IHRA slams International Narcotics Control Board secrecy

In a new report released this week by the International Harm Reduction Association (IHRA), the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB - a quasi judicial body set up within the UN drug control agencies to 'police' the UN drug conventions) comes in for some heavy criticism for being overly secretive, closed to external dialogue with civil society, and out of kilter with similar agencies in other UN programes. IHRA also debunks the INCB’s defence that it is ‘unique in international relations’

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click to view pdf

"The International Narcotics Control Board (INCB or the Board) plays an important role in the international drug control system, serving as an independent body monitoring states’ implementation of their obligations under the international drug conventions. It has, however, been criticised for being one of the most secretive bodies in the UN system. It holds its meetings behind closed doors. No minutes are published. There is no opportunity for nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) or civil society organisations to observe or make submissions.

The INCB has claimed that it is ‘unique in international relations’, and has used this allegedly unique status to justify its exclusion of civil society

from its deliberations and its closed meetings. However, far from being unique, the INCB is instead an early example of the ‘independent committee of experts’ model that has been adopted and developed within the UN human rights system, and regional human rights systems, over the past four decades. It is a common model that continues to be used today. Yet in contrast to these similar bodies, the INCB has failed to modernise its processes, and retains working practices inherited from defunct monitoring bodies."

This is the third publication from the HR2 (Harm Reduction and Human Rights) programme. The report points out that whilst the INCB was established along the same lines as the UN human rights treaties, it does not engage with civil society in the way parallel organisations do.

Various recommendations are made in order to reform the INCB.

• Clarify the scope of the mandate

• Include civil society and NGO input

• Promote transparency

• Make all documents and minutes public

• Get guidance from the Office for the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)

• Work with NGOs, people with HIV/AIDS and drug users during country visits

• Seek assistance from WHO and UNAIDS for drawing up guidelines for dealing with drug users and people living with HIV/AIDS

This is not the first time the INCB has been comprehensively critiqued by the NGO sector. As reported before on this blog, the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network , accused it of being 'an obstacle to effective programs to prevent and treat HIV and chemical dependence'.

see: UN INCB is 'obstacle' to HIV prevention and drug treatment programs’.

Award winning Brazilian film director calls for legalisation of drugs to halt violence

The Berlin film festival has given its top prize to a violent new movie dealing with police corruption and brutality in Brazil. The film focuses on police battling drug dealers in Rio de Janeiro’s slums. Director Jose Padilha is quoted in the reuters press release saying that legalising drugs is the only way to break the cycle of violence that is associated with the illegal drugs trade.

The Golden Bear, Germany’s answer to an Oscar, was awarded to The Elite Squad despite its high violence content. Many have argued that the film is deeply disturbing: one reviewer claiming it was a "recruitment film for fascist thugs" however others argued that it highlighted the moral dilemma that enforcement agencies face regularly in much of Latin America.

The movie is already a huge hit in Brazil where violence and poverty are rife.It shows policemen and drug warlords that commit torture but also lambasts the rich for financing drug crime. Brazilian director Padilha says that when he was making the film he tried to focus on the violence of crime and poverty without being swayed by right or left wing politics."

Violent Brazil cop drama named best film in Berlin (from Reuters)

Here’s a clip of the movie, and it will be in the UK soon so you can make your own mind up whether its any good or not. Either way it is usefully provoking a debate around the way illicit drug profits are fueling violence and misery in some the poorest and marginalised communities in the world - and what might possibly be done to address some of these problems.

Plans to reclassify cannabis obscure real debate

So Transform have been in The Economist, The Guardian, Take a Break, and Socialist Worker within a fortnight. At least no one can accuse us of being partisan or not having an equal opportunities media strategy. Below is my effort on cannabis reclassification for our left-leaning friends in the Socialist Worker Party. And before anyone accuses us of being a bunch of commies, just to let you know we will write articles for anyone who asks (within reason).

Plans to reclassify cannabis obscure real debate

The government’s new review of cannabis classification will not help the situation, writes Steve Rolles

The debate around cannabis is once again in the spotlight. The government’s Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) last week started a review of cannabis classification, the third such review in six years.

Cannabis was downgraded from a class B drug, that can result in a five year prison sentence, to class C, which has a maximum two year sentence.

Superficially Gordon Brown called for the review because of emerging evidence of cannabis health risks and the increasing prevalence of the more potent and risky “skunk” cannabis. But the political context cannot be ignored.

This first re-review of the classification of cannabis in 2005 was announced publicly by Charles Clarke just two months before a general election – traditionally when the main parties showcase how “tough” they are on law and order issues.

The Tories were making political capital by deploying cliches about the government “sending out the wrong message” and being “soft on drugs”.

Regulation

They had proclaimed their support for a move back to class B. Meanwhile the Liberal Democrats were taking flak for their “soft” drugs policy – which calls for legalisation and regulation of cannabis in the longer term – from both of the other main parties.

Clarke’s call for an ACMD review effectively neutralised political attacks – and conveniently kicked the cannabis issue off the political agenda until well after the election.

It seems no coincidence that the reclassification issue then reappeared in the run-up to an expected general election in autumn last year.

This was an almost exact mirror of the experience from three years earlier, except this time around it was announced by the new prime minister rather than the home secretary.

It appeared the announcement was part of an attempt to draw a line under some of Tony Blair’s more controversial policy initiatives while establishing Brown’s “moral” credentials with conservative voters and the media.

Cannabis classification has become a political football. Its symbolic importance vastly outstrips the policy relevance of what is a fairly minor tweak to enforcement practice.

Unfortunately there has been a mistaken conflation of the debate around the harms of cannabis use and the debate around what the policy response to those harms should be.

Away from the sensationalist media coverage, scaremongering and moral grandstanding, there is no evidence to show that increasing criminal penalties for a given drug is associated with a fall in use or overall harm.

But it is often the case that increasing penalties will have unintended negative consequences. For cannabis, these push the market towards ever more potent and profitable strains and lead to the criminalisation of young people.

Current policy thinking also fails to make a distinction between the problematic and non-problematic use of cannabis.

Punitive

It fails to distinguish between the harms caused by cannabis use, and those created or made worse by a punitive enforcement strategy, and the illicit activity it generates.

The entire classification system is fundamentally flawed. The harm a drug does depends on the nature of the user, the dose of the drug consumed and the method of consumption.

Translating generalisations about harms to an entire population into penalties for individuals is unscientific and unjust.

It cannot be ethical to increase the penalties for the majority because a small proportion of users experience difficulties or mental health problems.

Criminal law is supposed to prevent crime, not “send out” public health messages. When this has been tried it has been spectacularly ineffective, as the increase of cannabis use over the last 34 years demonstrates.

Moreover it has been counter-productive, making drugs more dangerous, while fostering distrust of public health messages among young people.

The aim of drug policy should be to reduce the harm drugs cause. Current policy is failing to do this. Only by rational consideration of prohibition’s failure, and of the policy alternatives, can we take positive steps toward this goal.

In the short term this is unlikely to happen. It seems likely that the ACMD will re-assert its support for cannabis being in class C – and equally likely that the government will overrule them and move it to class B regardless.

This would be a victory for the tabloid agenda over science and reason – but in the emotive arena of drug policy, it’s the same old story.

note: this is a heavily edited version of what I sent in, so don't quote me on it.

note: SWP has a policy for the legalisation of cannabis (as does the Green party, the Lib Dems, and apparently *coughs* Veritas).

Alan Duncan's drug problem

It must be tough being a politician, especially a senior shadow cabinet member like Alan Duncan MP, when you have the intellectual curiosity and courage to look into a policy idea, agree with it and then write about it, but when it turns out to be a rather contentious idea like drug law reform, a idea that your party wouldn't touch with a barge pole.

So this is where Alan Duncan finds himself tonight, as reported in the Evening Standard on page 2, having been questioned about his support for 'legalisation of all drugs' in the Independent today.

Do you still support the legalisation of all drugs?

"The trouble is that anyone, anywhere can easily get hold of drugs if they want to. I am permanently dismayed that by banning drugs we haven't actually stopped them. So we have to keep looking at every way we can to reduce successfully and, I hope, eliminate drug use."

That the Evening Standard has managed to make a headline out of this is actually vaguely amusing, and can barely count as a scoop, given that Duncan wrote about his position on drugs years ago in the book Saturns Children, the chapter in question appears on his website (give it a read - its not bad), and its the number one google search for 'Alan Duncan drugs'. The quote has also been in Transform's supporters of reform quote archive for years. Oh and the Guardian quoted him on this last week.

Alan Duncan MP

As Transform has been keen to point out Duncan is hardly alone amongst those of a right leaning political persuasion in supporting a progressive drug law reform position, David Cameron notably put his name to a call for the Government to engage at UN level, in a debate on 'alternatives to prohibtion' including 'legalisation', a fact that has yet to create any Evening Standard headlines.

Alan Duncan makes a rather equivocal comment about legalisation at the end of the ES piece, which is 'issued by Central Office' and has the strong whiff arm twisting to it. Not withstanding this Duncan is to be congratulated for his courage in sticking to his guns on a point of intellectual principle, especially with the 'tough on drugs' populist buffoonery being wheeled out by David Davis on a daily basis. By contrast Tony McNulty, minister of state for the Home Office, should get the opprobrium he deserves for his pathetic response, quoted in the Evening Standard accusing Duncan of sending out a confused message. Exactly the kind of pointless name calling and failure-to-engage-at-anything-above-playground-level idiocy you might expect to hear from Davis about the Government. For McNulty, speaking from the Department overseeing one of the great policy catastrophes of the age, it is perhaps time to grow up and have an adult debate.

Imperial object to cannabis health warnings on Rizla

The ongoing and rather ridiculous saga of Rizla (or rather Imperial Tobacco, which owns the brand) cashing in on its central role in the multi-million pound cannabis paraphernalia market whilst its PR people pathetically try to disassociate the company from cannabis use, has taken a new and unfortunate turn.

The mental health charity Rethink, which has for a long time been a welcome and rational (if often lonely) voice in the cannabis debate, has called for cannabis health warnings to be put on Rizla packets. Unsurprisingly Rizla have not responded well, claiming that:

"We don't endorse the illegal use of cannabis using any of our products"

That may well be so, but they are of course perfectly happy to make bags of money from the illegal use of cannabis using their products. They would no doubt deny it, but many of Rizla 's products, the king size papers and paper rolls specifically, are used almost exclusively for cannabis consumption and not, as I recall Rizla laughably claiming in the past, for truck drivers who like to have a 'longer roll up'. Given this reality, having appropriate health warnings on the packets , for both tobacco and cannabis, seems eminently sensible.

Rethink, as part of this call, and its new cannabis health eduction campaign: Educating Reefer, had mocked up some Rizla packets with the warning 'Cannabis can destroy your mental health'. For the record the campaign materials all seem very sensible but I'm not completely sure young people will get the 'educating reefer' pun, or that the wording of the Rizla warning is ideal. But anyway, The Rizla packet mock-ups featured on the website and some of their publicity material for the new campaign, and I saw them when they were also shown in a slide at the (non-public) ACMD cannabis classification hearings last week. Unfortunately, as Rethink informed the ACMD meeting, the website has had to be re jigged and the printed materials withheld from distribution because Imperial's legal people have got all touchy about it.

Now I really don't like tobacco companies. They have a long and reprehensible history of putting profit before any form concern for ethics or public health, from lying about lung cancer through to fighting any form of regulation with their enormous PR and lobbying machines. They have, to some extent, been brought to heal in recent years with the advertising and public smoking bans in much of the West, although they are now directing the generally unpleasant energies to aggressive market expansion in the developing world where controls are less vigorous, there are billions of non-smokers to target, and governments more 'flexible'. Vile (yes you, if you're reading this).

In the UK Rizla occupies an odd and rather anomalous place in smoking and public health policy. Because they are not selling the drugs with which their products are invariably used, many of the restrictions and controls we associate with tobacco (let alone cannabis) are not deployed. This loop hole means that not only can they brush off suggestions for cannabis health warnings, but they are not required to even have tobacco warnings like the ones seen on cigarettes and rolling tobacco. More worryingly perhaps, Rizla can apparently advertise anywhere they want, and they do - unsurprisingly for unprincipled profiteers – aggressively, to youth markets: football game hoardings, ads in youth oriented magazines (often with drug culture allusions), 'Rizla lounges' at music festivals , a website full of video games and mobile downloads, and so on. Who do they think they are kidding? Imperial Tobacco vs Rethink. You tell me who the bad guy is, then tell me who has the best lawyers.

If I had an image of the Rethink Rizla mock-up I'd post it here and wait for the legal chill to arrive. Sadly I don't have the image (do send one, if you happen to have it to hand), so instead here's an image from the satirical website the DailyMash, at least in the spirit of the Rethink campaign:

1997 BBC Horizon on psychedelics in medicine

If you're bored of endless drug policy debate here's a distracting and fascinating curio from the BBC archives that has cropped up on Google Video; the legendary Horizon edition on the use of psychedelic drugs in medicine:



courtesy of the MindHacks blog:

"It came at an interesting time in psychedelic drug research - when the authorities were still touchy (they'd only raided Shulgin's licensed lab three years earlier) but were just starting to allow some stirrings of research since they'd shut it down almost completely in the 1960s.

The programme looks at the history of psychedelic drug research when it was still easily possible, focusing on Osmond and Hoffer's early work on using LSD in treating addiction and facilitating psychotherapy.

It's also got loads of great historical footage from the early research but also talks to the new generation of researchers looking at compounds such as ayahuasca and ibogaine, who are now the senior figures in this growing area.

Unfortunately, the video is a bit grainy in places but it's quite watchable and it's got a great soundtrack."

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.

World Bank/DFID: eradication risks increasing Afghan instability

A new report, jointly produced by the World Bank and the UK's Department for International Development (DFID) stresses that a poppy eradication strategy in Afghanistan risks increasing support for anti-government forces. Published yesterday the report argues that;

"Eradication (destruction of poppy while it is growing in the fields) is a blunt instrument that must be used cautiously and judiciously, and aerial spraying – which is currently being advocated in some quarters – would be counterproductive as it would further alienate the rural population, increase the gap between Afghans and their government, likely stimulate popular support for anti-government interests, and further worsen insecurity…. If adequate means of livelihood are not available, eradication will undermine the goals of state building and development."

This emphasis on boosting economic development as a long term strategy to reduce the damaging dependence on opium production is in contrast to US proposals to carry out widespread aerial spraying of poppies. William Byrd, a World Bank economist and one of the report’s authors told a press conference: "International experience suggests [spraying is] not sustainable, either politically or economically."

The Afghan Government and the UK, which runs the international counter-narcotics strategy in the country, have long argued against using aerial eradication, a policy that the US has championed in South America (for coca production) despite its striking failure to reduce overall production.

The World Bank/DFID report highlights the need for a proper development strategy in order to convince farmers not to grow poppies and emphasises the close links between not only opium production and security, but also eradication policies and support for (or not) the NATO project in Afghanistan. The report also emphasises that attempts to rid Afghanistan of opium production is a long term approach that will take ‘one to two decades’ to achieve rather than a quick-fix solution. It is argued that the need is for long-term commitment rather than short-term expediency, with truly effective counter-narcotics efforts being a combination of economic development, the provision of services and infrastructure, and better governance and the rule of law. Reinforcing the development effort right away is essential, but to achieve results will take considerable time, massive and sustained financial commitment, and political vision and stamina.

However, the development solutions presented by the World Bank / DFID report, whilst appealing relative to certain US sponsored military/eradication alternatives, and arguably offering localised solutions for certain communities in Afghanistan, cannot address the demand for illicit opiates, the production of which - even if the World bank / DFID proposals were successful - would simply displaced to other regions. Such is the reality of unregulated illicit markets which offer such spectacular potential profits.

This is of course one side of this issue with which the report fails to engage; the stark reality that Afghanistan's opium production is entirely the product of international drug prohibition. If legal opium production for medical use - which already accounts for 50% of world opium production - were expanded to supply legal opiates for non-medical use then the demand for Afghanistan's opium harvest woud dwindle and disappear. The one solution that would truly address the issue illicit Afghan production remains taboo.

At this point in the global political discourse substantially developing this option is clearly not practical, but there are some small signs of progress with legal heroin prescribing in a number of European countries, Canada and Australia, (as well as more surprising policy initiatives such as opium prescribing in Iran). These policies do however, whilst only a drop in the ocean at present, demonstrate that legally regulated production and supply of opiates can potentially reduce demand for illicit supplies and the problems such demand creates in producer countries. The key point is that there already exists working models for the legal production, supply and use of opium and heroin in a non-medical context (or rather quasi-medical - at this point we are only talking about maintenance/ substitute prescribing) .

The development solutions presented by the World Bank / DFID report, whilst appealing relative to certain US sponsored military/eradication alternatives, and arguably offering localised solutions for certain communities in Afghanistan cannot address the demand for illicit opiates, the production of which - even if the World bank / DFID proposals were successful - would simply displaced to other regions.

see also:

Medical use of Afghanistan's opium wont solve the problem Transform writing in the Guardian

Transform in the Guardian: The drug laws don't work

A nice curtain raiser for tommorow's ACMD cannabis reclassification evidence sessions from Duncan Campbell at the Guardian. See the article at the Guardian site along with an active debate here

The drug laws don't work

The real 'softies' are the politicians who refuse to engage in a sober debate on cannabis

Duncan Campbell
Monday February 4, 2008
The Guardian

Fifty years ago, Lenny Bruce, the American comedian who was pursued relentlessly by the police for his drug use, remarked that cannabis would be legal soon, "because the many law students who now smoke pot will some day become congressmen and legalise it in order to protect themselves". Since then we have had at least two US presidents and countless congressmen who have used drugs, but changes in the punitive US drugs laws seem as remote as ever.

In Britain, many cabinet and shadow cabinet members have admitted to using cannabis but, rather than relaxing the laws concerning the drug, they are planning to tighten them. Today the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs is due to hear evidence on whether or not cannabis should be reclassified from class C up to class B. The council considered this issue in 2005 and concluded then that "although cannabis is unquestionably harmful, its harmfulness does not equate to that of other Class B substances either at the level of the individual or of society".

This time the hearings are pointless. Gordon Brown and the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, have already indicated that they are minded to reclassify the drug upwards, whatever the council has to say. Brown has said that "drugs are never going to be decriminalised". The received wisdom, inside the cabinet and among much of the media, is that it was an error on the part of the then home secretary, David Blunkett, to reclassify cannabis down from B to C in 2004, because it "sent the wrong message". And the increased strength of hydroponically grown skunk is cited as one reason for the change. The sunny climate in which Rosie Boycott launched a legalise cannabis campaign in the Independent on Sunday in 1997 has clouded over. The IoS itself has recanted and issued an apology.

There is no dispute that cannabis can cause significant harm. Teenagers, heavy users and those with a predisposition to mental health problems are at risk. No one denies that. Transform, one of the most rational of the organisations monitoring UK drug laws, will be submitting evidence to the advisory council, saying that "the fact that [cannabis] is produced and supplied via a profit-driven underground criminal market has been the driver for the increasing prevalence of more potent strains, which deliver increased profit-to-weight ratios".

Some senior former police officers, like Tom Lloyd, former chief constable of Cambridge, have also argued for a change in the laws. "This is about taking the control of drugs in this country out of the hands of criminals and into the hands of responsible authorities," Lloyd has said. Many still in the police privately agree.

But it would take a brave politician to suggest a sober debate on cannabis, let alone the whole basis of the drug laws. The Lib Dems and the Green party still favour that debate. The former's policy is to seek "to put the supply of cannabis on a legal, regulated basis, subject to securing necessary renegotiation of the UN conventions". It opposes the government's decision to reclassify regardless of what the ACMD has to say.

But what of the two main parties? Shadow cabinet member Alan Duncan wrote in the book Saturn's Children that "logic suggests that the only completely effective way to ameliorate the problem, and especially the crime which results from it, is to bring the industry into the open by legalising the distribution and consumption of all dangerous drugs, or at the very least decriminalising their consumption". In 2002, the home affairs committee examining drugs policy recommended that "the government initiates a discussion within the Commission on Narcotic Drugs of alternative ways - including the possibility of legalisation and regulation - to tackle the global drugs dilemma". David Cameron was a member of that committee. But this is not Conservative policy now, nor will the party dare to offer it for debate for fear of being called soft on drugs. It now backs the government on reclassification.

It is time for politicians to take a deep breath and say in public what many say in private: that the drug laws are not working, that the illegal trade is responsible for much of our most corrosive crime, and that it is time to have a debate nationally and internationally about addressing the catastrophic effects of prohibition. Reclassifying cannabis upwards is a grandstand gesture with no relevance to those whose lives are damaged by drugs or by the drug laws that compound and exacerbate that damage. The country does face an urgent addiction problem. But the name of our addiction problem is alcohol. If the government wants to send messages, the first message should be in a bottle.

The real "softies" when it comes to drugs are the politicians who refuse to engage in debate for fear of being called soft on drugs. So now, instead of that debate, we appear to be heading towards Reefer Madness II.

Drug classification blah blah blah

everyones talking about it so this seemed like a good moment to flag up an article on the classification I had published in Drugs and Alcohol Today in October, that, because of the long run in on these sorts of things, had managed to slip out into print unnoticed by the usually foolproof Transform blog media scanner.

Published in the 'policy forum' section the article it is billed as an 'exchange of views' on the subject of drug classification (aka 'drug scheduling') between myself and Ted Leggett from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime in Vienna. We have engaged in the policy forum previously on the subject of cannabis potency but on this occasion we both adopt critical positions; Ted considers the methodological problems with attempting to rank drug harms, with particular reference to last year's high profile Lancet paper, and that graph, whilst I make a more wide ranging critique on the entire intellectual, ethical and empirical basis of a harm based hierarchy of criminal penalties. Worth a look.

you know, that graph

Barack Obama supports cannabis decriminlisation

Some interesting drug policy debates are suddenly opening up in the US presidential race, as detailed in an article in today's Washington Times, with Barack Obama confirming his position in support of decriminalising cannabis possession:

Last fall during a nationally televised presidential debate, Sen. Barack Obama hesitantly raised his hand and joined with most of his Democratic rivals to declare that he opposed decriminalizing marijuana.

But as a candidate for the U.S. Senate four years ago, Mr. Obama told Illinois college students that he supported eliminating criminal penalties for marijuana use or possession, according to a videotape of a little noticed debate that was obtained by The Washington Times.

"I think we need to rethink and decriminalize our marijuana laws," Mr. Obama told an audience during a debate at Northwestern University in 2004. "But I'm not somebody who believes in legalization of marijuana."

Asked about the two different answers, Mr. Obama's presidential campaign said he in fact has "always" supported decriminalizing marijuana as he answered in 2004, meaning the candidate mistakenly raised his hand during the presidential debate last fall.

That position leaves Mr. Obama as the lone presidential candidate among the four leading challengers in either party who supports eliminating criminal penalties for marijuana. Mr. Obama's chief rival for the Democratic nomination, Sen. Hillary Clinton, opposes decriminalization, Clinton campaign spokesman Phil Singer said.

Obama: Decriminalize pot. Jan Heberkorn Jan 31,2008

Obama's clarification on this issue throws down a gauntlet for Democratic candidate rival Hilary Clinton. If she attacks him for being 'soft on drugs' or for flip-flopping, Obama could recite to her Bill Clinton's valedictory interview with Jann Wenner (Rolling Stone's Dec. 28-Jan. 4, 2001 issue) when he also advocated decriminalisation and criticised mandatory minimums.

Rolling Stone: Do you think that people should go to jail for possessing, using or even selling small amounts of marijuana? Is that appropriate?

Clinton: I think, first of all -

Rolling Stone: We're not publishing this until after the election.

Clinton: I understand that. I think that most small amounts of marijuana have been decriminalized in some places, and should be.

Interestingly this particular Rolling Stone interview was conducted in Oct. 6, 2000 when Clinton was still in office and could, in theory, have acted on his convictions, but it was not published until his final days in office. If challenged by Hilary, Obama could potentially contrast his courageous and principled stand today with Clinton's cowardly, closeted beliefs as President, portraying the issue as Clintonian weaseling of the past vs. Obama's new way of doing politics for the future. Since the two Clintons are effectively running as a tag team against him, it seems fair to bring up Bill Clinton's legacy, and thus if Hillary attacks Obama, she would also be attacking her husband. Could get feisty.

In another recent sign of shifting political sands across the pond the issue of Obama's former drug use, which he had openly described in published writing, became a political issue but not in the way that might be expected. It was raised by one of Hilary Clinton's aides, apparently seeking to make political capital, only for the attack to backfire and result in the aide's resignation, as reported on CNN:

One of Sen. Hillary Clinton's top advisers is stepping down after saying Sen. Barack Obama's admission of past drug use would hurt his chances in a general election matchup.

"I would like to reiterate that I deeply regret my comments yesterday and say again that they were in no way authorized by Sen. Clinton or the Clinton campaign," Bill Shaheen, co-chairman of the Clinton campaign in New Hampshire, said in a statement announcing his decision.

Earlier Thursday, Clinton personally apologized to rival Obama for Shaheen's remarks.

Obama accepted her apology, according to David Axelrod, the top political strategist for the Obama campaign....

"The Republicans are not going to give up without a fight ... and one of the things they're certainly going to jump on is his drug use," Shaheen [had] said. "It'll be, 'When was the last time? Did you ever give drugs to anyone? Did you sell them to anyone?' There are so many openings for Republican dirty tricks. It's hard to overcome."

Contrast this contrition and political positioning with the current policy debate in the UK, where the clashes between key political players are all about who is keenest to actually increase prison sentences for cannabis possession. Yes mass-criminalisation of young people has become the latest currency in the UK's party-political 'tough on crime' bidding war. Even in the US (the spiritual home of precisely the kind of old-school drug war rhetoric and posturing that characterises much of the current UK discourse) the debate, and legislation, appears to be making some progress (cannabis is already effectively decriminalised - now a finable offence only - in a number of states, and mandatory minimums are being reduced and/or abolished).

When we are actually lagging behind the US in drug law reform debate you really have to wonder where our leaders are trying to lead us.

UPDATE July 2008: Obama has obviously now won the democrat nomination, so the Clinton issues are now behind us, to be replaced with more familiar Republican /Democrat policy tensions that will, if history is any guide, pull Obama to the political right. However in a recent Rolling Stone interview Obama hints that he is open to a paradigm shift in drug policy away from some of the extreme Drug War responses and refocusing on public health.

Smoking stuff bad for lungs shock

When the endlessly tedious cannabis classification debate makes one of its biannual return visits to the political landscape the media can't seem to help themselves but scout around for 'cannabis bad for you' stories. This is not to say cannabis isn't bad for you, obviously it can be, as can all drugs, but it does tend to create the impression of a flood of new research proving just how awful cannabis is (when actually it's just a flood of media coverage), just at the moment when the Government are supposed to be reviewing just how awful cannabis is and making policy decisions accordingly. Given the Government's predilection for knee jerk responses to media panics, this isn't an especially useful phenomenon for fans of rational evidence-based policy.

With the UK in the throws of the latest cyclical bout of reefer madness, lazy journalists have been busily typing 'cannabis' into their pubmed search engines and seeing what turns up that can possibly be turned into a 'cannabis really bad for you' headline. These usually take the form of either cannabis drives you mad, or cannabis is 5 time more carcinogenic than tobacco, with more recent variations about the 'new' super-potent 'skunk cannabis' that is *insert number between 10 and 50* times more potent than the old stuff from the 60s. There's various discussions about this elsewhere on the blog (search for 'cannabis' in the little box at the top of the page)

The BBC have jumped on the bandwagon with a report on their health website today titled 'warning over cannabis lung harm' highlighting two new studies that, unsuprsingly perhaps, link smoking cannabis with lung harm. As it goes the report is better than many, not least because they were good enough to include a quote from me attempting to put some of the more shock-horror conclusions into context. The piece is also distinguished by featuring the worlds worst ever cannabis picture, surely staged with some Wood Lane grass cuttings and an old bird's nest?

a birds nest, yesterday

More seriously, I was pleased to successfully slip in the issue of smoking harm reduction. Its something that almost never gets mentioned in the cannabis lung damage discussions; of course smoking cannabis is bad for your lungs, so don't smoke it. If you are going to consume cannabis you can dramatically reduce lung damage using a vaporiser or eliminate the risk entirely by eating it in a some form of cooked preparation.

I can count the number of times this obvious bit of harm reduction advice has featured in a 'cannabis smoking bad for lungs shock' story on one hand. Actually one finger, but its a start.


further reading:

This blog offers some useful critique of the New Zealand study covered in the BBC report

Support for reform: The Unusual Suspects

Drug law reform is often pigeonholed as the preserve of Guardian reading liberal-lefty types. The reality, as a recent blog post on the Canadian shotgun blog (part of the Western Standard) highlights, is that there are many more unusual suspects - of conservative political leaning - who also have strongly held and often vocal views in support of drug policy and law reform. The shotgun blog provides a interesting list of some of these, including individuals such prominent conservative commentator William F Buckley, conservative newspaper the Ottawa Citizen, and conservative think tank the Cato institute.

The list also includes a quote from the late Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman.

‘There is, in my opinion, no government policy that is as immoral as drug prohibition...’
(Friedman and Freedom, March 15, 2002). Whilst he arguably came more from a libertarian than conservative perspective his stance, about which he wrote many times still surprises many. (Friedman’s views on drug prohibition are considered in this piece by Johann Hari in the Independent from 2006 posted on the blog)

America’s Cato Institute, a public policy think tank, is yet another supporter of reform.

‘In spite of the greatest anti-drug enforcement effort in U.S. history, the drug problem is worse than ever. What should be done now? ... The status quo is intolerable--everyone agrees on that. But there are only two alternatives: further escalate the war on drugs, or legalize them. Once the public grasps the consequences of escalation, legalization may win out by default.’ (Thinking about drug legalization, May 25, 1989)

Back in the UK we also have number of supporters from possibly surprising corners of the political and intellectual map.

The Economist, a UK publication with a circulation of 1.2 million (over half being in the US) is respected and widely read by those with a serious interest in economics around the world from all political persuasions, despite its generally right leaning economic perspective. It has been and outspoken advocate of legally regulated drug markets for decades.

“The role of government should be to prevent the most chaotic drug users from harming others – by robbing or by driving while drugged, for instance – and to regulate drug markets to ensure minimum quality and safe distribution. The first task is hard if law enforcers are preoccupied with stopping all drug use; the second, impossible as long as drugs are illegal."

The Economist, editorial. From Issue entitled: ‘Time to legalise all drugs’ – 28/06/01

In stark contrast to the populist drug war rhetoric regularly deployed by current shadow Home Secretary David Davis, the now Conservative party leader David Cameron was a member of the Home Affairs Select Committee in 2002 during its detailed inquiry into UK drug policy and supported the recommendation that:

“the Government initiates 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” (paragraph 267).

He also, notably given the current political shenanigans, supported the calls for reclassification of cannabis from B to C, and ecstasy from A to B.

Conservative front bencher and former cabinet member Alan Duncan MP, is also a proponent of reform:

"The only completely effective way to ameliorate the drug problem, and especially the crime which results from it, is to bring the industry into the open by legalising the distribution and consumption of all dangerous drugs, or at the very least by decriminalising their consumption."

‘The Legalisation of Drugs' in ‘Saturn's Children'. Read the complete chapter here.

Of course support for a more rational approach to drug strategy can be seen across the political spectrum. There are in fact supporters of pragmatic reform from all parties.

Clearly the reform argument does not fit easily into either the right/left political divide nor an libertarian/authoritarian one. Some of the false assumptions about the political fault lines in this debate are explored in Transform’s recent publication ‘After the War on Drugs Tools for Debate’:

‘Some advocates of reform envisage replacing prohibition with a libertarian regime, others with more draconian forms of social control. The reform argument itself is non-partisan – it is simply a pragmatic position led by evidence of effectiveness and public health/harm reduction principles. Calling for legally regulated drugs markets is actually the rational and moderate position between the ideological poles of absolute prohibition and free market libertarianism.’

Controlling illegal stimulants: a regulated market model

A very useful discussion of the principles and practical considerations around how stimulants might be regulated in the post-prohibition era has appeared in the latest Harm Reduction Journal (published 23 Jan 08)which is, brilliantly, open access, and available as a pdf.

The paper, titled 'Controlling illegal stimulants: a regulated market model' is by Mark Haden, a public health specialist based in Vancouver, and member of the Health Officers of British Colombia that produced the groundbreaking report 'A public health approach to drug control' in 2005 (that has been very influential in the development of Transform's recent work and various current projects).

The Harm Reduction Journal website invites reader responses, as of course does this blog, in the comments section below.

This is the abstract:

Prohibition of illegal drugs is a failed social policy and new models of regulation of these substances are needed. This paper explores a proposal for a post-prohibition, public health based model for the regulation of the most problematic drugs, the smokable and injectable stimulants. The literature on stimulant maintenance is explored. Seven foundational principles are suggested that could support this regulatory model of drug control that would reduce both health and social problems related to illegal stimulants. Some details of this model are examined and the paper concludes that drug policies need to be subject to research and based on evidence.

Richard and Judy back drug legalisation

Following the publicity around Chief Constable Brunstrom's recent report critiquing the failings of prohibition and calling for legally regulated drug markets (much of which is *blows trumpet* informed by Transform's literature), support has now come from an unlikely but welcome quarter: none other than Richard Madeley writing in the Express under the Richard and Judy Byline. Yes, that Richard and Judy, 'the nation's favorite TV couple'. Madely makes his point 'defending' Brunstom's 'call for the legalising of drugs' , and negotiates his way around the sensitive issue of drug deaths (from a parents perspective) with real sophistication.

Somehow this one slipped past me a week or so back ( probably because I only dip into the Express when I want to read made up stories about Madeleine McCann or Diana-Death conspiracy theories, i.e. never) . Still, in many ways this is even more remarkable than Transform bagging a double page cover story feature in Take a Break magazine. If the nation's favorite TV couple can pull in the Prime Minister to play 'you say, we pay', and push a book onto the best sellers list just by featuring it on their Book Club (Tools for the Debate, Richard?) who knows what they an do for pragmatic drug law reform?

What with the nation's number one TV presenter, Jonathan Ross, already a Transform Patron, Take a Break, and now Richard and Judy, we are getting so mainstream we are in danger of getting washed away. Mustn't grumble of course, but I rather miss that aura of radical chic from the old days...

There's little to add other than to say, Richard, I could have written that myself. Over to you*:

"How awkward it is to have to begin the new year defending the apparently indefensible... in the form of eccentric police chief Richard Brunstrom’s latest headline-grabbing “gaffe”. I refer, of course, to his call this week on Radio 4’s Today programme for the legalising of drugs.

Brunstrom reckons all currently banned substances – everything from Ecstasy to heroin – will have been decriminalised inside 10 years. He added that Ecstasy is “safer than aspirin”, for good measure.

“Idiotic”, “Mad”, and “Captain Calamity” were just some descriptions of the head of the North Wales force the following morning. Parents of young people who died after taking Ecstasy queued up to castigate him – quite understandably. If my child had perished because of drug abuse, I would be first in line calling for Brunstrom’s head.

Which doesn’t mean I would be right. It is pointless here to get into a statistical debate about the dangers of aspirin versus Ecstasy.  Both preparations can kill: Ecstasy by fits following dehydration and other factors, aspirin usually from internal bleeding.

Ecstasy kills around 50 people every year – although many more have a close encounter with the Grim Reaper in their local intensive care unit.

But considering the colossal number of (mostly) young people who swallow Ecstasy tablets in nightclubs up and down Britain every night of the year, the toll is comparatively small when set against those killed or maimed in drink-driving crashes.

Don’t get me wrong, I think taking Ecstasy is stupid.

Prolonged use may well cause memory loss. But being against the law hasn’t stopped it from becoming endemic – which means the criminal supply of Ecstasy and other drugs is endemic too.

This is at the root of the gang culture that grips virtually every city in Britain and is largely responsible for the proliferation of guns on our streets. The analogy with Thirties prohibition era Chicago is inescapable.

Personally, I’d feel safer taking a palmful of aspirin than even one Ecstasy. But as a social policy, the criminalisation of drugs must surely be recognised for what it is:  an abject failure. Cocaine, heroin, speed and, yes, Ecstasy, have never been more widely available or cheaper to buy.

Their illegal sale on an industrial scale nourishes a huge, sprawling and hydra-headed criminal underclass.

All Richard Brunstrom – with,  by the way, the broad support of his police authority – is really asking is for a sensible debate on how we move on from the failed drug policies of the past.

He may be a ridiculous honorary druid with an irritating penchant for speed cameras and absurdly sensitive to weak jokes about the Welsh, but he’s doing something rarely seen in our chief constables.

He is thinking out of the box. That is brave and bold and deserves thoughtful consideration, not calumny."

*I hope the Express will forgive me for reproducing more than a usual sized snippet/quote here ( I haven't used Judy's section).

ACMD cannabis classification review submission (round 3)

Tediously enough the ACMD will yet again be reviewing cannabis reclassification next month (for the third time in 5 years) and Transform today publishes its written submission (also for the third time in 5 years), as a prelude to the oral evidence session on Feb 5th to which we will also be giving evidence (for the second time in 5 years - they didn't do one last time around). Our latest submission considers how the political and media backdrop to the latest review has distorted both science and policy thinking around this issue, as well as offering a broader critique of the classification system and the flawed and outdated science on which it is nominally based. The discussion and recommendation sections are reproduced below. True cannabis policy wonks can read the full submission in all its nerdy glory here (pdf).

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Discussion

The debate around drug law reform remains intimately entwined with the wider populist law and order debate. The question of how cannabis should be policed has often become confused by emotive anecdotes and misrepresented data concerning the harm associated with cannabis use, or debate around the moral rights and wrongs of drug use generally. It is vital that the ACMD, as an independent body of expertise, is not drawn into the political gamesmanship, or swept along by the sporadic media and politically fuelled drug panics that have cast a long shadow over the UK's failing drug policy for the past two generations.

The aim of drug policy should be to reduce the harm drugs cause, both to users and the wider community. Current policy is demonstrably failing to do this and it is only by rational consideration of the evidence, both of prohibition's failure, and of policy alternatives that we can take positive steps toward this goal.

There is an ongoing debate about the extent of cannabis risks, and research has often been selectively used to bolster the case for and against legislative reform (reclassification and/or legalisation/regulation). From Transform's perspective the debate around health risks is a distraction from policing and law reform issues:

• An effective drug policy would accept the reality of widespread cannabis use and implement measures that reduce harm to users and the communities in which they live
  
  
• The dangers presented by cannabis, in its various forms, point towards increased and better prevention and education for young people and potential users as part of a co-ordinated, evidence based public health strategy for reducing drug harms. This should be based on well established harm reduction principles and public health education methodology, including a clear message that the best way to avoid harm is not to use at all

The classification debate is a distraction from the bigger debate around prohibition – one we believe the ACMD is obliged to engage with in a structured and meaningful way. Drugs need to be legally regulated because they are dangerous, not because they are safe, indeed the greater the dangers of using cannabis, the greater the importance of strict legal regulation and control of cannabis markets. If the Government is serious about getting rid of illegal dealers and reducing the harm associated with cannabis use the only effective course of action is to have legally regulated and appropriately licensed outlets. This would:

• Largely remove the illegal profits, collapse the illegal market, and put illegal dealers out of business
  
  
• Allow more effective prohibitions on sales to minors
  
  
• Enable quality control of the product and health warnings, potency and dose information, and harm reduction information on packaging and at point of sale
  
  
• Free up scarce resources (and potentially generate tax revenue) for public health based prevention, education and harm reduction initiatives

To the objective observer the intellectual problems with the classification system are as obvious as its abject and ongoing failure on all meaningful indicators. The Government's response to criticism, which now includes detailed and thoughtful work from the Police Foundation (2000), the Home Affairs Select Committee (2002), The Science and Technology Select Committee (2006), the RSA (2007), and even the ACMD (Pathways to Problems 2007) and its technical advisers writing in the Lancet (2007), has been nothing more than contemptuous and is entirely lacking in intellectual or empirical credibility. The Science and Technology Select Committee's 2006 conclusion that the system was 'not fit for purpose' was altogether too diplomatic.

There is certainly potential for ranking different drugs along the various vectors of drug harm that might usefully include; toxicity, addictive potential, particular risks for specific populations (e.g. sex, age group, mental health) safety critical activities (e.g. driving) or behaviors (e.g. injecting, poly-drug use, pregnancy). However, this sort of information does not lend itself to the broad generalisations of a simplistic ABC system, however well thought out the placing of individual drugs may be. People need honest and accurate information about drug risks so they can make informed decisions; the ABC system singularly fails to deliver.

More significantly, the debate over which drugs should be in which class is a distraction from the more profound problem that the ABC system exists primarily to determine a hierarchy of criminal penalties, and there is no evidence whatsoever to demonstrate that this approach has either criminal justice or public health benefits. The Government's refusal to honour the promise Charles Clarke made to the House of Commons in January 2006, to hold a review of the classification system is transparently a politically motivated one. Their 'belief' that the system is effective, when the opposite is demonstrably the case is simply not acceptable and should be a profound concern to everyone in policy making, law and the wider drugs field.

Recommendations

Short term

• That the ACMD maintain their long held position that cannabis should be a class C drug under the current system.
  
  
• That the long promised review of the entire drug classification system (not merely the classification of individual drugs within it) be undertaken with some urgency. This should include a detailed consideration of the effectiveness of an ABC hierarchy of criminal penalties for different drug in achieving desired criminal justice and public health outcomes. (A call for such a review has also come from Drugscope and the Home Affairs Select Committee, the RSA, the Science and Technology Select Committee, and indeed the ACMD)
  
  
• That the ACMD make strong objections to the way in which its role and authority is being undermined by Ministers announcing reclassification decisions regards cannabis before the ACMD have reported back[1]. The ACMD should further ask why the classification issue was included in the recent strategy consultation document, when such decisions are clearly the remit of the ACMD (which already consults extensively).

Medium term

• That the ACMD deliberations consider the specific harms created by prohibition, and disentangle these from the harms created by drug use per se. Specifically; prohibition related crime, the mass criminalisation of young - often vulnerable - individuals, and the exacerbation of drug harms to users (when drugs are produced and supplied through illicit channels).
  
  
• That the ACMD actively consider the policies of decriminalisation and legalisation/regulation of cannabis and all other currently illegal drugs in line with its remit in “preventing the misuse of such drugs or dealing with social problems connected with their misuse” and “restricting the availability of such drugs or supervising arrangements for their supply”.

---

[1] Gordon Brown is on the record saying that “we are about to make changes to the cannabis law” http://transform-drugs.blogspot.com/2007/09/brown-on-cannabis-it-gets-worse.html

Transform in...wait for it...Take a Break magazine!

With the Guardian, lets face it, you're often preaching to the converted. It felt like it was time to try and broaden our horizons, and take the the drug law reform debate to a wider audience. And where better to start than Britain's number one selling women's weekly: Take a Break.


For non Take a Break regulars, here's some info from their website to put you in the picture:

Captivating real life stories, prize puzzles and competitions and classic weekly elements, combine to give readers an interactive and involving big value package.

Take a Break has comfortably been the biggest selling women's weekly in the UK for over 14 years. One in eight women in the UK read Take a Break every week and it sells 2 copies every second, making it the 4th largest women's weekly in the world. Take a Break also publishes a number of brand extensions totalling over 22 million copies per year

Take a Break's mix of real life, fashion, beauty, food, home, travel and competitions attracts a hugely varied readership. Readers can be anything from 18 to 80; they are likely to own their own home and to be married, and many have children. Its universal appeal is confirmed by the strength of its reader relationship. It is read exceptionally thoroughly, has very strong reader loyalty and is read for longer than any of its competitors.

Circulation	1,018,423
Adult Readership	3,138,000
Female Readership	2,734,000
Median Age	44
Target Market	C1C2 women aged 25-55 with children
Frequency	Weekly
Launch date	March 1990
Price	78p
On sale	every Thursday

Take a Break, and other similar women's weekly titles (of which there are several), are more used to running 'my drugs hell' type stories, so it was quite a bold move on their part, unprecedented in fact, to run a straight policy feature on the critics of prohibition and advocates of moves towards legalisation/regulation. Read the full article here (pdf). A pretty good scoop for us as far as it goes; that's 3 million readers remember.

We worked hard with them on this, and they've done a great job in including key points we were keen to highlight:

• that prohibition creates crime, harming and endangering young people rather than protecting them
• that prohibition merely exacerbates the social problems of deprived and socially marginalised communities and is an active obstacle to addressing such problems in the longer term
  
• that the 'war on drugs' has dramatically failed as a policy but has effectively handed control of dangerous drug markets to gangsters
  
• that a pragmatic pro law-reform position is compatible with being 'anti-drugs',
• and that 'legalisation' (not a useful term in many contexts) is described in terms of a range of regulatory options for different drugs (rather than an unregulated free for all)
  

There was other stuff that would have been good to see in there, perhaps notably some sort of economic analysis about how prohibition is so quite so effective at creating crime and mayhem, but you cant have everything and all in all its a concise and useful piece that will no doubt raise a few eyebrows in dentists' waiting rooms across the country over the next week or so. There's an online debate too which could be interesting.

But before we get too excited that it heralds a long term shift in editorial position its worth noting that below the article is a red box reading:

'MY MUMS ON DRUGS' have you a parent - or other relative- who does drugs? Do you have a picture of them doing it? Send us your story and photos. Fee paid.

The year is 2022 and drugs are legal.....

With a growing list of high profile public figures, from ex-Ministers to Chief Constables, talking not just about the conspicuous failings of prohibition, but actively advocating (or at least calling for a rational debate on) moves towards the legal regulation of drugs, (see Transform's supporters of reform page for a more comprehensive list) Druglink magazine felt that there was something missing from the coverage of the drug law reform debate. It certainly seemed reasonable to ask: well, what would a post-prohibition Britain look like?

Inevitably perhaps, Transform were approached to provide a description of this vision of the future, and despite some initial trepidation you can read my effort here (in pdf format), reproduced with permission from this month's Druglink magazine.



It proved quite a tricky task, not just to move from the more familiar briefing-writing mode into more descriptive prose, but also trying to envisage not exactly how we might want it to be, but how we thought it is actually likely to be. Hopefully I've managed to convey this by focusing on three models of legally regulated supply for; cannabis: based on the Dutch coffee-shop model; heroin, based on the Swiss heroin clinic model; and cocaine, based on a more speculative licensed pharmacy/druggist model. In the space provided there was a limit on what could be covered and discussed, but an outline of the benefits and limitations of some potential regulatory models have at least been put on the table for discussion. Comments and feedback are obviously welcome. For me that was the whole point of the exercise; to get people thinking and talking about regulation in more than vague abstract terms.

For those interested there is plenty more detailed discussion of regulatory frameworks available on the Transform website here, and this Druglink piece also serves as a curtain raiser for Transform's next major publication: 'After the War on Drugs: Blueprint for a Regulated Market', a detailed consideration of the options for the legal regulation of different drugs in different environments, currently in production and due for publication later in the year......

Dutch parliament to debate reform of UN drug conventions

As covered on the blog back in December a group of Dutch policy makers, including former and serving mayors, police chiefs, and ministers (including one former PM) have drafted and signed a resolution calling for the Dutch Government to resolve the contradictions in the Netherlands cannabis policy by discussing the restrictions that the UN conventions put on legal regulation of cannabis production and supply. An official translation of the resolution provided by the TNI website is copied below (unfortunately the more detailed discussion document is still only available in Dutch).

The resolution will be debated in the Dutch Parliament next week (details of this debate will be posted here). So whilst Dutch policy makers continue to openly and rationally explore more just and effective responses to the reality of drug use in society their UK colleagues continue to tie themselves in knots over whether or not to increase penalties for cannabis possession from two years in prison to five.




-------------------


The Hague, October 31, 2007 A group of representatives from politics, public administration, the criminal justice system and police and drug policy experts gathered on October 31, 2007, in The Hague, to express the urgent need to end the negative consequences of the current policy of leniency regarding the sale of cannabis.

Participants confirmed that many countries worldwide experienced similar negative effects related to their own cannabis policy. This means that there is a shared responsibility to look for adaptations in the current system of international conventions that are an obstacle to further developments in national Dutch cannabis policies.

Participants argued that the Netherlands, in cooperation with other nations, should aim to revise the current framework of international law in order to achieve a more credible and effective alternative that is not just based on repression for the existing cannabis policy at the national level. The signatories of this resolution,

I. concluded that the current cannabis policy:

A. is based on an outdated international law framework created in the 1960s which is not appropriate to tackle contemporary problems resulting in a stagnation of the development of just and effective policies;

B. is being implemented by a policy of tolerance (“gedogen”) on the basis of a justified lenient interpretation of the current international law framework and that this policy of tolerance is a practical solution but at the same time temporary response which on the long term will discredit the credibility of public authorities;

C. is inconsistent and difficult to explain to citizens because use and sale of small quantities are not prosecuted in practice while production and large scale distribution are still prosecuted; is also inconsistent with policies regarding substances with a similar health risk such as alcohol and tobacco;

D. is ineffective in several aspects: despite positive facets such as the separation of markets between soft and hard drugs and the limited involvement of criminals in the retail market, other policy options such as legal possibilities to control the quality of cannabis (THC content and pollution) and other measures to reduce health risks are lacking in the current system, which is still facilitating significant illicit gains at the level of production and wholesale and is encouraging in-house cannabis growing;

E. is causing considerable and unbalanced administrative and judicial burdens and continuous criticism of some countries and UN drug control agencies.

II. concluded furthermore that:

A. attempts by the Dutch parliament and local authorities to address the inconsistencies in the current tolerance policy – such as proposing to tolerate production of cannabis for the supply of coffee shops – have been rejected by subsequent national governments on account of incompatibility with international agreements;

B. there is a need for an international debate to explore the possibilities for an international framework that allows more room for manoeuvre by national governments to execute a consistent policy;

C. more and more countries feel the need to reformulate their policies to achieve better protection of public health and combat organized crime;
D. cannabis is grown and commercialised worldwide and is used by over 170 million people, consequently the production and distribution is a common problem for the international community;

E. the 10-year review of the 1998 United Nations General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on drugs and the Ministerial meeting in 2009 devoted to this evaluation, offer an excellent possibility to put the issue on the international agenda.

III. urge the Dutch government to:

A. start an international debate with other likeminded countries in order to work out a credible and effective alternative for the current policy on cannabis;

B. promote actively with those likeminded countries the formulation of proposals that can be presented in the context of the upcoming UNGASS evaluation;

C. provide for human and financial resources to implement these efforts;

The Hague, 31 October 2007

signed by

• Mr. A.A.M. van Agt, former Prime minister 1977-1982
• Dr. E. Borst-Eilers, ex-minister of Health, Welfare and Sport
• Drs. A. Apostolou, former member of Parliament
• Kathalijne Buitenweg, MEP GroenLinks
• Mr. R. Dufour, president Stichting Drugsbeleid
• Drs. G.B.M. Leers, mayor of Maastricht
• Dr. R.L. Vreeman, mayor of Tilburg
• Mr. Th. C. de Graaf, mayor of Nijmegen
• J.A.H. Lonink, mayor of Terneuzen
• Dr. J.P. Rehwinkel, mayor of Naarden
• W.J.M. Velings MOI, chief of police, region Limburg Zuid
• F.J. Heeres MPSM, chief of police, region Midden- en West Brabant
• Mr. A.D.J. Keizer, former policy official of the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport
• Mr. drs. V. Everhardt, drugs and alcohol prevention expert
• Dr. M. Jelsma, Drugs & Democracy Programme, Transnational Institute