I freely admit I stole today's headline from David Nutts new blogsite and a piece he's written on cannabis, having recently returned from a trip to New Zealand. He was shocked to discover that in NZ they imprison even more people than we do here and they remain unrelenting in their pointless 'war' against cannabis. You will recall that Professor Nutt was famously sacked by Home Secretary Alan Johnson in 2009 for having the temerity to question the governments decision to re-classify cannabis back up from class 'C' to class 'B'.
Now I'm no medical expert, but a quick scan of his entry on wikipedia tells me that this chap has impeccable credentials and when he speaks up, we really ought to be listening. Following his unceremonial ousting as chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs along with several distinguished colleagues, he set up the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs. This group have recently published a very provocative paper in the Lancet basically saying that alcohol is a highly dangerous drug, causes more harm than heroin and draws attention to the fact that vastly more resources are being put into treatment of drug addictions as opposed to alcohol. The report makes interesting comparisons of harm levels between different drugs both for users and other people and basically says the UK system of drug classification is outdated and misleading.
Over the years I've had dealings with many hundreds of people whose involvement with legal and illegal substances has brought them into the Criminal Justice System and facing a variety of offences ranging from murder, rape, assault and arson to criminal damage and breach of the peace. I would hazard a conservative guess that alcohol was involved in at least 75% of these cases. Cannabis never features and for that reason I have virtually ignored it in my dealings with clients. On the other hand the point I've repeatedly made is that if alcohol was discovered tomorrow, it would be completely illegal.
The trouble is that a rational discussion or debate on drug issues is sadly completely impossible in the UK and politicians simply dare not risk the wrath of the right-wing press. I notice that the item in yesterdays Guardian had attracted over 500 comments by 6.00pm. Anyway, hats off to the Prof for not giving up and relentlessly pointing out that it would be much more sensible and cheaper for society in the long run if drug policy was evidence based rather than politically influenced.
Frankly the easiest way forwards on this one would be to take the approach of Portugal, and decriminalise all personal possession of drugs, then permit licenced premises to sell various intoxicants to adults. Proving that one is an adult would entail showing a passport, driving licence or ID card supplied by a verified authority (allows private enterprise here), and the provision of intoxicants would be on condition of not letting children get their hands on them.
ReplyDeleteThat would let drug users get clean, pure drugs in known dosages and take them in a fairly safe environment; such things as heroin could be sold in single-use injection packaging, say. The advantage of doing this is that drugs like heroin are not in themselves particularly expensive; permitting mass production would bring the cost down to mere pence per dose. Once you let the free market into drug production and distribution, illegals simply cannot compete and all the hassle, violence and minor criminality associated with illegal drug users would vanish, as would the drug gangs.
Now, there's no such thing as a free lunch and some other form of criminality would take over, and of course a fair few heroin addicts would simply drug themselves into oblivion quickly (as opposed to slowly and at great public expense), but the sheer saving in terms of public expenditure would make the whole enterprise worth while.
Unscientific, anecdotal evidence:
ReplyDeleteI personally knew 3 people who've died as direct consequences of alcohol (all alcoholics) and 1 as an indirect consequence (booze, motorbike and tree). The figure is possibly higher as I suspect heavy drinking to have been a contributive cause in at least one cancer death of a friend.
I know nobody who has died as a consequence of direct or indirect use/abuse of illegal drugs despite knowing a good few who use/abuse them. In fact, in this group the only significant harm that has accrued from use of illegal drugs has been because of their illegality, not from their innate potential for harm.
I think it probably depends on where you work in the country and the problems in those areas. Cannabis is related to a lot of the offences I come across.
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