All the media swallowed the bait.
A futile impratical threat to withdraw benefits from addicts dominated the news of the Government’s new ten year drugs plan. No-one asked about the calamity of the last ‘evidence –free’ strategy.
All parties in parliament supported it -with one dissenting back bench voice. It promised cuts in all drugs use and drug crime plus a laughable education initiative named operation C.H.A.R.L.I.E. run by a drugs Czar distinguished only by his expensive haircut. Nothing worked.
Drugs policies serve the gratification of politicians. The canard is that ‘tough’ policies are popular and reap a full harvest of votes. Snatching benefits from addicts is ‘tough’. What is needed is ‘intelligient policies’. They require courage - a commodity in short supply in parliament. No party opposed the insane Drugs Act 2005 change which reclassified magic mushrooms into the same category as heroin. After all, a General Election was a few weeks away.
All United Nation countries are now signed up to another ten year strategy that seeks ‘the total elimination, or substantial reduction,’ of all illegal drug use and cultivation. Not unexpectedly, no progress has been made. The ten years is up this year. Afghan heroin production is up 60% this year to the highest level ever. The price of heroin on British streets is the lowest ever. These changes cost the British taxpayers £250 million.
But there is hope. Powerful united voices are demanding fresh policies. The Rome Consensus has been signed by the Red Cross/Red Crescent movements in more than a hundred countries. The 47 countries of Council of Europe have unanimously backed a new Drugs Convention. Both documents call for practical, evidence-backed policies that build on the health solutions that work and the harsh punitive policies that do not work.
The greatest reduction in drug harm on the planet has been in Portugal. They de-penalised drugs in 2001 and have now halved the total of drug deaths – in addition to saving a fortune in court, prison and police costs. Pragmatic policies of drug-injection rooms have been successful in many European countries and Australia.
Using the criminal justice system of courts and prisons is expensive and counter productive. No prison in the UK is free of illegal drug use. Treatment, needle exchanges and building solidarity with addicts is good value and reduces harm.
The present UK policy is an improvement. For the first time since 1971 it does not put the emphasis on criminal justice remedies It’s like a duck on the water quaking loudly, ‘Tough, Tougher’. Under the surface there is furious paddling in the direction of harm reduction. The UK Government, and all UK political parties, backed the Council of Europe convention in September.
Don’t listen to what they say. Watch what they do.
This posting appears today on the Guardian 'Comment is Free' site with a shoal of interesting comments.
Comments