way the mafia will remain in charge of the multi billion pound trade in illegal drugs.

Forever.

UK Drug policy 1997-2007 - The evidence un-spun

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As part of Transform's response to the drug strategy consultation process we have produced a detailed briefing on the evidence of policy effectiveness over the last ten years, featuring, for each of the four key target areas, the Government's claims, followed by a Transform reality check and commentary. There is a great deal wrong with the drug strategy consultation:

• Its content (no policies - and certainly no policy options- are proposed to 'consult' on)
• Its format (not enough room to answer questions, no facility to make external submissions, limited questions etc).
  
• The process by which it is being undertaken (the public are being asked to comment on cannabis reclassification - a scientific harm evaluation that ACMD are resonsible for, responses are being 'collated' in non-transparent ways by a private company).
  

(Note: As well as preparing our own response, Transform have complained about the problems with the consultation to various relevant Government bodies. There is at least one effort underway to have the consultation subject to a Judicial Review. News of these efforts will be posted on the blog)

The consultation document is so bad that various civil servants we have spoken to over the past year had cause to warn us not to get our hopes up. It was suggested that 'Whatever your expectations - lower them'. And, unusually for a Home Office drugs publication, this one didn't dissapoint.

Of the document's many problems, one of the most obvious is the fact that it presents an absurdly positive view of the past ten years 'success', as viewed through the rose tinted spectacles of Home Office spin, cherry picking, and statistical sleight of hand. At the end of its forensic deconstruction of the Government claims the briefing concludes:

"It is imperative that the debate on the future of UK drug policy not be clouded by statistical misrepresentations and spin that dresses up failure as success. This is in no one's interest and will lead to the perpetuation of failure rather than meaningful engagement with evidence of what works and a rational and honest debate about the future direction of UK drug policy."