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Bellend Sebastian

Drugs are bad, mmmmkay?

By Bellend Sebastian, in General Chat

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Bellend Sebastian

Bellend Sebastian

Posted
Posted

...well maybe, but that's no excuse for the massive arse that is UK drug policy.

Even those who have previously worked on behalf of our glorious government are coming out of the woodwork to say, as evidenced by former UK Anti-Drug Co-ordination unit director, Julian Critchley's recent comments that follow, taken from the blog on Transform's website. WARNING! Lots of words follow, which I know some of you don't like, and may prove to be particularly upsetting for Daily Mail readers:

Several years ago, I was Director of the UK Anti-Drug Co-ordination Unit in Cabinet Office (which sounds a lot grander than it was). Our job was to co-ordinate Government policy across the Departments, supporting the then Drugs "Tsar", Keith Hellawell. I joined the Unit more or less agnostic on drugs policy, being personally opposed to drug use, but open-minded about the best way to deal with the problem. I was certainly not inclined to decriminalise.

However, during my time in the Unit, as I saw more and more evidence of ?what works?, to quote New Labour's mantra of the time, it became apparent to me that the available evidence pointed very clearly to the fact that enforcement and supply-side interventions were largely pointless. They have no significant, lasting impact on the availability, affordability or use of drugs. In the Spending Review we undertook, we did successfully manage to re-allocate resources towards treatment programmes, but even then I had misgivings about the effectiveness of those programmes. Many hear the word "treatment" and imagine medical intervention or "cures", yet many of these programmes were often supported largely by anecdotal evidence of success, and the more successful interventions were simply too expensive to use widely, given other pressures on health budgets.

It seems apparent to me that wishing drug use away is folly. The only sensible cause of action is to minimise the damage caused to society by individuals' drugs choices. What harms society is the illegality of drugs and all the costs associated with that. There is no doubt at all that the benefits to society of the fall in crime as a result of legalisation would be dramatic. The argument always put forward against this is that there would be a commensurate increase in drug use as a result of legalisation. This, it seems to me, is a bogus point : tobacco is a legal drug, whose use is declining, and precisely because it is legal, its users are far more amenable to Government control, education programmes and taxation than they would be, were it illegal. Studies suggest that the market is already almost saturated, and anyone who wishes to purchase the drug of their choice, anywhere in the UK, can already do so. The idea that many people are holding back solely because of a law which they know is already unenforceable is simply ridiculous.

Ultimately, people will make choices which harm themselves, whether that involve their diet, smoking, drinking, lack of exercise, sexual activity or pursuit of extreme sports, for that matter. The Government in all these instances rightly takes the line that if these activities are to be pursued, society will ensure that those who pursue them : have access to accurate information about the risks; can access assistance to change their harmful habits should they so wish; are protected by legal standards regime; are taxed accordingly; and ? crucially - do not harm other people. Only in the field of drugs does the Government take a different line, and as a direct result, society suffers truly enormous consequences in terms of crime, both petty and organised, and harm to individuals who are criminalised and unprotected in the pursuit of their drug.

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. I recall a conversation I had with a No 10 policy advisor about a series of Whitehall-wide announcements in which we were to emphasise the shift of resources to treatment and highlighting successes in prevention and education. She asked me whether we couldn?t arrange for 'a drugs bust in Brighton' at the same time, or 'a boat speeding down the Thames to catch smugglers'. For that advisor, what worked mattered considerably less than what would play well in the Daily Mail. The tragedy of our drugs policy is that it is dictated by tabloid irrationality, and not by reference to evidence.

*******

And in response to someone who presumably finds it all a bit radical:

Re : post 75, RandalCousinsI agree with you, as it happens. It's not as simple as some legalisers would have it. It would be a step into the relative unknown, and we should never be glib about that. It might involve having to legally recognise some very nasty people who are currently involved in the trade, but I suspect that the main difference would be that they would be pursued by the taxman rather than the police. There are international obligations, there would be people who would self-harm through drugs and would blame the change of policy. It would take a mature society to accept that some individuals may hurt, or even kill themselves, as a result of a policy change, even if the evidence suggested that fewer people died or were harmed as a result. I'm not sure our media society is ready to deal with that degree of reason. It would take a brave Government to face down the tabloid fury in the face of anecdotes about nice middle class children who bought drugs legally and came to grief, and this is not a brave Government (see the reclassification of cannabis against all evidence and the advice of its own panel of experts).

However, the Government accepts that its job is to confront and challenge ignorance in other fields such as homophobia and racism, and the equality agenda was also once very unpopular with the tabloids (maybe still is in some parts). So I was thoroughly disillusioned to see so many people who had sought power, refusing to exercise the responsibility which went with that power. What is the point in seeking office in order to improve the lot of society, if you refuse to act on something which would dramatically improve the lot of society, especially those with the least ?

I left the Civil Service and retrained as a teacher, in no small part due to my experiences of having to implement policies which I knew, and my political masters knew, were unsupported, or even contradicted, by evidence. 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 Mailesque approach. I find it a shame that no mainstream political party accords the electorate the same respect.

Daggers

Daggers

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I left the Civil Service and retrained as a teacher, in no small part due to my experiences of having to implement policies which I knew, and my political masters knew, were unsupported, or even contradicted, by evidence.

...and there's no contradiction in what teachers are made to do and the evidence to the contrary? :dunno:

(SAT testing raising standards, homework setting and marking, warped unsuccessful emphasis on Maths and English...etc....etc...)

Bellend Sebastian

Bellend Sebastian

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...and there's no contradiction in what teachers are made to do and the evidence to the contrary? :dunno:

(SAT testing raising standards, homework setting and marking, warped unsuccessful emphasis on Maths and English...etc....etc...)

Well, they're all obviously big points of contention, but the basic notion that it's a good idea to provide young people with an education at least hold true, whereas there's growing evidence that the prohibition of drugs in the UK is a bad idea if not a completely stupid one.

Interesting read. I don't think anyone's in a position to implement change like this though, or ever will be.

The sticking point, sadly, is middle England, as per bloody usual, and in particular the increasingly outdated idea that the illegality of something is a serious deterrent not to do it. I don't consume hard drugs (or indeed any anymore for that matter) and it's got nothing to do with its legal status. I think it's frankly mad to suggest (as some do) that if drugs were legalised then usage would increase dramatically over the longer term. For example, if you take two legal substances - alcohol and tobacco - the consumption of one is going up and the other is going down - further evidence that the link between usage and legal status is weak.

The impression I get is that the list of people in the corridors of power, including senior policemen as well as politicians, is ever growing. I appreciate that large sections of the public will still find the whole concept unpalatable, but at the same time that's hardly surprising when they're not given the facts about the situation

James.

James.

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On a serious note Bellend (or as serious as you can be when talking to the end of a nob) what do you think of this proposal from a cultural perspective? The younger generation in this country (and in fact older generations too come to think of it) seem to have an urge to get completely wasted. There's very little middle ground. If you go out for a drink then you drink until you can't walk or you're sick. If you go out to take drugs you take drugs until you don't know who you are anymore. It's very different here to say Spain or France where generally people take a much more relaxed approach to intoxication.

Although the argument that legalising would make a bad problem worse is flawed, HOW flawed is it when you consider that many people will inevitably abuse the situation. I don't think educating people will make them stop in the short term. Many people already know the negatives associated with drug use but choose to ignore them or just accept them as par for the course.

Like 24 hour drinking laws I think it'd be a very long time before the culture in this country would change and people would take a less full on approach to drug abuse. The possible short term ramifications may be enough to deter a law change even though in the longer term it would almost certainly be beneficial.

Like Flynny said it's almost too radical which is painful really as for me it's the only way in the long term to make any difference.

Bellend Sebastian

Bellend Sebastian

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I find myself talking to cock-ends all the time, but maybe I'm just very intolerant.

Well I'm guilty of not being specific about what we're talking about here, because although the debate covers all manner of illegal drugs, the focus of it is really on class A drugs (particularly heroin) as they are the most problematic, although of course there are issues surrounding most if not all illegal substances.

I can understand that people would be concerned about increased usage, but we're not talking about selling heroin from corner shops, but taking the supply of illegal drugs out of the hands of criminals and putting it into the hands of the authorities. If people REALLY want something - and if you're a heroin addict, you REALLY do - it makes sense for them to obtain it safely in a controlled environment from someone who is trying to help them with their addiction rather than from someone that wants it to continue.

There ARE a lot of people that want to get off their heads, but I'd find it hard to believe that there are many that are teetering on the brink of becoming massive heroin addicts, and are only waiting for the push of legalisation to take the step. It depends on whose figures you read and what slant you put on them, but the down grading of cannabis doesn't seem to have had a massive impact on the prevalence of cannabis usage, even if more people are getting caught with it, as the latter is supposedly because people are less worried about getting caught as they perceive that the implications of being caught aren't as serious as before - there aren't suddenly loads more potheads wandering about.

It's an admittedly complicated issue and I don't think anyone is saying that a lot of hard thinking doesn't need to be done before changes are made to policy. But it would be hard to argue that current policy is anything other than a complete disaster

Master Fox

Master Fox

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Brown stuff and brown sugar.

That can do you no harm.

I’ve just found out I’m allergic to every brown substance known to man. What can I do?

I guess I’ll have to settle for some crack instead, hang on……

Bellend Sebastian

Bellend Sebastian

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Thanks for the advice. Just need to get some brown stuff now. Anyone?

I've run out, soz.

A mate of mine aspired to trying it for years, and he eventually got round to smoking some and he said it wasn't that exciting. Then again, he does loads of other stuff so maybe it wasn't that big a difference

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