Classification and Deterrence - where's the evidence?

In the first of series of blog posts considering the Government's response to the The Science and Technology Select Committee's report 'Drug Classification; Making a Hash of it?' we consider what is arguably the most significant finding of the Select Committee and the most stunningly inadequate of the Government’s responses.

The Science and Technology Select Committee report 'Drug Classification: Making a Hash of it?' conclusion/recommendation 34:

"We have found no solid evidence to support the existence of a deterrent effect, despite the fact that it appears to underpin the Government’s policy on classification. In view of the importance of drugs policy and the amount spent in enforcing the penalties associated with the classification system, it is highly unsatisfactory that there is so little knowledge about the system’s effectiveness".

The Government’s response, in full:

“Reject in Principle

The Government fundamentally believes that illegality is an important factor when people are considering engaging in risk-taking behaviour. The exposure to criminal sanction, in particular through sentencing, influences perceptions and behaviours. It believes that the illegality of certain drugs, and by association their classification, will impact on drug use choices, by informing the decisions of dealers and users. Imposing penalties on the offence of possession is intended to deter use, particularly experimentation by young people. Whilst the Government accepts that there is an absence of conclusive evidence in relation to the deterrent effect of the existing classification structure, there is some evidence from the Offending, Crime and Justice Survey that the deterrent effect of harsher sentencing was greater among those admitting to the supply of a Class A drug, compared with other offences.The Government will consider ways in which the evidence base in the context of the deterrent effect can be strengthened.”

Comment:

Perhaps the best place to start is to note that whether the Government ‘fundamentally believes’ that ‘illegality is an important factor when people are considering engaging in risk-taking behaviour’ is not the point. This is not about ‘belief’, however fundamental it may be. This is an issue of sound science and evidence based policy. The Select Committee very clearly points out: ‘we have found no solid evidence to support the existence of a deterrent effect’. The Government produce nothing to challenge this beyond their ‘belief’ in the existence of such an effect and yet they reject the conclusion regardless. This deserves some more detailed attention.

With apologies for some trumpet blowing here, Transform’s evidence to the Select Committee was quoted directly in their final report:

Transform Drug Policy Foundation asserted that the ABC classification system was "based upon the false assumptions underlying historical prohibition of specific drugs". Steve Rolles, information officer for Transform, also told us: "there is no research at all—not a single piece of research ever done by the Home Office that I am aware of—into the effectiveness of the classification system as a deterrent and the independent research that we do have—what little there is—suggests that at best it is a marginal impact on drug taking decisions". The Home Office Minister Vernon Coaker was unable to provide us with any specific evidence to the contrary.

The Government’s written response (see above) does not offer any new evidence to the contrary either, even though they have had several months to find some since Vernon Coaker was unable to do so earlier in the year. They merely restate that the Government ‘believes’ illegality will ‘impact on drug user choices’. There is a vague reference to ‘some evidence from the Offending, Crime and Justice Survey’ but no details are given, and they are clear that ‘there is an absence of conclusive evidence in relation to the deterrent effect of the existing classification structure’.

This is a very long way from an adequate response to the Committee’s conclusion and is frankly insulting as a basis for rejecting it.

It is important to be clear what we are talking about here. The deterrent effect is the absolute cornerstone of the classification system and indeed the entire criminal justice based policy we have in the UK - the policy of prohibition - on which billions of pounds are spent each year. The concept of enforcement / penalty related deterrence is precisely why we have a hierarchy of penalties superimposed on the hierarchy of harms (the ABC classification system), and why drug policy is run by the Home Office and not by the Department of Health (which runs policy for alcohol and other legal drugs). That the Science and Technology Select committee was unable to find any evidence of a deterrent effect is remarkable enough. That the Government – challenged by the Committee – were then unable to produce any credible evidence - not a shred - of a deterrent effect is quite simply astonishing. It can only call into question the entire classification system and indeed the enforcement focus and punitive nature of UK drug policy generally.

This is not even the first time that the issue of deterrence relating to criminal penalties has been raised by a Select Committee. The Home Affairs Select Committee were concerned enough about the issue to raise it back in 2001 in their report; ‘The UK’s Drug Policy: Is It Working?’ (to which, incidentally, they concluded: no). The Committee specifically asked for a response to the question ‘what would the effect of decriminalisation be on the demand for drugs?’. Whilst Transform might have phrased the question a little more precisely, the initial Home Office submission ignored it completely and just trotted out current Government policy, failing to address the question in any way. The Committee, somewhat affronted, demanded an answer to the question it had actually asked. They received the following short response:

“As some people would seem to be attracted to experiment with controlled drugs because of their illegality (e.g. "forbidden fruits"), the evidence suggests that a great many are deterred by the law. Nineteen per cent of children and 30 per cent of adults surveyed by MORI on behalf of the recent Police Foundation Inquiry, mentioned the law as the reason for not taking drugs. And the respective prevalence rates for controlled drugs and alcohol and tobacco are also illustrative.”

The relevant section of the Police Foundation Inquiry report that the Home Office are quoting, actually says this:

“The most frequent reasons given by both children and adults for people not taking drugs were 'health reason' (33% and 51%) and 'just don't want to take drugs’ (27% and 56%). By comparison only 19% of children and 30% of adults mentioned 'illegality' and 12% of children and 17% of adults cited 'fear of being caught by the police'.”

So even five years ago, the only research evidence that the Home Office could scrape together to support the contention that illegality deterred use was a poll from the Police Foundation Inquiry report that showed less than a fifth of children mentioned the law as a reason for not taking drugs, less than one in eight children or one in six adults mentioned ‘fear of being caught by the police’, and there were two other reasons given, health concerns and lack of interest, that scored much higher as reasons for not taking drugs. Bear in mind also that the Police Foundation Inquiry that commissioned the quoted survey was, at the time, not only the most critical report ever produced of UK drug policy, but also one that concluded;

"such evidence as we have assembled about the current situation and the changes that have taken place in the last 30 years all point to the conclusion that the deterrent effect of the law has been very limited".

Furthermore we hear the Home Office suggest that in fact ‘some people would seem to be attracted to experiment with controlled drugs because of their illegality’. This clearly suggests the opposite of what they are nominally arguing for although, to be fair, they do not provide any evidence for this point either. The evidence they cite regarding alcohol (use of which is rising) and tobacco (use of which is falling) does not illuminate anything much. These are drugs that have been with us for Millennia and Centuries respectively and have had the best part of a hundred years of largely unregulated aggressive commercial marketing behind them. It is also faintly amusing to read the phrase 'controlled drugs and alcohol and tobacco' given that it is actually alcohol and tobacco that are controlled and illegal drugs that have no controls at all - we abdicated control to gangsters and street dealers when we the decision was made to prohibit them.

The significant point here is that this has been a live issue for a number of years and in that time the Government has been able to assemble precisely zero credible evidence that lends support to the deterrent effect, and has undertaken or produced precisely zero published research to try and rectify this.

As Transform pointed out in its written submission to the Committee:

‘The [classification] system is based on the un-evidenced assumption that criminal penalties are an effective deterrent and that stronger penalties are a stronger deterrent’

There was no evidence to support this basic assumption when the policy was put in place 35 years ago and the Government's response to the Committee demonstrates that none has emerged subsequently. Transform further noted in its written submission to the Committee:

“There is also no evidence to show that key target groups understand or pay any attention to the classification system or related announcements from the home secretary when making drug taking decisions. It can only be assumed that no research is commissioned on these key topics as it would expose policy failings.
The little independent research that has been done in this area suggests that the law and enforcement are, at best, marginal factors in drug taking decisions - especially for the most excluded groups; young people, those with mental health problems and those from socially deprived communities – who are most vulnerable to problematic use. Studies in Australia and the US have compared levels of cannabis use between different states with different enforcement regimes for cannabis offences (from harsh penalties to effective decriminalisation) and found no causal link between penalties and incidence of use.”

The fact that the massed ranks of Home Office civil servants and researchers can’t find any evidence from 35 years of data collection to show that the classification system works might suggest that, well, there isn’t any. Moreover, this striking lack of any evidence to show the classification system is effective is not deemed by the Government sufficient reason to even have a consultation on, or review of the the classification system, as recommended by the Select Committee. Not a change in policy – just a consultation. Just an open dialogue with independent experts who might be able to shed some light on this vexing lack of evidence. Maybe a little bit like the consultation on the classification system that the Home Secretary promised to the House of Commons in January this year.

But the Government has now reneged on this promised consultation, because it now ‘believes that the classification system discharges its function fully and effectively and has stood the test of time’. (they even underlined the 'has' to emphasise the point). Maybe Transform, Drugscope, The Police Foundation, The Home Affairs Select Committee and the Science and Technology Select Committee are missing something here, but ‘scientists’ or ‘statisticians’ might argue that the fact that trends in use of almost every major drug covered under the Misuse of Drugs Act have risen consistently since 1971, and the fact that drugs have become progressively cheaper and more available over the same period was not actually evidence of the classification system discharging its function fully and standing the test of time, but was actually evidence of the exact opposite. So can we have a consultation on this please? Maybe even the one that was fully drafted and ready to be sent out to experts across the country days before a new Home Secretary was appointed and apparently thought better of it? Apparently not.

Finally we are given a hint about how the Government intends to proceed on this thorny question, with its suggestion to the Science and Technology Committee that they ‘will consider ways in which the evidence base in the context of the deterrent effect can be strengthened’. This is a troubling turn of phrase. The Government should be doing objective research to see whether or not there is a deterrent effect, how it works, how strong it is, whom it effects and whether it justifies spending billions a year on criminalising and imprisoning lots of people - not seeking evidence to strengthen a pre-held ‘belief’ in such an effect. Call it cherry-picking, call it faith-based policy making, call it bad science; whichever way you look at it this is a course of action that would seem to jettison even the pretence of scientific method altogether and take the Government unambiguously into the realms of ideological propagandising, a place many would argue UK drug policy already inhabits.

The Science and Technology Committee asked for some evidence and received none. Transform have been asking for the same evidence for nearly ten years and still have yet to see any. Belief must be based on evidence, and if the Government can’t produce that evidence and then flatly refuses to engage in a dialogue on it, they shouldn’t be surprised when people stop believing them.

next ... Drug classification and 'sending out messages'

Lazy coverage of an important drugs story - a case study

And so back to the Government’s response to the Science and Technology Select Committee report on the Drug Classification…….

The media coverage of the Government’s response last Friday (13th October 2006) focused almost exclusively on the Government announcement that methamphetamine would be reclassified from Class B to Class A. It is important to point out that:

1) The Science and Technology Committee did not recommend that Methamphetamine be reclassified- they merely considered the process by which the decision was made; and..
2) The decision to reclassify methamphetamine was actually made months ago and was announced publicly by the Home Office Minister to the committee – and then published in the Committee’s report back in August – to near total media silence.

Neither of these facts were noted in any of last weeks media coverage, which focused almost exclusively on how awful and scary Methamphetamine is and by implication how sensible and indeed ‘tough’, the Government was being in reclassifying it.

This was a masterstroke of media spin on the Government’s part since it took control of the media agenda, turning it rather cunningly to their advantage on what should have been a day of highly critical reporting on the Government drugs policy. They knew that ‘scary new drug’ was a far more media friendly story than the minutiae of their detailed response to 50 different recommendations made by a Select Committee of nerdy science boffins, and they played it beautifully. It is to the great shame of almost all the media that covered this story so lazily and played along with this.

More significantly, the meth reclassification non-news story successfully distracted attention from the far more important issues raised by the rest of the of the Government response to the Sci-Tech Committee report, including the responses relating to things the Committee had actually recommended. The meth reclassification non-news also reduced coverage, to almost invisible, of the fact that clause two of the Drugs Act 2005 (the intent to supply thresholds that had caused media uproar only a few months previously) was being shelved. This was another drug story that potentially put the Government in a bad light, not because the descision to shelve Clause two was a mistake, but rather because they had only figured this out after it had been enacted (read the Transform briefing on this sorry tale here)

So, in a belated effort to rebalance the coverage somewhat, the Transform blog will, over the next few weeks be unpicking and critiquing some of what the Government’s response actually said.

first up will be the evidence (or otherwise) for the deterrent effect of classifying drugs.....

watch this space

More bad news from Afghanistan

Yet more depressing news from the front line in the "drugs war" as the Afghan counter-narcotics minister, Habibullah Qaderi, admits that neither opium production nor the Taliban insurgency can be defeated separately. This will be cheering news for the troops on the front line who have focused on defeating the Taliban separately without undertaking significant counter-narcotics operations for fear of further alienating the local Afghan people.

The reality is that even if the insurgency could be dealt with - and there is little to suggest it can be anytime soon - this would not mean that the opium crop could then somehow miraculously be eliminated. Eradication efforts have never succeeded on such a large scale anywhere - whether it is coca production in South America, opium production in Central and SE Asia, or cannabis production pretty much everywhere. The economics of the illegal market mean that whilst demand remains high and extraordinary profits are on offer to criminal entrepreneurs, eradication efforts will just shift production to another region. Afghanistan has particular problems because of its troubled history and lack of social and political infrastructure. These are exacerbated by its sprawling and remote geography that make it effectively impossible to police; remember that it is roughly the size of Europe, and for many poverty stricken farmers opium cultivation is an obvious choice. Eradication is simply not a practical suggestion.

In related bad news the BBC reports that the Senlis Council is being booted out of Afghanistan. The Senlis Council is a drug policy reform organisation that has been working hard to promote the idea of legalising the Afghan opium crop by buying it up for use in the medical opiates market . The idea is bascially that such a move would provide income and stability for Afghan opium farmers, removing them from the illegal market and preventing profits from flowing into the hands of military groups, whilst simultaneously helping respond to a chronic shortage of opiate drugs for medical use in Asia. This seems like a positive idea and even if it is not practical or very realistic, and would certainly not result in a long term fall in global opium production (which would inevitably just move to other regions in central Asia or elsewhere in the world) it has certainly been useful in promoting debate on alternatives to futile eradication programs. The idea has had a lot of high profile coverage including an editorial in the New York Times.

Given the disastrous failure of current efforts it would be a great shame if the Senlis were kicked out just for suggesting something new.

Government snubs Science Committee

So according the Times the Government's response to the Science and Technology Select Committee report - that concluded the classification system was un scientific, unsupported by evidence and unambiguously 'not fit for purpose' - is to.. ignore the substantive criticism that the classification system is unscientific and doesnt do what it is supposed to and try and bluff it out by trotting out the same old drivel about drug seizures.

I do hope the minister will come on TV later and make the case for unscientific un-evidenced drug policy formation. I was due to go on the Today program and BBC breakfast TV to give them a hard time about all this but was unceremoniously dumped because the head of the army pointed out that the war in Iraq was a counterproductive disaster (pretty much what i was going to say about the drug war). I did get to go on the Nicky Campbell show though so not a total washout media wise.

Meanwhile it seems the new law on intent-to-supply thresholds, to determine whether people arrested for possession are deemed dealers or not, is to be dropped. This follows a consultation undertaken after the law was passed. Everyone said it was a stupid and unworkable idea (as they had before it was made law), so some faintly good news, in an 'avoiding another bit of pointelss legislation' sort of way. Read Transform's briefing on the shocking process by which this legislation came into being here.

What do these stories tell us about drug policy thinking at Government level? Well, political expediency clearly rules. On the one hand we have a mostly brilliant report from the Science and Technology Select Committee - detailed, thoughtful and making a series of very specific and clear recommendations, completely blown out the water by a Government obsessed with appearing tough, and not willing to give any ground on pragmatic reform (or even review/discussion of reform) for fear of being accused of being soft. On the other we have a stupid piece of 'get tough' policy that everyone thought was stupid - and said so - but was as barrelled through parliament before the election anyway, now being acknowledged as stupid and being consigned to the dustbin.

The Government couldn't care less whether the policy consulation process was completely topsy turvey - they got some tough sounding headlines in the election run up and can now dump the idea on the basis that its unwanted and unworkable - which they knew anyway.

more to follow....

Herald Highlights Problems of Prohibition Enforcement

This insightful article by the Herald from the 12 October 2006 clearly exposes the problems that arise after the successful rounding up of drug dealers by police. Although catching such a large number of dealers in Renfrewshire and Inverclyde makes great headlines for the police and supposedly makes the public feel safer, the practical consequences are that addicts are forced to pay more for lower quality drugs thereby further fuelling crime. The Herald is to be commended for making an effort to understand the practical consequences of prohibition and for suggesting that more resources should be devoted to a massive input of drug rehabilitation, a stance that almost flirts with legalisation.

Hypocrisy of Italian Politicians Exposed

This article is a high profile scoop by an Italian television satirical programme called 'the Hyena'. The show revealed cannabis and cocaine on the skin of sixteen politicians' faces who thought they were having make-up applied for a debate on the country's budget but instead had drug-detection chemicals applied. Paolo Cento, a member of the Green Party which favours decriminalising drugs, rightly criticised politicians' hypocrisy who voted 'for anti-liberty laws whilst snorting cocaine'. The names of the politicians are not revealed.

'So Macho' Reverend wants police to arrest more kids

I read in the Daily Mail yesterday that there is some sort of legal challenge being made 'in the High Court' to the ACPO guidelines, drawn up after cannabis was reclassified, clarifying that there should be a 'presumption against arrest' for possession of small quantities of cannabis for personal use. Quite what this court action involves isn’t made clear by the Daily Mail report, by James Slack, but then a lot is left unclear by the story generally.

But before I tear into the Daily Mail report, a few words on the key protagonist. It is none other than the Reverend George Hargreaves, a 'senior church figure' and 'advisor to the Metropolitan Police' who is apparently 'backed by a £30,000 fighting fund'. Hargreaves is a Pentecostal minister with a particular brand of Christian politics that includes being strongly anti-abortion, anti-stem cell research and anti-euthanasia. He has also stood in various elections for various constituencies; for the 'Scottish Christian Party, Proclaiming Christ's Lordship' for the Scottish Parliament in 2006, the UK Parliament in 2005 for 'Operation Christian Vote' (and a by-election in 2004 - getting a handsome 90 votes), and the European Parliament in 2004. Way back in 1997 he contested Walthanstow for the Referendum party. It turns out that he has funded some of his political aspirations with a small fortune made from his former career as a pop song writer, apparently raking in £10,000 a month in royalties from penning the epic 80's disco smash and gay club classic 'So Macho', performed by the legendary popstrel, Sinitta. You know the one:



"I don't want no seven stone weakling nor a boy who thinks he's a girl
I'm after a hunk of a guy, and experienced man of the world
There ain't no way that I'll make do,
with anything less than I'm used to
If I have a man tonight he's gotta be right right right

So macho he's gotta be so macho
He's gotta big big and strong, enough to turn me on
He's gotta have big blue eyes, be able to satisfy
He's gotta big big and strong, enough to turn me on

I'm tired of taking the lead
I want a man who will dominate me
Someone who will love and protect me and take care of my every need
Now I don't mean to be personal but a guy like that's more preferable
In my humble point of view than any of you

I am in need of a man oooh
I am in need of a man a man a man a man a man

etc.

I had the pleasure of debating cannabis reclassification and related policing issues with Hargreaves on Talk Sport Radio yesterday morning, on the awful John Gaunt show. The No1 pop smash writing Reverend seemed like a perfectly nice chap, even if we didn’t really see eye to eye on the drugs issue. He admits to being a 'hedonistic sinner' and 'jack the lad' in his pre-Reverend days. However, he doesn't seem to have a very forgiving attitude to the young sinners in his flock. He wants them arrested and prosecuted for their cannabis related wickedness, not let off with a caution, a policy which, according to the Mail, he claims has 'led to a surge in youths smoking strong skunk cannabis that was turning many into dangerous 'schizophrenics.' ' He is quoted saying:

'This guidance must be reversed. The only way to crackdown on the problem is to return to arresting and prosecuting people carrying even small amount of cannabis.'

'So Macho' Reverend George Hargreaves

No evidence is given by him in the report that reclassification, or the ACPO guidelines, have led to any kind of 'surge' in use. The Mail report also fails to mention that the two key official surveys of cannabis use, provided by the British Crime Survey and the DoH (flawed as they may be) suggest that cannabis use has remained unchanged or has actually fallen marginally since 2004. I’m not making the case for or against the reclassification policy here (you can read the Transform briefings on the subject here and here) , but Hargreaves and the Mail clearly are, and they have got their facts wrong:

Trends in cannabis use among people aged 16 to 24 years
Percentage reporting use:
--------In past year----In past month
1996-----26.0-----------16.1
1998-----28.2-----------18.0
2000-----27.0-----------17.4
2001/02--26.9-----------17.1
2002/03--25.8-----------16.2
2003/04--24.8-----------15.6
2004/05--23.5-----------14.1
Source: Drug Misuse Declared: Findings from the 2004/05 British Crime Survey.
Home Office Statistical Bulletin.

I’m also not a doctor and I try and avoid getting dragged into the debate about cannabis and mental health. But what the various reports (from ACMD and other expert bodies) suggest is that, on the schizophrenia link specifically, it only effects a very small percentage of users, and that the published research shows that the link is ambiguous – whether cannabis use is causative or merely unmasks existing conditions is not clear. It's obviously not a completely safe drug, there's no such thing, and clearly no drug is risk free, but ‘turning many into dangerous 'schizophrenics.’ is not precision science, it is emotive scaremongering silliness.

From here the story goes into a bit of a nosedive:

“Earlier this week, the pastor blamed skunk for the mindless murder of Nyembo-Ya-Muteba by a gang of thugs.”

Is there any evidence to suggest this is true? Is there any evidence to suggest that cannabis was a factor? Should the Mail report unsupported hear-say before the police have investigated and made a statement, let alone charged or prosecuted anyone? Who knows what drugs any of the murderer or murderers had consumed. Maybe they were drunk; maybe they'd been sniffing bostik, maybe they were just murderous 'thugs'. I have no idea – and nor does Mr Hargreaves, or for that matter the Daily Mail.

Even if, hypothetically, the murderer/murderers turn out to have been stoned out of their minds, this still would not allow Hargreaves to link the murder to reclassification, or the enforcement of the new law (which he does even more overtly in yet another unambiguously titled Mail report: 'Cannabis downgrading blamed for psychotic killer gangs by vicar' ). Millions of people used cannabis before the changes, people have always been getting murdered - to suggest there is a causal link with a minor tweak in policing policy is completely spurious. There are some very real issues with young people misusing cannabis and it is no doubt sometimes a factor in antisocial behaviour, but Hargreaves' claims here have an air of hijacking a tragedy to further his own misplaced political objectives. The Mail apparently has no problem with this, not that its is the first time they have been guilty of dubious hype and nonsense reporting on the cannabis issue.

Anyway, we then hear from a regular Mail pundit on drugs issues, Mary Brett, neither a doctor, nor apparently, a statistician:

'What are the police waiting for? Since they talked about downgrading cannabis, admissions to mental health units have increased by forty per cent.'

A totally bizarre and unsupported claim for which no reference is given. She goes on:

'There has also been an increase in the number of users, despite the Government's denials, and there is also the awful violence.'

What increase? And this isn't about Government 'denials' - it’s specifically survey data from published and long established surveys that provide detailed notes on their methodologies. And precisely what violence is she talking about? Where does this stuff come from and why does the Mail publish it unchallenged? What evidence is there that cannabis use is a significant (or even insignificant) cause of murder or violence, or that reclassification has had any impact on levels of use or violence? I’m one of the most boring drug policy nerds on the planet and I’ve never seen any. What I have seen, however, was a recent detailed report by the Parliamentary Science and Technology Select Committee report which concluded that:

"We have found no convincing evidence for the deterrent effect, which is widely seen as underpinning the Government's classification policy, and have criticised the Government for failing to meet its commitments to evidence based policy making in this area."

Finally we learn from the Mail that:

"The Met's report declared the soft policy a 'success.' In an astonishing admission, it said letting-off more than 30,000 drug takers with a warning was good for 'police/public relations.' By not bothering to arrest the criminals, officers were having a 'positive effect in reducing friction between young people and the police.'

Why is this astonishing? Why is this an 'admission'? It’s just a statement of fact. It's just the police being honest and suggesting that it's a good thing for police relations that 30,000 more young people are not being branded with the stigma of criminality for something no worse than you or I having a few drinks down the boozer. I’m mystified why the Mail are having a go at the police anyway – they are just doing their job enforcing the laws handed down from Parliament, as they see appropriate with the limited resources they have – it has always been thus.

I despair reading this sort of thing, both the bonkers comments and the shoddy reporting. Drug policy is an important issue for debate - this really doesn’t help anyone. How about James Slack doing some accurate objective reporting and quoting a balance of opinions? To quote the 'So Macho' Reverend:

"I don't mean to be personal but a guy like that's more preferable
In my humble point of view than any of you"

New Scientist Reviews Alternative Legal Drugs

This article from the New Scientist examines the array of existing aternative, legal drugs, such as salvia and BZP. The article reviews the likelihood of governments around the world banning such substances but concludes with the caveat that no sooner does a government ban a particular substance than another one appears to take its place and as long as people are prepared to experiment there will be drugs to give them a high. The article doesn't tackle prohibition head on but offers insights into why it will never succeed.

Selling drug law reform to the Tory Dragon's Den

In what is hopefully the final installment of the Tory blog triple-whammy (well it is Tory conference week after all) here is a link where you can listen to the Radio 4 program Broadcasting House, a sort of satirical - but occasionally bit more serious - political and current affairs show that goes out on Sunday mornings. It features a section where they did a spoof of BBC Dragon's Den program, where instead of entrepreneurs punting their radical inventions and business ideas to a bunch of venture capitalists, they had policy folk (including me) punting 'radical' policy ideas to a bunch of Tory capitalists. The four Dragons then decide on the basis of the pitch whether they were 'in or out', and whether they would 'invest' in it being a new Tory policy. They were actually Tory pundits from newspapers and think tanks rather than MPs or party movers and shakers and it was, in theory at least, supposed to be a 'fun' piece. hmm. You can judge for yourself how well you think I did, but as far as it goes I thought I did OK, given that I was trying to persuade them to adopt a very progressive drug law reform position including the phased legalisation and regulation of currently illegal drugs.

Interestingly enough one of them 'bought in' to the idea, showing that perhaps its not quite as alien a concept for the Tories as the sniffing from some of the other 'Dragons' might suggest. It highlighted that there is an interesting fault line within the Conservative ranks between the libertarian and authoritarian wings of the party. There have infact been high profile Tories who have been passionate advocates including former ministers Alan Duncan and Peter Lilley to name a few (see the the Transform Hall of Fame for quotes).

I tried to sell the idea as an authoritarian position (the personal freedoms angle may be strong intellectually but it doesn't have any legs politically), arguing that it was about crime reduction, putting gangsters out of business, and bringing strict regulation into a market that is currently totally deregulated criminal anarchy - but this didn't seem to really sink in for most of them who seemed convinced I was talking about heroin in sweet shops. I should point out that there were several key bits of my ranting that were cut including where I described the different models of regulation and how they would be applied according to drug harms, that David Cameron is already on record supporting a debate on legalisation, and my barnstorming finale where I offered drug policy as a great opportunity to attack a conspicuous Government failure and do what opposition parties should do - offer something different and better. Ho hum.

Tories vote 'drugs worse than drink'

The BBC today reports that "Conservative activists have voted overwhelmingly against a motion claiming that alcohol does more harm than drugs. Members defeated the move by 63% to 37% following emotional appeals from the father of two drug addict sons and a recovering alcoholic."

Reading this sort of guff its almost difficult to know where to start. But perhaps the first most important and screamingly obvious thing to say is that ALCOHOL IS A DRUG; it is a psychoactive substance and, like other psychoactive substances, it is potentially toxic, it is potentially addictive, and it can cause harm (and death). Its a drug, end of story, no debate; really the BBC coverage should have pointed this out.

Refering to 'alcohol and drugs' as if they were different things is entirely meaningless and almost willfully stupid, somewhat akin to talking about 'beverages and orange juice'. Unfortunately these confused activists are not alone in perpetuating this nonsensical distinction. Those in the drugs field will be familiar with the daftly named (but otherwise excellent) periodicals 'Drink and Drug News' and 'Drugs and Alcohol Today', and most of us are used to hearing politicians, media and, well almost everybody, talking about 'drink and drugs' (or variations thereof, often involving tobacco, similarly given seperate status from 'drugs'). We even have entirely seperate strategies for alcohol and tobacco (run from the Department of Health) and other drugs (run from the Home Office).

At least the Government's Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs has moved beyond this meaningless distinction with its new report 'Pathways to Problems' which focuses on the 'Hazardous use of tobacco, alcohol and other drugs' - the inclusion of the word 'other' making all the difference. This rather excellent report, which might usefully read by some of the party conference wonks (of all parties), makes it very clear that alcohol and tobacco are by far the greatest threat to the health and well being of young people (from the BBC report the Tory debate did not apparently feature tobacco atall).

Despite the fact that drug deaths are not a particularly accurate measure of drug harms and the collection drug death stats is riddled with methodolgical problems, a cursory glance at the stats we do have (even with a whopping great big margin of error) helps put the scale of the problems into perspective
- Annual tobacco related deaths - approx 100,000
- Annual alcohol related deaths - approx 10,000
- Annual deaths from all other drugs combined - approx 2,500 (of which around 400 are paracetamol).

Clearly the alcohol / drugs distinction is more about an emotional response to the legal / illegal distinction rather than any scientific measure of harms or risks. Moreover it is hard to see how this is something that can voted on - the stats should speak for themselves. The Tories rather pointless 'vote' on a semantically meaningless motion appear to reflect their gut response to acceptable legal drugs (available in the conference hotel foyer) vs those horrid illegal drugs used by nasty yobbos who rob old ladies. Yes, clearly illegal drugs are associated with other harms, primarily the crime and criminality associated with illegal markets, but these are a specifically a result of drug prohibition and and abdication of responsibility for drug markets to gangsters and unregulated street dealers (rather than the fact that illegal drugs are intrinsically more harmful). If you dont believe me try prohibiting alcohol and see what happens (you could ask Al Capone if he were still around).

It would be great to see a more intelligent, informed and sophisticated debate on the drugs issue taking place in the ranks of the opposition. They could do a lot worse than having a read of the latest ACMD report for starters. To be fair there have been some positive signs; The Tories are currently reviewing there drug policy and have been listening to voices from all sides of the debate, and David Cameron, despite the media focus on drugs in his private life, has made some encouraging comments and clearly knows his way around the issue from his time on the Home Affairs Select Committee . The Liberal Democrats have managed to have a meaningful debate and come up with a fairly sensible drug policy (even though they dont want to talk about it), but the Government and the Tories, with a few rare exceptions, seem hopelessly addicted into the populist rhetoric of the drug war. Lets hope the voices of reason will eventually prevail, the drug warriors can be rehabilitated and we can start moving towards a just and effective policy for regulating all drugs.

Tories in 'get tough on drugs' shock

In an entirely predictable development "Scottish Conservative leader Annabel Goldie yesterday declared her intention to make Scottish prisons drug-free". Read the full story in the Herald here. . Whilst drug free prisons seem like a worthy aspiration - certainly easier to argue for than the 1998 UN drug agency commitment to 'A DRUG FREE WORLD' by 2008 (to which the UK is a signatory), her comments have a similar air of disconnection from reality.

Firstly it needs to be pointed out that every home secretary in the modern era has called for drug free prisons and none have got anywhere near achieving it. It was infact the last Tory Home Secretary, Michael Howard, who introduced mandatory random drug testing in prisons as part of a similar committment. Did it work? Well, 17,000+ positive tests a year suggest not. Fill a prison with drug dealers and drug addicts and it is maybe not surprising that '39% of prisoners said they had used drugs at least once whilst in their current prison, 25% had used in the past month and 16% in the past week' according to this Home office report. The same report notes that 1% of inmates moved from cannabis to heroin to avoid being rumbled by the testing regime.

Another reason why more people use drugs in prison than on the outside is because they are miserable, traumatic and depressing places to be - people use drugs as a means of escape or self medication. The above Home office report notes that 0.7% of inmates actually started using drugs whilst in prison. Prison is clearly a totally unsuitable place to be addressing issues of drug dependency, especially when it is combined with deep seated emotional or mental health problems, as is frequently the case with drug dependent offenders. It is a bizarrely circuitous logic that argues for the criminalisation of drug users and drug markets - that creates crime and mass criminalisation - and then argues that prison based rehabilitation is the best way to reduce future offending. Goldie should realise that it is the 'get tough' criminal justice approach that she supports that has created the problem that she is now advocating yet another 'get tough' solution to.

There is, more to the point, no evidence that the get tough approach will eliminate drugs from prisons. Even high security prisons are awash with drugs - and restrictions on visitors will not prevent them as numerous other supply routes exist including prison staff and the numerous other flows of goods into the prison.

Wouldn't it be great if Annabel Goldie, or any politician for that matter, changed the record for once and stopped talking up tough drug-war nonsense and regurgitating failed policies. Goldie and friends might more usefully want to ask:

- why our prisons are overflowing with dependent drug users in the first place
- whether the £37,000 a year of tax payer money it costs to imprison a dependent drug user couldn't be better spent on residential rehab and other help rebuilding their lives, like counselling and mental health services, employment training and so on.
- whether branding a drug user with the stigma of a criminal record, and putting them in a cage with hundreds of other users, dealers and criminals is really going to help them get better, or get on in life.
- whether just maybe, after decades of counter-productive failure using prison as a primary response to one of our most serious public health problems, its time to have a bit of a rethink and stop trotting out the same old rubbish.

US Officials Urge Opium Crop & $570 Million Income Eradication For Afghan Farmers

As Napoleon observed "In war, three-quarters turns on personal character and relations". So it's amazing to see the Americans completely ignore this useful maxim when they here urge the Afghan people to eradicate the poppy fields via crop-spraying. Aside from the negative environmental benefits of such as strategy, it is hardly going to popularize the presence of foreign troops in the country given that eradication of the poppy fields would also destroy a $750 million industry which employs up to 3 million people. But then I guess a few thousand NATO troops will manage just dandy against several million hostile, local people whose livelihoods and environments have just been ruined.

Coca Production Rises Despite "Winning" US Battle Against This Crop

Here we see the US singing its own praises in reducing coca acreage in Colombia. It is yet more evidence of the vast gulf that separates reality from the American propaganda of "winning" a "battle against Colombian cocaine traffikers". The US Drug Czar's claims are clearly at odds with the fact, reported here, that coca cultivation has actually RISEN 8%. The US$4.7 billion used to prosecute this war have been put to great use.

Law Enforcement Against Prohibition

Here's a nice article describing the US organisation, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), and its efforts to persuade more conservative parts of the US that prohibition is a failure. The story focusses on Lt Jack Cole, head of LEAP and speaker at a recent Santa Monica city council meeting to discuss an initiative to make adult cannabis use the "lowest priority" for the police.

LEAP is made up of current and former members of the law enforcement and criminal justice communities who are speaking out about the failures of our existing drug policies - and calling for legal regulation of drug markets. The UK's LEAP co-ordinator is Eddie Ellison, former head of the Met drugs Squad and now a Patron of Transform.

This is there 12 minute pormotional video:

Cali Cartel Convicted

This report from USA today describes the recent sentencing of two key players in the Colombian cocaine trade and government attempts to seize some $2.1 billion of the cartel's assets. The Drug Enforcement Agency's Karen Tundy is reported somewhat optimistically as stating that "It doesn't get any bigger than today" and that the guilty pleas represented the “last nail in the coffin of the Cali cartel.”

She must either believe or pretend, like so many drug warrriors, that with the imprisonment of these particularly vicious cartel members (who have actually not been free for years) the lucrative cocaine trade will somehow dissapear and that no other group of criminals could possibly think of taking their place. The brothers took over the trade after the high profile killing of Pablo Escobar, after which similar triumphant claims were made back in 1993.

However welcome it is to see members of such a violent cartel imprisoned, the fact remains that it is drug prohibition that created the cartels in the first place and there will always be criminals lining up to sell prohibited substances if the demand - and billion dollar profits - exists. Non of these high profile busts have ever had the slightest impact on global production of cocaine - which today is cheaper and more available than ever. Theres only one way to put them out of business for good - and it doesnt involve high profile 'get tough' enforcement tactics.

Teaching Unions Reject Random Drug Testing

This article, from the Daily Herald on the 23rd September 2006 reports that the proposals by Professor Neil McKeganey, director of the Centre for Drugs Misuse Research at Glasgow University, randomly to test teachers for drugs have been rejected by unions at unethical.

Derby Pioneers Drug Treatment Centre

Here's some good news for Derby with a drug treatment centre staffed with one full-time GP and 10 visiting doctors due to open on the 2nd October 2006.

Prisons Pilot Safer Drug Use

According to this article from the Times on 21st September 2006, prisons in Scotland will be trialling personal drug-taking kits for prisoners after a report by Glasgow Caledonian University into drug use and harms in Scottish prisons. The programme will be based on needle exchange schemes in Germany, the Republic of Ireland, Spain and Switzerland which have dramatically reduced rates of HIV and hepatitis transmission. This Scottish scheme is to be welcomed as a significant and pragmatic adoption of a harm reduction measure which will hopefully be rolled out across the UK's prison service.

Ethics and Evidence In Drug-Testing Schemes

Here's a plea by Neil McKeganey (professor of drug misuse research at Glasgow Universit)in the Herald on the 20th September 2006 for more evidence-based approaches to reducing the use of drugs by young people, specifically regards drug testing in schools. He's not afraid to wade into controversial policy areas (he has in the past called for drug dependent women to be paid to use contraceptives )

Here he suggests that drug prevention may include random drug-testing, but only on a trial basis to determine whether such schemes might be effective or not. He bemoans the absence of empirical evidence in existing drug prevention strategies and notes the ambiguity of much US "evidence" for or against drug testing. On this he is doubtless correct, as the recent ACMD report has stated, the evidence base for the effectiveness of drug testing is extremely poor.

towards the end of the piece he raises the ethical issues around testing:

"Drug testing, though, raises complex ethical issues. For example, whether young people can give their informed consent to be tested, whether testing impinges negatively on the teacher-pupil relationship and, perhaps most crucially, how you respond when a young person tests positive for illegal drugs."

All well and good, Transform would agree these are the main issues here. But then he apparently seems to want those concerns put aside whilst trials continue:

"There are difficult questions to answer, but they are not so difficult as to rule out even trying to see if drug testing is an effective method of drug prevention. And if drug testing were effective would that mean we were effective would that mean we should mount a national scheme of regular testing? The answer to that question is no."

then, confusingly, having said that even if testing could be shown to be effective (ethical concerns aside) he wouldnt want to see a national scheme, he then says:

"What it would mean is that we could then begin a debate as to whether the ends justify the means, knowing that drug testing is at least one way of reducing teenage drug use."

So he appears to be saying that the ends (ie reduced drug use - for which he thinks there is no evidence) might in theory be justified by the means (unethical testing).

Drug testing in schools, as Tony Blair's launch of the idea in a big News of the World splash last year shows, has always been a policy led by political prerogatives rather than evidence (the pilot testing scheme was part funded by the news of the World and the makers of the testing kits...hmmm). Ethics, however, can't be bypassed, even in the name of evidence gathering.

Afghan Military Campaign and Increased Opium Production

The Daily Telegraph on the 15th September 2006 have here qualified the NATO campaign in Afghanistan as counter-productive in both reducing the supply of opium and in stabilizing the region. Comments by Kim Howells, a Foreign Office minister, focus on the "instability" of the region as preventing effective counter-narcotics programmes whilst the article itself highlights that it these very counter-narcotics programmes which have encouraged Afghan farmers to back the Taleban and thus increased the "instability".

Cannabis arrests and racism

A report by Scotland Yard, discussed in the Guardian on the 18th September 2006, reveals that black people are far more likely to be caught and charged with cannabis possession than white people. The report's findings have provoked renewed charges of racism in the Metropolitan police force since even the authors of the study can find no clear reason for the disproportionate numbers of black people charged with possession.

Sniffer Dogs in Scottish Schools

The Sunday Times here reports that schools across Scotland are to use sniffer dogs in random raids. The Scottish strategy here is clearly at odds with the recent findings of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs which states in its recent report that "drug testing and sniffer dogs should not be used in schools". The Council based their recommendation on vital issues such as the pupil-teacher relationship which could easily suffer a further deterioration with random drug-testing and sniffer dogs. This might lead to more truancy rather than fewer drugs. In their well-intentioned eagerness to reduce drug-taking amongst the young, Scottish politicians and teachers risk alienating rather than informing the young.

UN Cannabis Report Makes Case for Legalisation?

This analysis in the Baltimore Chronicle by John Hickman argues that buried in the United Nations Office of Drug Control's (UNODC) "2006 World Drug Report" is an inadvertent case for ending cannabis prohibition. Although the authors of the report call for cannabis consumption and production to be treated as serious problems their review of the plant as a relatively low risk and inexpensive intoxicant whose global consumption and cultivation is very widespread is a contradiction which John Hickman is right to highlight.

Of course, rather than getting on his cannabis hobby horse Hickman could have pointed out that the evidence for global prohibition generally looks very bad indeed somethinhg that even the spin in the UN report cannot disguise; that drug use continues to rise, and attempts to curtail production and supply have catastrophically failed. That's the real contradiction in global drug policy - it's been completely counterproductive, increasing harms not reducing them. The whys and wherefores of cannabis are a distraction in many ways - and its harmfulness or otherwise is very much not the issue (or really in dispute).

His article does however rightly point out the failure of journalists to read in its entirety the report and instead to focus on the press release. It would be good if he had actually talked aboutthe entire report himself.

ACMD new report calls for review of the drug laws!

The latest report, 'Pathways to Problems', from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, published on the 14th September 2006 is now available from the Home Office website in pdf format here

In a surprising but welcome development for a group of scientists appointed by the Government, the Council has produced some useful analysis and makes a series of positive recommendations, many in conflict with Government policy and rhetoric. As Transform has observed (in recent briefings and Select Committee evidence on the ACMD and the drug classification system that it oversees see here ) the reports the ACMD produces are excellent - it is the questions they don't ask about the efficacy of prohibition that are the problem. To some extent this report offers a degree of redemption for ACMD, after a recent critical panning over its unscientific approach to the classification system and a history of avoiding engagement with more politically contentious areas of drug policy. Still a long way to go, but real progress none the less.

The media coverage of the report has focused on the policy recommendations regarding alcohol and tobacco which included:

- calls for better quality survey data of young peoples (licit and illicit) drug use
- much stricter controls of advertising and promotion of alcohol products aimed at young people
- better enforcement of existing age restrictions on alcohol and tobacco
- integration of (illegal) drug prevention with tobacco and alcohol prevention
- reducing the legal blood alcohol level for younger drivers
- raising the legal age limit for buying tobacco from 16 to 18

All seems fairly sensible and obvious really, but these issues are rarely raised and its great to see them getting an airing. Transform are particularly pleased to see the call for bans on advertising, better enforcement of existing regulations, better research, and an integrated approach to drug prevention - things that we have been publicly calling for many years. Let's hope the Government pays attention - you would hope they will, given that the ACMD exists purely to provide expert advice to Ministers.

One very significant recommendation that wasn't picked up by the media was number 1:

"As their actions are similar and their harmfulness to individuals and society is no less that that of other psychoactive drugs, tobacco and alcohol should be explicitly included in the terms of reference of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs"

Its may seem remarkable that the Council does not already have the two drugs that cause the most harm to society (by a vast margin) already within their remit, but this is a historical quirk of the fact that the ACMD is set up within the Misuse of Drugs Act, which obviously does not include alcohol and tobacco. Quite where this line of thinking is leading isn't clear. Is the council suggesting that alcohol and tobacco should be prohibited and brought within the MDA? presumably not. But this call will continue to emphasise the untenable legal distinctions between legal and illegal drugs - hopefully pushing the debate to its inevitable conclusion - that it is the drugs under the MDA that need to be removed and legally regulated, rather than the other way around.

Elsewhere in the report there was much of interest concerning illegal drugs that received little or no media coverage:

- There is a not-even-thinly-veiled critique of the 'very limited effectiveness' of school based drug education and prevention, which, it is suggested, should be subject to a 'careful reassessment', with future emphasis being on 'accurate, credible and consistent' information on all drugs (the implication clearly that this often hasn't been the case in the past)

- There is a very clear statement that sniffer dogs and drug testing 'should not be used in schools'. This is hugely significant, since it is in direct contradiction with a major policy initiative launched by the Prime Minister himself in a blizzard of tough talking populist rhetoric in the News of the World (and other media) last year. This is a triumph for pragmatism over drug war rhetoric ideology - the Council don't think these initiatives are supported by evidence of effectiveness and say so. Where this leaves the policy is moot - but it will be hard for any minister now to take it forward. This has been Transform's position, and that of Drugscope, Release, lifeline and other major drug agencies, from the outset.

- In chapter three (on drug availability and the impact of policy on it) there is a very clear acknowledgement that supply side interventions have not reduced supply or availability, summarised thus: 'intervening in illegal drug markets has not been clearly shown to influence the patterns of drug use amongst young people'.

Think about this for a moment - this is the Government appointed body of experts set up under the Misuse of Drugs Act, saying in crystal clear terms that prohibition does not work.

More interesting still is the policy recommendation that follows from this analysis that: "the current arrangements to control the supply of illegal drugs should be reviewed to determine whether any cost-effective and politically acceptable measures can be taken to reduce their availability to young people".

On the one hand this is diplomatic officialese that Humphrey Appleby of 'Yes, Minister' would be proud of, yet on the face of it, this innocuous sentence dangling from the end of chapter 3, offers a real nod towards reform. Why the scientists and experts on the council should be so concerned with political acceptability is curious, hinting at the politicisation (that the recent Science and technology Select committee recently alluded to) of what should be "an independant [sic] expert body that advises Government on drug related issues in the UK". None the less - if the ACMD is calling for a review of the legislation under which it is established that is great news, albeit about 35 years too late. If this happens, it could be the beginning of the end for the sorry old Misuse of Drugs Act. Lets hope it does.

Stopping Kids From Taking Drugs

This article, published on the 14 September 2006 on the BBC website, reviews approaches to preventing children from taking drugs, including the random drug testing adopted by Kent County Council. It reports that since 2003 every secondary school in England has needed a drug policy which Ofsted has recently criticized for not placing sufficient focus on the social implications of taking drugs. Presumably they mean the negative social implications of taking drugs as opposed to the widely appreciated benefits of certain drugs in social situations. The article then examines the random drug-testing approach adopted by Kent County Council which may benefit pupils in the short term but may not encourage personal responsibility for later in life.

Changes to drugs laws rejected

This article, published on the 14 September 2006 on Channel4news.com, describes a report by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs on the UK as a "nation of binge-drinking, cigarette-puffing, drug-taking hedonists". The reports' authors call for curbs in advertising and changes to the drink-driving laws for the young. However the government immediately rejected the proposals.

UN Calls to Worsen Conflict

Calls by the UN for NATO to step up its campaign against opium production in Afghanistan have thankfully been rebuffed by this military organisation as it rightly fears increased counter-narcotics operations would produce a backlash amongst the Afghan people. The opium poppy is one of the few successful crops in the region and increased measures to eradicate virtually their sole means of income would be bound to encourage Afghans to fight with the Taleban who have tactically co-opted the opium farming community to their insurgency.
The article greatly illuminates the appallingly one-sided approach of the UN to the drug problem. The Executive Director of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime,Antonio Maria Costa, "warned it meant increasingly pure heroin would reach Western users and was likely to cause a surge in lethal drug overdoses" and warning that the consequences of failure would be severe for drug consuming countries. The request for NATO to dismantle the heroin producing laboratories and bring to justice the big traders blithely dismisses the problems of survival for the Afghan people. How are they to survive without the income from this, their only effective crop? It seems incredible that an organisation such as this can utter such ill-conceived demands on an already overstretched army. Such a policy would be bound to drive the Afghan people more firmly into the hands of the Taleban as the existing Western counter-narcotics programme is already achieving. The best solution, surely, is for the West to co-opt the Afghan farmers and drug lords by buying up all the opium at satisfactory prices and using it to fill the absurd worldwide shortage of morphine.

The Economics of Illegal Drugs

This article, from the Independent on the 10th September 2006, outlines the drooping prices for many categories of illegal drugs as supply has surged to meet burgeoning demand. The information has been gleaned from a survey of more than 2,300 people and is to be released in a report by the charity, Drugscope. The detail of the article is fascinating with astoninshing profit margins reported for most classes of drugs.

Magistrates' Motion against Marijuana

According to this article, published on the 9th September 2006 in the Daily Telegraph, the annual meeting of the representatives of UK magistrates in November will be debating the downgrading of Cannabis to a Class C drug. According to the article magistrates are worried that young people are increasingly "hooked" on cannabis and are turning to crime to fund their habits. They therefore are seeking to change the classification of Cannabis back to a Class B drug.
Although there is no evidence whatsover that the classification system has any effect on the drug consumption mores of the young, the motion by the JPs to reverse the reclassification reveals a complete failure to absorb the findings of the recent cross party Science and Technology Select Committee which found there was no link between drug classification, deterrence or prevalence of use.

Canada Considers Contradictions

This article, published on the 5th September in the National Post (www.canada.com), focuses on the benefits and legal contradictions on Cananda's safe injection site, Insite. Although the legal injection room has very obvious health advantages for users in that needles aren't shared, the spread of disease is kept low, the dangers of overdosing are minimised and advice for stopping is provided Canada still has a problem with the site because it flouts the law prohibiting drug use everywhere else in the country.

Swiss Medicalisation of Heroin Use Puts Off Youth

This article, published on the 4th September 2006, reports on the benefits seen by the Swiss of their heroin assisted treatment programmes which has drasically cut new users of the drug. One researcher, Nordt, explains that the medicalisation of the drug and its use has discouraged potential new users of the drug. All glamour is removed in the medical setting so that users are no longer seen as rebels but losers. This is a very positive development for both users and those who deplore drug use.

Russian Radicals Seek Legalisation of Marijuana

This article from Interfax, published on the 6th September 2006, describes the Russian Radicals group seeking the legalisation of lighter drugs such as marijuana. This group is also seeking to end the teaching of Basic Orthodox Culture in Russian schools. It seems surprising and perhaps counter-productive that they describe themselves as radical as their policies seem thoroughly rational.

US School Fights Freedom of Speech

This article, published on the 30th August 2006 in the Anchorage Daily News, discusses the absurd and costly legal attempts by a high school in Alaska to defend its actions against a former student who had waved a banner with "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" on it as the Olympic torch relay passed through Juneau. The school confiscated his banner and suspended him even though he "wasn't on school property, wasn't at a school-sponsored event, wasn't under direct supervision of school employees and wasn't representing the school in any way imaginable". The young student, Joe Frederick, then claimed that his First Amendment right to free speech had been violated and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeal agreed with him. However the school is trying to take the case to the Supreme Court. Let's hope the so-called free world defends the First Amendment.

Mexican Gang War Violence Spirals Out of Control

This article, published on the 7th September 2006 in www.chron.com, highlights the gruesome violence which is gravely endangering the stability of society in Michoacan state. Recently the decapitated heads of 5 gang members were thrown onto the floor of a packed nightclub in the city of Uruapan. So far this year 1,500 people have died owing to the violence used by criminals to defend their illegal trade. The violence is intimidating the police force which is widely viewed as corrupt.

Officials have blamed the rise in violence on their own success rates in curbing the trade in illegal drugs, on the black market in firearms and on the increasingly lucrative trade in methampthetamine. Unfortunately nowhere in the article is any mention made of the main cause for all of this which is prohibition itself.

War on Drugs Turns Afghanistan into Narco-State

This article, published on the 2nd of September 2006 on the website for Radio Free Europe, reveals that a senior US counter-narcotics official has warned that the state of Afghanistan risks turning into a narco-state such is the vast increase in opium production this year. This is another triumphant endorsement for the US and UK strategy in attempting to eradicate the trade. The more the West seeks to clamp down on opium production the higher the level of production becomes. Has anyone told the counter-narcotics agents that there's a worldwide shortage of morphine, a vital medicine, derived from the opium poppy?

Daily Mail, Bad Science Drugs Deaths and Reclassification

The Daily Mail, where ghosts, mediums and quack medicine are regularly reported as serious news, has long been a haven for bad science reporting. Combine this with an appetite for scarey drug stories that make the Government look bad and you have a recipe for some classic poor journalism.

In this instance, under the hysterical headline 'The deadly downgrade' (subtitled: "Deaths from drugs have soared since Labour eased the law against cannabis"), the story's author, James Slack, has committed a series of crimes against reality: positing completely spurious causal relationships as fact, having misunderstood and misrepresented the statistics in the first place.

The Mail story claims that 'drug deaths spiralled after Labour downgraded cannabis'. However, the data they cite runs from 1991 to 2004. Given that reclassification took place in 2004 its hard to see how the suggested impact on drug deaths could have happened, given that no time had elapsed, and no data is presented from 2005.

Oddly they also note that drug deaths have dropped 9% since 1999, and whilst Transform are not in the habit of defending Government drug policy, this longer term trend should overall be seen as a positive and does not suggest drug deaths have 'soared', 'rocketed' or 'spiralled'.

The story also makes a completely unsubstatialted causal link between the apparent (2003-2004) rise in drug deaths (primarily opiates) and the reclassification of cannabis (for which zero deaths are reported). This link is reported as fact ('as a result deaths from heroin, cocaine and Ecstasy all rocketed') despite there being no evidence of any causal link whatsoever and indeed substantial evidence to suggest there is none. This has come most recetly from the cross party Science and Technology Select Committee which found there was no link between drug classification, deterrence or prevalence of use, as well as (again) torpedoing the 'gateway theory' the Mail espouses.

Indeed the entire factual basis of their analysis is faulty: recent official surveys have shown that cannabis use has infact stabilised (or fallen marginally) since reclassification, opiate use has been stable for the last few years and ecstasy use has fallen. Only cocaine use has been rising - continuing a trend that had begun well before classification. None of this is mentioned in the report.

Drug deaths in the UK do remain unacceptably high (for a long time the highest in Europe)despite progress being made in the harm reduction field. This is a serious issue worthy of serious news coverage, Its a great shame that the Mail, which has on occassion run very sensible op-eds and editorials on the drugs issue (including advocating legalisation), has resorted to this shoddy journalism, apparently just as a lame attempt to undermine the Government, in this case on one of the few vaguely sensible things they have done in the drugs arena (ie. reclassification).

Bad science and distorted statistics in pursuit of political point scoring or juicey soundbites (from politicians and journalists) have blighted drug policy for far too long and must not go unchallenged.

Portugal Approves Drug Injection Sites

This article, published on the 30th August 2006 and from Medical News Today, reports that Portugal has approved drug injection sites where users can inject themselves under supervision. These initiatives are aimed at reducing the spread of disease by preventing needle-sharing, reducing drug deaths (through rapid medical response to overdoses), as well as reducing street nuisance from users and drug litter (needles etc). The efficacy of such schemes has been well established over a number of years in a number of countries including Holland, Germany, Canada and Australia, and there has been a series of high level reports, most recently from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (2006) arguing for similat initiatives to be implemented in the UK. The UK Government has steadfastly refused for what can only be concluded are entirely political reasons. Tragically, while they prevaricate, injecting users will continue to die and become infected with HIV and hep C.

In 2000 Portugal de-facto decriminalised personal drug use but not the selling of drugs.

Ireland Not To Move Alone

This article, published on the 30th August 2006 in the Irish Examiner, reports that the Minister of State at the Department of Community, Noel Ahern, said Ireland could not go it alone in the international community in legalizing banned substances. He rejected calls to legalize banned substances, saying that such moves wouldn't work and referred to the drug tourism problems in Holland. Mr Ahern displays the typical cowardice of a politician who dares not stand out from the crowd, but by using the unilateral change argument he is implicitly acknowledging that the other arguments against legal reforms no longer hold water.

It's a pity Ireland's significant and historically unusual economic muscle doesn't translate into greater social leadership.

Rethink needed on drug education

This report, from the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) evaluates the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign, run by the United States Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) between 1998 and 2004. Having obtained an evaluation from a private company, Westat, ONDCP rejected its findings. This GAO report analyses the findings of the Westat report point by point and agrees with its conclusion - that there is 'no evidence that the campaign had a positive effect in relation to teen drug use', and, indeed, that there are 'some indications of a negative impact'.

Despite the $1.2 billion spent on the media campaign and the relative sophistication of many of the methods of information dissemination that it employed, the key message for youth remained the dated, ineffectual and frequently satirised encouragement to 'Just Say No'. This ethos inevitably leads to the definition of a successful drug policy for youth as one that reduces the prevalence of drug use - which may be very different from a policy which reduces the amount of harm arising from drug use.

The ONDCP response, covered in this article from USA Today, was uncompromising and petulant. But although this policy review is unlikely to shift the dominant US governmental attitude towards prohibition and its associated propagandising, its origin within the official policymaking environment makes it difficult to ignore. While drug education in the UK is admittedly far less dogmatic, there is also a sense that it is far less coherent, and a similarly authoritative and evidence-centred review in this country would be welcome.

Turkeys don't vote for Christmas

Martin Barnes of Drugscope responds to the devastating report from the Science and Technology Select Committee into the drug classification system. Barnes describes the Committee's attack on the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) as 'unreasonable' (neglecting to tell us that he is a member of ACMD).
The report includes the phrase: 'we consider the Council’s failure to alert the Home Secretary to the serious doubts about the basis and effectiveness of the classification system at an earlier stage a dereliction of its duty.'
Barnes also tells us that 'there is an opportunity for something better than the "prohibition" versus "legalisation" debate'. A debate on the future of quangos guilty of dereliction of duty perhaps...?

Frankly, my dear...

The drugs information website 'Talk to Frank' has surpassed itself, launching a new game designed to keep the kids away from the devil's weed. 'Dope Dash' requires players to run for as long as possible to avoid such caricatures as 'Hash Boy' and 'Skunk Zombie', who seek, apparently, to corner unsuspecting teenagers and blow smoke in their faces.

Whilst there is certainly a strong case for reminding youth of the potential dangers of cannabis, a drug too often referenced as 'safe', this regression towards the supposedly defunct era of 'Reefer Madness' is not the way to do it. Embarrassingly for Frank - whoever he is - the protest-strewn 'Dope Dash' leaderboard only confirms this. It's a shame really, Frank is generally quite balanced and has otherwise been improving.

Supine Support for Staff

This article from the Mercury News, published on 17th August 2006, highlights the cowardice displayed by the Democrat congressional campaigner, Coleen Rowley, in dealing with an unpaid member of staff's weblog in which he calls for the legalisation of all drugs. This may cost David Bailey his unpaid job. By capitulating to the opposition's slurring of David Bailey's stance on the "drug war", the Democrat campaigner has subliminally endorsed the opposition's viewpoint and has cravenly failed to debate the subject matter.

Public approve a rational approach to drugs

According to a recent YouGov poll carried out by the Daily Telegraph and the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce a majority of the public think that personal cannabis use should be decriminalized. The poll, discussed in an article by the Daily Telegraph on the 14th August 2006, also revealed that the majority of the public still believes that "hard" drugs such as cocaine and heroin should remain a serious criminal offence. The poll reveals that the public takes a pragmatic approach to drug use and would be amenable to policies which approach drugs according to the harm they cause. Sadly the poll shows that prohibition itself is not regarded as harmful but at least the public is beginning to realise that the legal status of a drug is not a useful indicator of its harmfulness.

UK authorities to test schoolchildren randomly for drugs

According to this article, published in the Guardian on the 10th August 2006, the US Drug "Tsar", John Walters has been promoting random drug testing in schools in the United Kingdom when speaking recently to the UK education minister, Jim Knight. Walters is also said to be against harm reduction policies such as needle exchanges. It seems like these drug tsars are acting like their namesakes; cruel tyrants.

Billions of tax dollars spent on drug war with no outcome audit

This article, published on 11th August 2006 in the The Australian, reports briefly on the vast sums poured into drug-related policing with no accounting for the success or failure of this policy. Australians have been sinking their tax dollars into a drug-war black hole with little empirical evidence to support the strategy until now.

Media muddle science

This article, published on the 5th August 2006 in the Guardian, reveals how susceptible contemporary media are to bad science, especially when it relates to the field of drugs. Ben Goldacre, of www.badscience.net, analyses some excellent examples of media selectiveness in the reporting of drug-related issues and studies. Unsurprisingly, the bias is clearly towards highlighting the harmfulness of drugs.

Prohibition and Proliferating Drug Use Down Under

Prohibition seems to be working really well in Australia with nearly 17% of all employees using illegal drugs according to this survey included in this article published on the 6th August 2006 in Adelaide Now.
Given that nearly one fifth of the working population in Australia admits to taking illegal substances and given that law enforcement would likely incarcerate such individuals is the criminal justice framework of prohibition a sensible economic policy?

Vancouver Mayor Seeks Drug Substitution Program

Acccording to this article published on the 1st August 2006 in the Vancouver Sun the mayor of Vancouver, Sam Sullivan, is seeking an experimental cocaine and crystal meth drug substitution program. Whilst a program is already underway in Vancouver for heroin which the mayor is confidant will result in a heroin maintenance program the same is not true for other highly addictive substances. The mayor is keen to act as a broker between any agency running such a program and donors since he admits that government processes would take too long. This is an encouraging proactive approach to stimulant addiction which will hopefully result in a rational treatment of addicts. However the emails from members of the public at the bottom of the article aren't all resoundingly positive.

Pusillanimous politicians in charge of drug classification

This leader from the Guardian published on the 1st August 2006 criticizes the political interference which has made the existing drug classification hopelessly arbritrary. Instead of categorizing the harmfulness of drugs according to scientific measures the existing classification merely panders to political whim. Given that scientific measures conclude that alcohol and tobacco are more harmful than an array of illegal drugs the whole basis for their prohibition is called into question. Sadly the leader concludes that a rational approach to drug policy is unlikely since the entire criminalization system would be undermined.

Cannabis safer than tobacco in drug classifications

The Independent from the 1st August 2006 here lists the drug classifications which government advisers had established on the basis of scientific evidence but which have been ignored by the Home Office. Both alcohol and tobacco are deemed far more harmful than many illegal drugs.
The same paper later criticizes the existing classifications in much the same way that the recent parliamentary committee has done (http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health_medical/article1207620.ece.

UK drug council not "fit for purpose"

James Randerson, the Guardian Science correspondent, here describes the House of Commons' conclusions regarding the Advisory Council for the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD). The cross-party committee's conclusions are a damning indictment of the ACMD and its failure to reduce harm to individuals and society. The MPs noted that the ACMD made drug classification decisions on the basis of political and not scientific considerations and that this should be rectified.

Commons Committee Slams Drugs Classification

The cross-party House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology has called for a wide-ranging reform of the drug classification system. The committee's report highlights the fact that the existing categorization is based on the criminal penalties as opposed to the physical and social harms associated with different drugs. The committee has called for a more scientific approach to drug categorization. This is a positive result for all those interested in a more rational approach to drug laws.

The full report can be read here.

US Congress To Breach Constitution to Prohibit Online Gambling

Here is yet another example of recent attempts by politicians in the US to abuse ancient freedoms to "protect" individuals, in this case from themselves. Congress is proposing to prohibit online gambling for Americans which as the article (linked via the above title and published in Deseret News on the 26th July 2006 by Walter Willams) points out is a breach of the 10th Amendment. Acting ultra vires seems to be in vogue for the existing US administration and has devastating consequences for personal freedom everywhere. As Williams makes clear this is a slippery slope. Let's hope the Senate rebuffs their meddling.

Washington Times Publishes Oped Pressing for Policy Change

This Oped, published on the 24th July 2006 in the Washington Times, is a plea to Senator Orrich Hatch to approach the drug war in America in the same way that he had done for "American victim of draconian drug penalties of the United Arab Emirates". Indeed it is a rallying cry to all of the Senate to approach drug policy in a rational and harm-reduction focussed way.

Tory party presses for licensed Afghan opium

This article, published on the 24th July 2006 in the Guardian, reports that Conservative party members are encouraging David Cameron, their leader, to push for the licensing of Afghan opium. They are arguing that the current coalition's attempts to eradicate the crop are a threat to both coalition troops and to the people of Afghanistan who rely on the crop as nearly their sole means of income. Given the worldwide paucity of opiate based medicines such as morphine, licensing opium would provide Afghan farmers with a legal and secure income whilst reducing the black market in heroin. A similar scheme was successfully undertaken in Turkey in the 1970s although at the time the US Drug Enforcement Administration was bitterly opposed. Ironically Turkey is now the main supplier of opiate based medicine to the US.

US Media Prone to Meth Abuse Hysteria

This article from "Stats at George Mason University", published on 17 July 2006 and written by Maia Szalavitz highlights the failure of USA journalists to assess press releases objectively and to ensure their reporting is not manipulated by the political ends of lobbyists. Thus despite the fact that law enforcement officers are currently seeking extra funding for methamphetamine anti-drug task forces, journalists have uncritically accepted these officers' assessment of the problem of methamphetamine as the "number 1 drug problem". However these officers' assessment bears no correlation to drug treatment surveys or a recently released survey by the Sentencing Project which revealed that “methamphetamine is among the least commonly used drugs”.

This article is interesting in highlighting the supine malleability of the US media by lobbying organisations and the resultant corruption of the "free" press. At least there was one ray of sunshine in her report since she noted that the San Jose Mercury News did make use of its critical faculties to publish the political lobbyist nature of the officers' press release; "While conducted scientifically, the survey is also a political document intended to rally support for additional federal spending. In some cases, the statistics are skewed to make a point". Unfortunately I'm guessing that the circulation of the San Jose Mercury News doesn't enjoy the opinion-shaping influence of, say, the New York Times.

Australian Green Party to allow heroin prescription

This article, posted on the 18th July 2006 in the Age, reveals that the Victorian Green party would prescribe heroin to long-term addicts, would abolish criminal penalties for illicit drug use and would test heroin injecting-rooms across the state. All these policies would be undertaken under trial conditions to monitor their effectiveness in terms of harm reduction. The trafficking of illegal drugs would continue to face criminal sanctions.

Daily Mail Science Proves Cannabis is a Gateway to Harder Drugs

This article from the Daily Mail, published on the 14th July 2006, reports the results of a study published in Neuropsychopharmocology which concludes that cannabis damages the adolescent brain, making it more susceptible to hard drug use later in life. Rats given THC in adolescent years were more likely to self-administer large quantities of heroin than rats which were not given THC during adolescence. The research also found "disturbances" of the endogenous opiod system or reward system of the brain. The conclusion of the study provides unfortunate ammunition to anti-drugs campaigner by focusing narrowly on the detrimental physiological effects of the drug. This type of narrow, editorial focus all too often blinds opinion-formers to the wider social, political AND physiological harms caused by prohibition.
This article, from 6th July 2006 in Science Now Magazine (http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2006/706/1) quotes the researchers of the above study stating "both groups of animals took the same amount of time to start taking heroin, suggesting THC use doesn't start them on the path to hedonism, but the THC-primed rats got more into it, suggesting it paves the way for increased use." This would therefore seem to refute the case pressed by the Daily Mail that THC consumption is a gateway to harder drugs.

The Economist notes Moroccan hash dilemma

This article, from the Economist, published on 13th July 2006, examines the history of cannabis production and prohibition in the Rif region of Morocco. Government programmes to prevent cultivation have resulted in cultivation in remote and less visible areas. The article concludes with a quote from a Casablancan newspaper which is campaigning to legalise hash given that a large proportion of the Moroccan population consume it. “How can it be illegal when so many people do it? You can't criminalise such a large part of society.”

Proposal to Stop Addicts Having Children Unworkable

The Scottish Drug Forum lambasts proposals to prevent drug addicts having children until they are clean and to force existing addict parents into mandatory cessation programmes or risk the loss of children or rights to free prescriptions. The proposals by the Labour Party in Scotland are "unworkable" and "counter-productive". The chairman of the Scottish Association of Alcohol and Drug Action Teams is quoted as saying "These proposals smack of cynical expediency and a depressing lack of vision." He also wonders why obese or alcoholic parents aren't to be treated to the same proposals as drug addicts.

Proposal to Prevent Junkies Having Children

This article by Ian Bell of the Scottish Herald, published on the 11th July 2006, examines the proposal by the Member of the Scottish Parliament, Duncan McNeill, to prevent junkies from having children unless and until they become "clean". The article weighs the pros and cons of McNeill's proposals but ultimately rejects the proposal as unacceptable social engineering and as likely counter-productive in practice.

Drug User Groups Espouse Harm Reduction

This article describes how various international drug user groups have united in a coalition and made a declaration to end the human rights violations of drug users and to push for the universalization of harm reduction as a policy in drug strategy. The coalition seeks to challenge existing national and international legal frameworks for drugs and is described as a "social justice movement for people languishing in prisons and alleys around the world". The coalition, the International Drug Users' Group, will seek funding from the European Commission and the UN.

UN 2006 Drug Report Is Biased

The Transnational Institute here criticizes the UN 2006 Drug Report for skewed analysis of global drug demand and supply trends as well as for biased scientific reporting. This is a useful window onto the international drug policy world.

UN 2006 Drug Report Shows Drug War is a Failure

This article from the Vancouver Sun, published on 28th June 2006, gives an update on the UN 2006 World Drug Report which reveals that the use of drugs especially marijuana has steadily increased. The report also highlights the increased potency of majijuana which may be linked to a rising number of adverse health events associated with marijuana use. The author blames this increase on the war on drugs. The UN's stance, however, is resolutely prohibitionist.

Afghan farmers & British soldiers in prohibition cross-fire

This article from the Financial Times, published on the 5th July 2006, exposes the complete failure of opium farming prohibition in Afghanistan. Opium production is set to have doubled this year despite foreign military counter-narcotics programmes. The Taliban insurgency has been forcing farmers to grow the opium poppy while corruption has stymied all attempts to reduce the crop. Even government land, some 10,000 hectares, is being used to cultivate the poppy plant.

Rocky Mountain News Says Alcohol Both Good and Bad

This article from Rocky Mountain News, published on the 4th July 2006, questions whether it was desirable to try to eliminate alcohol use throughout America as was attempted during the Prohibition era last century. The author, Paul Campos, a professor of law at the University of Colorado, writes that too often the positive aspects of drugs, such as alcohol, are overlooked in the drive by politicians to demonize them generally.

Liberty magazine against personal liberty

This article from Liberty magazine in their July/August 2006 edition discusses the effectiveness of reintroducing alcohol prohibition to Barrow, Alaska. The ban, introduced in 1994, reduced alcohol-related emergency room visits by over two thirds in the first 30 days after enactment. The author considers why state-wide prohibition failed earlier in the last century when there was a "smug non-compliance" with the Volstead Act even by various presidents. The author then criticises the proponents of drug legalization by referring to the problems caused by the legalization of alcohol. The author considers personal liberty less important than society's health. "It is in keeping with the principles of religious liberty to criminalize harmful substances, if those harmful substances would wreak havoc on a society." Given the harms caused by alcohol the author deems that "self-harm should be legally prohibited".

Cafebabel Considers Legalisation

This article in Cafebabel, the European Magazine, posted on the 3rd July 2006 examines the potential for the legalisation of drugs to reduce the involvement of the criminal underworld and other costs caused by prohibition.