The UK’s Failing Drug Laws
In 1972, the Netherlands decriminalised the possession of small amounts of marijuana as the country liberalized its approach to drugs and prostitutes. At first, they regretted the decision as it turned the small country in Northern Europe into a global playground for partying and experimenting. The Dutch didn’t like being the only country with a relaxed method to drugs, but over time Switzerland, Germany and Portugal also became more liberal. Momentum is now building for alternatives to the UK’s failing drug laws.
Nick Clegg, Liberal Democrat leader is expected to give a major speech in the build up to the elections as his party commits to radical reform of the UK’s drug laws. His parties proposed reforms would centre around 50 years of criminalisation of illicit drugs, now the third most valuable industry in the world, after food and oil. The reforms will supposedly match cries across the UK for a rethink of drug laws.
In the Liberal Democrats manifesto will include a pledge to hand drugs policy from the Home Office to the Department of Health. The party also said it plans to investigate cannabis legalization experiments in the United Kingdom, like similar experiments in certain states of the United States. Nick Clegg has also previously said the United Kingdom seemed “oblivious” to recent shifts in the stance towards drugs, despite Downing Street insisting that the current drugs strategy is working.
The deputy prime minister was suppose to be a major speaker at a drugs conference in Cambridge almost two months ago, instead Liberal Democrat Home Office minister, Lynne Featherstone, attended. The conference organisers hope to provide an opportunity to influence the British government’s approach to the UN special assembly next year as well as developing ideas for domestic policy.
The conference comes months after a Home Office international study last year by Lib Dem minister Norman Baker. The report showed there was no direct correlation between the severity of a country’s drug laws and the levels of illicit drug use. Conservative home secretary, Theresa May, reportedly held back the findings for three months, Baker criticised the minster for the delay, triggering his resignation over the dispute.
Writing in the Guardian earlier this year, Nick Clegg and Richard Branson described the war on drugs as an “abject failure”. The pair said it is time for fresh thinking and ask politicians to embrace the call for reform. We asked Danny Kushlick, Head of External Affairs at Transform Drug Policy Foundation, if the UK drug laws are failing, and whether it is time for new measures of decriminalisation of certain or all drugs?
“Criminalisation was a catastrophic global error. In the sixties the UK, and almost all the other UN member states signed up to treaties that treat these drugs as an existential threat to humanity and criminalised people who produce, supply and use certain drugs. There are now an estimated 240 million users of prohibited drugs worldwide. A global drug war that costs $100 billion a year has created the biggest money making commodity for organized crime, to the tune of $320 billion a year. This has created a group of non-state actors with enormous wealth and firepower who are a genuine threat to numerous states around the world. More than 100,000 Mexicans have died in turf wars in the last five years alone. Many states in Africa are now corrupted to their core by narcos.
Essentially drugs are a not an existential threat to the human race, purely a challenge to be managed as trade, social and health issues. This means that we have to make drugs legally accessible to those who want to use them, under the control of governments through doctors, pharmacists and licensed retailers,” he explains.
We follow up by asking, if it was time the UK helped treat those of us who are addicted to drugs, instead of offering stricter punishments? He replies,
“Broadly there are two groups of people who use drugs. Those who use drugs to feel good, make up the vast majority, and those who use to stop feeling bad, who are a small minority. The former group needs good information, quality control, and harm reduction to use drugs as healthily and happily as they can. The latter group needs good information, quality control, harm reduction, and treatment to reduce or stop their drug use if they want to.
As a society we need to deal with the social and cultural distress that breeds so much problematic use in the first instance. Neither group needs or benefits from being criminalised. In fact criminalising them serves only to compound problems they have already and creates an array of new ones.”
Artfeact also spoke to Niamh Eastwood, Executive Director of Release, whom said that the UK isn’t achieving their drug law goals. She explains that more people are going to court for drug possession than ever before. An estimated 70–80,000 people are criminalised every year, over 50% for marijuana. Niamh says that the international prohibition fuels criminal networks, as the financial incentives are enormous. This undermines security, fuels violence and leads to geographical displacement of trade. Consider Colombia, Mexico and now Belize and Western Africa as examples of what the illegal trade of drugs can do to countries stability.
Niamh was a recent speaker for Release at a drugs reform conference in Swansea in March. Addressing the conference, she offered an alternative approach to managing drugs in the UK. The Release director called for the ending of criminal sanctions for drug possession offences, the decriminalisation of drug possession. Portugal adopted this method in 2001 after decades of drug problems, especially with heroin. The introduction of decriminalization of all drugs was also met with investment in public health. This led to a decrease in use amongst vulnerable groups including problematic users and young people, 40% estimated fall of injecting drugs users in Portugal over the period, significant reduction in transmission of HIV and tuberculosis, reduction of drug-related deaths and improved relationship between the community and police.
Speaking to Artefact, she said “that even with the threat of penalties to drug users, it doesn’t seem to have a deterrent. We can see that in other countries like the US is more aggressive than we are, there’s a significant risk of imprisonment, especially life imprisonment if you have three consecutive offences. But even then, that doesn’t seem to have a deterrent affect as they have even higher numbers of drug users than we have. Tough penalties has no knock-on affect on people using drugs.”
The criminalization of drugs has created an explosion of the criminal underworld that was no different to the prohibition of alcohol from 1920 to 1933 in the United States. Like the alcohol prohibition, the criminalization of drugs has led to increase in organized crime and drug users and abusers. In 2005, ambitious MP named David Cameron called for “fresh thinking and a new approach” to options for supporting and treating rather than punishing people with addictions. He said, “Politicians attempt to appeal the lowest common denominator by posturing with tough policies and calling for crackdown after crackdown.”
A decade ago David Cameron was a believer that you could reduce harm, not exacerbate it by adopting alternatives to dealing with drugs. After becoming Tory leader, he came back on his words and said he wanted to send a message that taking drugs is not okay. This led to Professor David Nutt saying, “David Cameron has betrayed promise of fresh thinking.”
Prof David Nutt was sacked in 2009 because Conservative and Labour leaders were not prepared for any compromise on their tough stance on drugs. Nutt offered a regulated access and decriminalised for users approach to drugs. He said that any drug less harmful than alcohol and tobacco should be decriminalised. The former government drugs adviser said that drugs including ecstasy and cannabis should be decriminalised.
Nick Clegg and Richard Branson have both suggested that the UK should set up pilot tests to develop a drugs model similar to Portugal. The pair said, “The evidence suggests it will be cheaper, more effective at reducing harm, and would allow the police to focus their attention where it should be, on the criminal gangs that supply the drugs.”
We asked Danny of Transform, if the UK will ever follow the footsteps of Portugal or Holland, or perhaps take smaller measures like the US, especially like the State of Colorado? He said,
“Thankfully evidence is replacing drug war populism and governments the world over are decriminalising drugs, as in the Netherlands and Portugal, or legally regulating them, as is happening with cannabis in numerous states in America. Unfortunately the UK has historically followed US federal policy, which is still very prohibition focused.
The UK is therefore unlikely to be an early adopter of reform, but will eventually follow the global norm, which is for governments to regulate adult risk taking behaviour. We would expect this to happen in the next five to ten years, primarily because governments run markets more peacefully than transnational organised crime groups.”
Although the attitude is changing within the public and parliament, the UK still remains reluctant to pilot alternative methods to dealing with drugs until the UN and EU reform their own policies. So while the approach to dealing with drugs begins to change from country to country, the assertiveness policing of drugs in the UK’s means the laws are failing along with the war on drugs.
