Think the Drugs Laws are Stupid? Have YOUR Say...

[JulesDogg]

Originally posted by JonnyQuest

the anarchism and im not saying make alcohol illegal would stop problems thats jsut my point shit would still be bad if things were legal, drug dealers trying to undercut shops, shops selling drugs robbed i like em illegal cause i dont like the government

Do you agree that the current drug laws can cause unnecessary suffering for some people?

If so, should the status quo be maintained?

If things were still 'bad' under a different regime. Can you conceive of any changes to the current model that would make things less bad?

Have you throughly considered the variety of models that could be used in place of the current one?

Are there any alternatives that you consider worthy of discussion?

I don't understand how a personal dislike of the government would lead to support of their drug laws. This seems contradictory, please explain.

[JonnyQuest]

Originally posted by JulesDogg

Do you agree that the current drug laws can cause unnecessary suffering for some people?

If so, should the status quo be maintained?

If things were still 'bad' under a different regime. Can you conceive of any changes to the current model that would make things less bad?

Have you throughly considered the variety of models that could be used in place of the current one?

Are there any alternatives that you consider worthy of discussion?

current drug laws do cause problems for some people yeah, but they become legal and a bunch of kids get some teenager at there school to buy em aload of sniff and they do it like scarface? thats not a good thing.

drugs being illegal are good in a way as when your younger you believe the lies which keeps you away from drugs for a little while at least and thats good since nobody can deny drugs dont help the naturally development of the body and mind being illegal makes people wait till there ready to experience these things

[JulesDogg]

Originally posted by JonnyQuest

current drug laws do cause problems for some people yeah, but they become legal and a bunch of kids get some teenager at there school to buy em aload of sniff and they do it like scarface? thats not a good thing.

drugs being illegal are good in a way as when your younger you believe the lies which keeps you away from drugs for a little while at least and thats good since nobody can deny drugs dont help the naturally development of the body and mind being illegal makes people wait till there ready to experience these things

Are you assuming that 'any modification' of current legislation would automatically lead to higher drug comsumption amongst younger users?

Am I to assume that you advocate no changes whatsoever?

In your view, are there any modifications to the current situation that merit discussion?

[JonnyQuest]

Originally posted by JulesDogg

Are you assuming that 'any modification' of current legislation would automatically lead to higher drug comsumption amongst younger users?

Am I to assume that you advocate no changes whatsoever?

In your view, are there any modifications to the current situation that merit discussion?

greatly reduced punishment, greatly reduced, i lvoe drugs and i dont want people to get hurt by em , but saying all drugs should be legal is foolhardy, weed should fall into the same catergory as tobacco being that u should be 18 to buy it. pills should be the same as there not dangerous but hardly gonna be good on a young persns brain and body whereas they would probably avoid until they were older in the current system, coke , meth. smack, should all remain illegal as they are naughty well maby not sniff, i dunno i just dont think all drugs should be legal, the drugs i listed should be legal (weed pills) but i dont want them to be

[JulesDogg]

Originally posted by JonnyQuest

greatly reduced punishment, greatly reduced, i lvoe drugs and i dont want people to get hurt by em , but saying all drugs should be legal is foolhardy, weed should fall into the same catergory as tobacco being that u should be 18 to buy it. pills should be the same as there not dangerous but hardly gonna be good on a young persns brain and body whereas they would probably avoid until they were older in the current system, coke , meth. smack, should all remain illegal as they are naughty well maby not sniff, i dunno i just dont think all drugs should be legal, the drugs i listed should be legal (weed pills) but i dont want them to be

Jonny, glad to see you have something to offer the debate and that finally we can agree that certain aspects of current drug law could possibly be improved. I was beginning to think that your stance was simply a blanket disagreement with whatever I posted.

[Raj]

Expecting that legalisation would increase drug use over time is not a proven theory.

In area where possesion has been decriminalised drug use has gone down - check the swiss and german opiate experiment zones, portuguese drug law changes, etc.

The legalisation of drugs takes away the taboo attraction - these are the people for whom underage drinking was more attractive than drinking is once they are legally old enough to do it.....as well as the fact they dont have to try and get it or consume it without being caught.

Another big plus is the fact that if they run into difficulties they arent scared to ask for help and the taxation of the drugs would raise funds for the NHS [well I would hope they would get them] so treating them wouldnt be the big black financial hole it is just now.

More research into the effects would also be possible and many of the 'party' drugs [E, LSD etc] have potential therapeutic uses which IMO need to be harnessed to reintegrate displaced members of society [Post traumatic stress sufferers among others - lots of serving personel from the gulf wars have this and MDMA as a treatment is now being studied {funded by the Bush Administration no less} to see if they can be helped] Many of those drugs were in therapeutic use before they were made illegal and it would be good to get back to exploring those uses as well as the interaction of MDMA with the bodies of parkinson sufferers, etc etc

Oh yes and lets not forget that drug possesion offences would no longer clog our prisons as they would be legally available and not proscribed

[JulesDogg]

Raj, all good points. I could not agree more. This phoney 'War on drugs' is a total failure and benefits nobody apart from gangland bosses.

[JonnyQuest]

Originally posted by JulesDogg

Raj, all good points. I could not agree more. This phoney 'War on drugs' is a total failure and benefits nobody apart from gangland bosses.

i agree with you!!!!!!!!!

however i think legalising drugs with just swing us into a load of differant problems

[its-a-rave-dave]

Tbh I don't think the UK could handle legalised drugs, they would just get used as the blame for all yob attacks aswell. Strange how amsterdam copes so well with its policies on weed. If anything was legalised i would say it would be weed but you will always get the haters. So yeah i say leave them be with the laws.

[JulesDogg]

Originally posted by its-a-rave-dave

Strange how amsterdam copes so well with its policies on weed.

The Dutch model of tolerance and the Portugese decriminalisation approach seem to work so much better than absolute prohibition.

I don't think it strange that in Holland the approach to weed works. The authorities just treat their populace as adults who are capable of making their own decisions.

A lot of the problem seems to be that we are all socially conditioned to accept the drug laws as they are and lack the imagination to think of workable alternatives.

A lot could be learned from the more successful policies employed by some of our European neighbours.

[camilo527]

Drug prohibition is stupid it makes gangsters and dealers business and make the price of the drug high..so its bad for common fellas like us...legalize everything, a middle point its just the right point, for everyone, dont abuse...

[JamesBong]

Originally posted by camilo527

Drug prohibition is stupid it makes gangsters and dealers business and make the price of the drug high..so its bad for common fellas like us...legalize everything, a middle point its just the right point, for everyone, dont abuse...

Camilo, so right dude, prohibition sucks.

[General Lighting]

what about this?

the enforcement against possession of small amounts or even low level dealing is removed, provided no other crimes are committed whilst on drugs (i.e anti social behaviour / violence / dangerous driving or other behaviour on the roads/transport networks)

if dealers or users are caught committing dysfunctional or violent acts whilst under the influence or as part of their "business" they are busted for both the violent crime and the old penalty for the drugs.

but prison is only ever used for those who commit violence associated with drugs culture. Everyone else who exhibits problematic drug use patterns (say a spate of thefts to fund a habit, criminal damage on comedowns or repeated driving whilst under the influence) is given community sentences and rehab orders and/or profits made from drugs are confiscated but the funds ringfenced for the use of the NHS in the area where the offence occured.

A step like this could be a move towards more sensible legislation without going too much against the existing UN conventions, nor "caving in" to the behaviour of people who can't self-regulate..

[pixiegirl]

Done. Interesting.

[Pat Mabaws]

I for one, find the current drug laws in the UK rediculous and intolerable

Many of these compounds, especially the psychedelics, have been used to the benefit of mankind for as long as history has been recorded and long before that and I do not believe we would be anywhere near where we are today, socially, and technologically, without them. Who the fuck, gave our 'leaders', the right to turn around, after all this time, and declare them dangerous and not to be used by anyone for any purpose? Why do they feel the need to have such control over something that should simply be a case of making an informed choice?

These chemicals have significant benefits and hold vast untold potential for humankind.

I believe a shamanic approach with regards to attitude towards these intoxicants could be a way forward. For this to work, any changes in drug laws would require to go hand in hand with dramatic changes in our education system.

I remember when I was in school, my entire class was sent on a trip to this 'drugs workshop', I remember being handed two small sweets which resembled skittles, one in each hand. The dick who handed them to me then asked, " okay son, now which one of those two sweets is drugs?" I replied , "I don't know," to which he replied, "that's the thing, it could be ANY!!, u just don't know!!"

I shat myself, and I never bought a packet of skittles for years!

This is the bullshit that makes drug laws work, come on to fuck, is this the best information on drugs we have for our kids? Inevitably many kids will grow up to find out on their own that this in a complete pile of shit, but many don't, and that's part of the reason for this insane cultural attitude. Part of the reason people like us have to hide in the shadows.

At the very least, every single one of these drugs should be integrated into the existing medical system, more serious research needs to be done into the potentials and capabilities of these compounds, this data should be made available to the entire medical community and their use should be authorised for every health professional.

Misuse of drugs is the key issue here, things like DMT, Psilocybin & LSD have many medical uses and can give an individual great insights into their own mind and beyond, but excessing in these things for months on end can yield serious consequences, the sensible thing to do would be to educate people so that this is avoided, instead of fearmongering, lies, and legal consequences which can ruin a persons life. This is why education is fundamental to any realistic, workable resolution to this problem.

Unfortunately, the people who are in control, don't seem to care about what would be best for our society, only what's best for them. Rendering all our talk, fairly pointless.

If weed cured cancer it's go straight to class A and possession would get you fed to the sharks.

[ellie]

Originally posted by camilo527

Drug prohibition is stupid it makes ...the price of the drug high

not certain about this argument...the tax man would loooooovveee to legalise drugs!

[AGENT 15]

I think the Goverment are keeping this ace up their sleeve one day they are going to need a massive diversion and this will give it to them ,just befor the story of Russian ICBM deployment/attack from space aliens/Masons rule the world, breaks out they will come with "look! a diversion, the legalisation of all drugs" in the hope that we will forget in about :insert major conspiracy theory here: being true.

[DaftFader]

Originally posted by gomez

Hi...
As well as publishing it in the medical journals. The survey (of psychiatrists) brought up alcohol as third most harmful drug after heroin.
-----------------------
Gomez

heroin in it's pure form and properly dosed is actualy alot less harmfull than most drugs iirc

[DIONYSUS]

Originally posted by DaftFader

heroin in it's pure form and properly dosed is actualy alot less harmfull than most drugs iirc

forgot about that tune in your video avatar thing, quality.

[ellie]

Originally posted by DaftFader

heroin in it's pure form and properly dosed is actualy alot less harmfull than most drugs iirc

really!!??

in what way...less addictive??

[Acidfairy]

More in the way that it is less detrimental to your health, its an optiate in its pure form, Yes it will still destroy your life if you abuse it but its not filled with all the crap that dealers cut it with to make it go further..

Many of the problems associated with intravenous drug use come from the shit its cut with not the actual drug itself...

Alot of the stuff that its cut with blocks veins etc or is poisonous itself..

[Tank Girl]

interesting article (from drink and drug news on 'drug policy - the war on drugs' )

by Danny Kushlick who is director of Transform Drug Policy Foundation. A former drug counsellor in the criminal justice system, he founded Transform in 1996 after recognising that prohibition caused his clients more problems than their drug use. Transform is the UK's leading campaign for an effective drug policy based on the legal regulation and control of drugs. He is a leading contributor to the drug law reform debate in the media, among policy-makers and in the NGO arena. He is co-author of After the War on Drugs: Options for Control (2004). He is also a member of the executive council of the International Harm Reduction Association, and is a co-opted member of the Advisory Council of the British Society of Criminology.

‘I think there’s a good reason why the propaganda system works this way. It recognises that the public will not support the actual policies. Therefore it’s important to prevent any knowledge or understanding of them. Correspondingly, the other side of the coin is that it’s extremely important to try to bring out the truth aboutthese matters, as best we can.’

Noam Chomsky, Interview in ‘The Chomsky Reader’

Across the many policy responses to drugs in society, the war on drugs ethos, its legislative instruments, and their enforcement has become a significant driver of drug harms. Through its mass criminalisation of users, its abdication of market control to unregulated criminal profiteers,

and creation of a vast anarchic and violent criminal economy, prohibition, whatever its original intentions, has become a policy of harm maximisation, in both public
health and criminal justice spheres.

But here’s the good news: ‘The Drug War cannot stand the light of day. It will collapse as quickly as the Vietnam War, as soon as people find out what’s really going on.’ (Joseph McNamara, Former Police Chief, Kansas City and San Jose;
Fellow, Hoover Institution.) The flip side of this is that the war on drugs will continue for as long as people are kept in the dark about what’s going on.
The key question then is this: Who is responsible for informing people about what is going on in the drug war? Should the harm reduction and treatment field be doing more to cast light on prohibition?

There is a growing consensus that the war on drugs is the single largest force for maximising drug harm currently in operation. So why has the vast majority of the drugs field chosen to be economical with this simple truth? Firstly though, they are not alone – criminologists, public health experts, international development NGOs and many drug policy NGOs have chosen to refrain from calling for a
fundamental alternative to prohibition.
However, the drugs field occupies a place of supreme importance in exposing the harm maximising effect of the drug war on their clients.
First they are the government’s first port of call (and place of last resort) to reduce drug war harms and second most represent the harm reduction paradigm, and if harm reductionists will not question the war on drugs, who will?

Successive UK governments have gone out of their way to make sure that the public is misinformed about how the government’s commitment to a war on drugs creates much of what we call the drug problem.
In 2003 the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit Drugs Report was presented to the Cabinet. Withheld for two years,
despite numerous freedom of information requests, it was eventually published in the Guardian in 2005.

It detailed precisely how supply side enforcement creates
a vicious and lucrative drug market that destabilises producer and transit countries and creates the context for crime and public health problems in industrialised consumer countries.

That same year I asked Bob Ainsworth MP, the government’s then drug spokesperson, if the government would support an audit of the efficacy of supply side enforcement. He replied: ‘Why would we do that unless we were going to legalise drugs?’

Duping the public doesn’t get more transparent than this;
especially when you take into account Julian Critchley’s recent damning comments on his time at the UK Anti-Drug Co-ordinating Unit. While calling for legalisation and
regulation recently, he said: ‘I think what was truly depressing about my time in UKADCU was that the overwhelming majority of professionals I met, including
those from the police, the health service, government and voluntary sectors held the same view: the illegality of drugs causes far more problems for society and the individual than it solves.’

If Critchley is right, why has the drugs field chosen reticence on this issue? Nowhere is the damage of the war on drugs more obvious than to those who work with heroin and crack users or manage services for them. No amount of
counselling, clean needles or methadone make up for the fact that their drugs cost more than their equivalent weight in gold, that they are of unknown purity and that their possession is, in and of itself, a criminal offence.

And sadly, safe injecting rooms and heroin prescribing will not help the plight of Afghan and Colombian opium and coca growers.
There are glimmers of light though. In 2001 the Home Affairs Select Committee reviewed UK drug policy. The Committee’s final recommendation was: ‘We recommend that the government initiates a discussion within the Commission on Narcotic Drugs of alternative ways – including the possibility of legalisation and regulation – to tackle the global drugs dilemma.’ It is worthy of note that one of the members of the Committee who asked us questions that day was one David Cameron MP. Too much truth? Cameron has not repeated this call since then.

The RSA Commission was split in terms of how far it should go in exposing the drug war to serious criticism. While all of the recommendations supported the status quo, the 2007 report let slip that: ‘Prohibition is no more a viable policy in
Britain today than it proved to be in America during the 1920s and 1930s.’ If it to serious criticism. While all of the recommendations supported the status quo, the 2007 report let slip that: ‘Prohibition is no more a viable policy in
Britain today than it proved to be in America during the 1920s and 1930s.’ If it isn’t viable, shouldn’t it be terminated and replaced with a system that is viable?

The UK Drug Policy Commission may be moving in that direction too. Its latest report concluded with a quote from Tiggey May and Mike Hough: ‘[If] markets continue to prove highly resilient in the face of enforcement efforts, then over time, the pressure to re-examine the current legislative structure for controlling drugs will be overwhelming.’ Using similar code, the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs’ Report Pathways to Problems
includes the following recommendation: ‘The current

arrangements to control the supply of drugs covered by the Misuse of Drugs Act (1971) should be reviewed to determine whether any further cost-effective and

politically acceptable measures can be taken to reduce the availability of drugs to young people. Action: Home Office.’ Not surprisingly the Home Office failed to take this recommendation on board, presumably working from the time-honoured criterion of what is ‘politically acceptable’ to populist politicians. More surprisingly the ACMD itself has failed to seriously engage in any wholesale review, despite its own clear remit to appraise the efficacy of the MDA (1971).

So to sum up there are three major tendencies in the debate: firstly, those who call for an end to the war on drugs and its replacement with a system of legal control; secondly the gradualists, who suggest reducing prohibition’s harms, while leaving the edifice of prohibition in place; and thirdly, a group that lies in between who suggest that we need to explore (encoded) alternatives. The gradualist position has been chosen by many as the only viable position to engage policymakers in the short term; as the Beckley Foundation Drug Policy Programme report Facing the future: the challenge for national and international
drug policy suggests: ‘One of the barriers that has delayed or prevented international bodies and national governments from confronting some of the policy challenges of the past 40 years has been a concern that any admission of failure
will be interpreted as a concession to, or a step towards, drug legalisation.’ The report adds that: ‘It is inaccurate and unhelpful to represent the debate about the future of drug policy in simple, polarised terms.’ The reality is that policy based on drug war ideology is very vulnerable to
criticism and it is a short step from critique to alternative. There is no fence upon which to sit. However, if the goal is to engage with policymakers now, it makes perfect sense to build a fence of ‘reasonableness’ and sideline those calling for wholesale reform. Taking this position comes at a price though; firstly, longer term reforms are continually pushed out of reach, and secondly it entrenches the idea
that more substantive critique of prohibition is politically dangerous and an intellectual no-go zone, thereby leaving the drug war almost unimpeded in exertingits harm maximising force.

Which brings us back to my starting point: who is responsible for informing the public about the drug war? The answer has to be those who know that the war on
drugs is the problem and that ending it would seriously reduce the damage that it inflicts; the likes of Julian Critchley, Sir Keith Morris, the late Mo Mowlam, Adair
Turner and Paul Flynn MP. Even Antonio Maria Costa (executive director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime) has identified the drug control system as having major
unintended consequences: a huge criminal market, policy displacement (from public health to enforcement) and geographical displacement (the ‘balloon effect’).
Which begs the question, does a consequence remain unintended once it is identified? Shouldn’t it now be admitted these are just further consequences of
the war on drugs? And, if Costa can concede significant harms created by the war on drugs, doesn’t this open the door to the drugs field to follow? For too long the debate on prohibition and regulation has been ghettoised and
marginalised. However, as Mark Easton (BBC Home Editor) said recently: ‘The political mainstream still see no electoral advantage in even engaging with a debate on legalisation. When pressed, they predict disaster – more drug abusers
and no drop in crime. But a view not so long ago dismissed as the province of weirdoes and wackoes, is slowly edging towards centre stage.’ If Easton is correct, the drugs field will become increasingly important partners in both
publicly critiquing prohibition’s failings and presenting public health-based regulatory alternatives.
In truth we can only enable the wider public to see the war on drugs for what it is if the drugs field is willing to shine its own light.
If we are not, in Chomsky’swords, going to ‘bring out the truth’, we should consider very carefully indeed, in
whose interest we are choosing the alternative.

[Tank Girl]

• and a little more:

• Danny Kushlick
  • guardian.co.uk,
  • Wednesday August 13 2008 10.00 BST

The former head of the government's UK anti-drug co-ordination unit (UKADCU), Julian Critchley, posted to BBC Home Affairs correspondent Mark Easton's blog last week, The War on Drugs, calling for the legalisation of drugs. In his post he also reports how those he met during his time at the unit knew that criminalisation was causing more harm than the drugs themselves. (This comes as no surprise to anyone who has read the damning report from the prime minister's strategy unit from 2003.)
Critchley says:

I think what was truly depressing about my time in UKADCU was that the overwhelming majority of professionals I met, including those from the police, the health service, government and voluntary sectors held the same view: the illegality of drugs causes far more problems for society and the individual than it solves. Yet publicly, all those intelligent, knowledgeable people were forced to repeat the nonsensical mantra that the Government would be 'tough on drugs', even though they all knew that the Government's policy was actually causing harm.

Critchley is to be congratulated for speaking out with such candour on the issue. I have met many former and current civil servants who are of the same opinion, but haven't gone public. What Critchley makes absolutely clear is that many, if not most of those working in the drugs field are knowingly colluding with a regime that actively causes harm. Their silence is not based on ignorance but is tacit support for one of the great social policy disasters of the last 100 years.
Critchley, having retrained as a teacher, concludes with the following:

I find that when presented with the facts, the students I teach are quite capable of considering issues such as this, and reaching rational conclusions even if they started with a blind Daily Mail-esque approach. I find it a shame that no mainstream political party accords the electorate the same respect.

His final comment ought to send a shiver down the spine of every UK voter. If you voted in the last election, you probably voted for prohibition. You voted to gift hundreds of billions of pounds to organised crime each year, to undermine the social and economic development of producer countries such as Colombia, Afghanistan as well as transit countries such as Guinea Bissau and Jamaica. You voted to double the amount of acquisitive crime in the UK and to double the prison population with it. Your "X" contributed to misery and degradation for millions of the most marginalised people on earth. Unless we all do something to change it, you will probably vote for prohibition next time too.
In 2003 at a press conference, I asked the then drugs spokesperson at the Home Office, Bob Ainsworth MP, whether the government would support a cost benefit analysis of drug law enforcement. Quick as a flash his reply came back: "Why would we want to do that unless we were going to legalise drugs?" Does that sound like a man ignorant of where that audit trail would lead?
It is the candour of the likes of Critchley and others that exposes the hypocrisy of those failing to speak out and makes prohibition untenable in the long term. As Joseph McNamara, former police chief of Kansas City and San Jose put it: "The drug war cannot stand the light of day. It will collapse as quickly as the Vietnam war, as soon as people find out what's really going on." Tragically and despicably, the government's commitment to populist posturing means that the collapse will come far too late for many.

Number 10 Strategy Unit Drugs Project, Phase 1 Report: "

Understanding the Issues"

Transform Summary and Briefing
"The drugs supply market is highly sophisticated, and attempts to intervene have not resulted in sustainable disruption to the market at any level."(p.104)
REPORT SUMMARY

In June 2003 the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit produced a detailed economic and social analysis of international and domestic drug policy that showed that supply-side enforcement interventions are actively counterproductive. Put simply, the report demonstrates that:

• Drug production in developing countries has intractable economic and social causes and cannot be stopped.

• Trafficking cannot be significantly curtailed: seizure rates of 60-80% would be required to have any serious impact, and nothing greater than 20% has ever been achieved.

• Attempts to reduce drug use by reducing drug availability have failed (use has risen consistently).

• However, by inflating the costs of a weekly habit, supply side interventions have fuelled crime amongst dependent users. The cost of crime committed to support illegal cocaine and heroin habits amounts to £16 billion a year in the UK (note: this is more than the entire annual Home Office budget)

In short:

our commitment to a global ‘drug war’ that cannot be won is costing the UK billions in wasted expenditure and crime costs.

BACKGROUND TO THE REPORT

• In 2003 the Number 10 Strategy Unit was commissioned to produce what was initially described as ‘a scoping exercise’ on illegal drugs. What emerged in Phase 1 of the reporting process, titled ‘Understanding the Issues’, was a thorough and clinical analysis by some of the best policy minds in the UK - of the counterproductive effects of national and global drug law enforcement.

• The series of 105 PowerPoint slides was presented to senior cabinet members in June 2003. It can only be assumed that it was not made public because its findings undermined the tenets of global drug prohibition. The UK Government is a signatory to the UN’s 1998 10-year drug strategy, whose stated goal is "A Drug Free World – We Can Do It!". This report demonstrates otherwise.

• In December of 2003 Phase 2 of the report

‘Diagnosis and Recommendations’ was produced. It later became known as ‘the Birt report’ and its existence was made public by Marie Woolf in the Independent1. Phase 1’s critique of supply side interventions was sidelined, and Birt recommended an intensification of demand side measures aimed at ‘gripping high harm causing users (HHCUs)’ in coerced treatment, in order to reduce property crime associated with fundraising to support a habit. This later culminated in the clauses in the new Drugs Act that mandate (with criminal sanctions including

imprisonment) drug testing on arrest for certain trigger offences and mandatory treatment if positive2.

• The first half of the Phase 1 report was released under FOI on 1 July and the remaining section subsequently leaked to the Guardian:

. It is clear that there was nothing in the withheld material that was a security issue, (as was claimed by the Government) and that it was in the public interest to publish it in its entirety.

CONTENT OF THE REPORT

The report dissects the criminal drug market and the attempts to interrupt it with ‘
supply-side interventions’ – the policy of drug prohibition. It demonstrates that:

• Prohibition has failed to prevent or reduce the production of drugs

• Prohibition has failed to prevent or reduce the trafficking/availability of drugs

• Prohibition has failed to reduce levels of problematic drug use

• Prohibition has inflated prices of heroin and cocaine, leading some dependent users to commit large volumes of acquisitive crime. Even if such supply interventions could further increase prices, this could increase harms, as dependent users commit more crime to support their habits.

1. PROHIBITION CANNOT PREVENT DRUG PRODUCTION

The report shows that efforts to reduce crop production have failed historically, and explains why they are ineffective and will remain so.

• "Poverty often leaves farmers in drug growing regions few options but to grow illicit crops"(p.58)

• "Western influence in production areas is limited because a drugs economy thrives where the rule of law has failed, or where international norms have been breached"(p.60)

• "Drug crop eradication alone appears not to limit illicit crops in the long term"(p.61)

• "Weaning farmers off a dependence on illicit crops is a time-consuming, complex and expensive process of state-building"(p.62)

2. PROHIBITION CANNOT PREVENT DRUG TRAFFICKING
The report demonstrates the historic failure of attempts to reduce drug trafficking (and related money laundering) and explains why they will not be any more effective in the future:

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

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

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

•

"Over the past 10-15 years, despite interventions at every point in the supply chain, cocaine and heroin consumption has been rising, prices falling and drugs have continued to reach users. Government interventions against the drug business are a cost of business, rather than a substantive threat to the industry’s viability." (p.94)

3. PROHIBTION CANNOT PREVENT DRUG USE

The report demonstrates graphically how prohibition has failed to reduce use of the most problematic drug use - specifically since the Misuse of Drugs Act became law in 1971:

• "Over 3 million people in the UK use illegal drugs every year, with more than half a million using the most serious drugs" (p.5)

• "The use of high harm causing drugs has risen dramatically over the last 30 years" (p.38)

• "The rising use of serious drugs over the past twenty years has had an increasingly adverse impact on users, their families and the rest of society" (p.104)

4. PROHIBITION CREATES ACQUISITIVE CRIME

The report demonstrates how prohibition creates high levels of property crime.
This analysis is focused specifically on problematic users of heroin and cocaine: drugs that are both highly addictive and, because of prohibition, highly expensive. These crime costs are outlined in detail:

• "Heavy use of crack, cocaine and heroin is very expensive to support" (p.12)

• "Heroin and/or crack users cause harm to the health and social functioning of users and society as a whole, but users also commit substantial amounts of crime to fund their drug use (costing £16bn a year)". (p.2)

• "Drug use is responsible for the great majority of some types of crime, such as shoplifting and burglary" (inc 85% of shoplifting, 70-80% of burglaries, 54% of robberies) (p.25)

It further demonstrates how this crime will always be created by the underlying economics of the completely deregulated illegal drug market. When increasing numbers of users have to pay street prices grossly inflated by prohibition, the exploding levels of crime described in the report are inevitable:

• "The high profitability of the drugs business is derived from a premium for taking on risk, as well as from the willingness of drug users to pay high prices" (p.66)

• "Profit margins for traffickers can be even higher than those of luxury goods companies" – (cites Gucci as an example) (p.69)

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

• "There is no evidence to suggest that law enforcement can create such droughts" (p.102) [but even if they could…..]

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

3

Key discussion points raised by this report:

The report is a thorough indictment of a policy that enjoys broad UK parliamentary support but cannot withstand basic scrutiny.

• The report demonstrates that the supply side drug control policies promoted globally by the US and UN drug agencies cannot succeed.

• This is a global issue that requires a global response. Domestic responses (e.g. Drugs Act 2005) cannot mitigate problems caused by international policies. Current policy is attempting to deal with some of the symptoms without addressing the wider cause: global prohibition.

• The report undermines the popular perception that ‘drugs and druggies cause crime’. The report shows that drug prohibition causes most crime, rather than the drugs themselves.

• The sidelining of these findings, via the Phase 2 report, exposes the wishful thinking that underlies the new Drugs Bill 2005. The reality is that prohibition creates drug-related crime; treatment is then co-opted into a crime reduction tool; and the goal of drug policy becomes an attempt to reduce the crimes it has itself caused. The evidence-based conclusion – that prohibition should be reconsidered – is not countenanced for political reasons

.
Transform Policy recommendations:
Transform would like all political parties to respond to this report

Short term:

• Government to order a full and independent Impact Assessment – of the UK’s commitment to global prohibition and related legislation.

• A rapid expansion of heroin prescribing

Medium term:

• Decriminalisation of personal possession of all drugs (as recently happened in Russia, Portugal etc)

• Drug brief moves from Home Office to Department of Health (as recently happened in Spain)

Long term:

• That the Government follow the Home Affairs Select Committee recommendation to initiate "a discussion within the Commission on Narcotic Drugs of alternative ways—including the possibility of legalisation and regulation—to tackle the global drugs dilemma’ (recommendation 24 ‘The Governments Drug Policy: is it working?’ HASC, 2002).

[DaftFader]

Originally posted by ellie

really!!??

in what way...less addictive??

no still adictive .. just less physicaly harmfull .. enfact relativly safe .. alltho like acid fairy sais .. you will still fuck up your life most probably

[fusion01]

Simple really, anything I do to self should be entirely my god-given right. No-one else should have the right to impact on my freedoms based on their (possible) faulty belief systems. When things change is when it impacts severely on others. If you cause emotional damage to others, then you've gone too far and need to sort yourself out (therapy and / or detox). Physical damage to people the same - along with something more punative. Any crime to others (theft and the likes) deserves criminal proceedings. Point is, if SWIM keeps his sh*t together - keeps perspective - and indulges ocassionally in recreational enjoyment, SWIM should be totally free to do so. But we know society is judgemental, hypocrytical... a case of 'I'm right, you're wrong and I'll punish yo ass boy!'... so SWIM has to keep anything low-key amongst friends and others whom SWIM trusts. Peace.