This blog probably shouldn’t really start with a misquote of something that Emma Goldman never said. Instead it would have been better to start with Milan Kundera from the Unbearable Lightness of Being: “The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.”Since the advent of the Coalition Government the media and numerous groups and individuals seem to be engaged in an orgy of forgetting, especially when it comes to the analysis of the putative “Big Society.”
Roll back twenty years when to the advent of John Major’s Conservative Government. We saw the development of an astonishing array of small, grass-roots initiatives set up. There was creative use of abandoned buildings. Land that had been abandoned by industry was used for cultivation, to produce locally grown vegetables for communities. Initiatives to protect local assets such as woodland gained profile. Self managed, self-funded and self-policed recreational activities became more widespread across the UK.
But these initiatives were not heralded as an example of an embryonic “Big Society.” It became known as DIY-culture and unfortunately it did not fit with other aspects of Conservative Ideology.The use of derelict land or empty buildings ran counter to Conservative views of land and property ownership and so they passed laws to make it easier to clear the occupiers off that land and from those buildings. Autonomous cafes, galleries and community spaces were established and briefly thrived, then closed by Police and Bailiffs.
The importance of industry and cars was rated higher at a national level was considered far more important than the views of local residents and communities, so bypasses were authorised by the Government despite local opinion and protests. The Government purchased an independent, unaccountable security force using commercial agencies such as Reliance to deliver this agenda.
The proliferation of the “Free-party” movement, its association with controlled drug use and the non-approved use of land for such parties again ran counter to Conservative values and culminated in the end in the much-loathed Police and Criminal Justice Act being passed in 1994. It was the death knell of this period of DIY-culture in the UK.
So does Cameron’s much-discussed “Big Society” share common cause with DIY culture? The answer to this has to be a resounding “no!” The Big Society is a straight Thatcherite agenda presaged in Thatcher’s much misquoted line saying “there is no such thing as society.” Her wider comment at the time shows the continuity from her views to those of Cameron: “There is no such thing as society. There is living tapestry of men and women and people and the beauty of that tapestry and the quality of our lives will depend upon how much each of us is prepared to take responsibility for ourselves and each of us prepared to turn round and help by our own efforts those who are unfortunate.” http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/106689
And herein lies the problem; the Big Society as proposed is inherently Conservative. It is attempting to create and engender a conservative model of society, seed-funded and driven from the top and delivered from the bottom.
Provided that the hopes, dreams and aspirations of a community fit in to this Conservative ideological world-view, then the Big Society will serve you well. But for those who fall outside it, then there’s no place for you in this Society.Look at some of the examples that have been cited as examples of the “Big Society.” The reduction in sex work in Birmingham’s Balsall Heath is held up as one such example.
What the example as cited neglects to mention is that alongside the passive recording of kerb-crawlers, local activists also allegedly threatened and harassed women involved in sex work – a house was fire-bombed, windows had bricks thrown through them, and women believed to be prostitutes were sent poison pen letters by local activists. So it’s a Big Society that fetes you if you want to set up a self-policing vigilante movement that removes kerb-crawlers and sex work from a community. But take this specific issue a little further. What if a local community, in a fit of pragmatic liberalism, decided that the best way forward was rather than simply trying to wish the problem away. If this grassroots, locally agreed, locally relevant initiative approach were mooted, what would Cameron say then? Would it be embraced within the Big Society as an example of local empowerment. Or would it be stamped out as not really the sort of Big Society we want. There is evidence, such as models of tolerance that were trialled in Edinburgh, that show tolerance models can result in a marked reduction in attacks on sex workers.
David Cameron signalled a desire to review the laws around prostitution in the UK, following the murder of three women in Bradford. But if he decided against full legalisation or tolerance zones, what then for a local community wanted to pursue such a route?
And what of drugs (for this is, if nothing else, a drug-focussed blogging site)? What would the Government do if a local authority, in conjunction with the local police and local community, decided that a supervised drug consumption room was the most sensible response to the issue of public drug use? Would this be something that would be resourced and funded by the Big Society Bank? Would it receive the endorsement of the Government as an example of local solutions for local problems. Or will it be given a firm “red light” from Number 10, as has previously been the case. This is an especially loaded issue as, when he was part of the 2002 Home Affairs Select Committee, Cameron came out in favour of drug consumption rooms. The report unequivocally demanded that “…an evaluated pilot programme of safe injecting houses for [illicit] heroin users is established without delay…”
It would be an interesting test of integrity to see what would happen if a local area trialled such an approach now. Would David Cameron support such a move in practice, as he did in theory in 2002. And would such a thing be tolerated within the Big Society.If it does then the Big Society could genuinely be something inclusive. It could represent a tolerant, informed, flexible and liberal model of community empowerment. But if this isn’t the case, and such approaches are blocked by Central Government then this isn’t such a big society after all. It’s the same conservative view of Society that crushed the DIY Culture almost twenty years ago. It’s learned a new language and it’s changed its clothes, but it still won’t be a revolution that everyone can dance to.
Showing posts with label cannabis drugs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cannabis drugs. Show all posts
27 February 2008
New Drug Strategy - Oh come on, what did you expect?
We saw the launch today (27.2.08) of the new Ten Year Strategy. Predictably, there has been a sharp swing towards enforcement strategies including much touted proposals to increase confiscation powers, and coerce engagement with treatment via the benefit system.
Equally predictably, the Strategy has received a range of responses, from outright condemnation to mixed welcomes. The response so far has been muted. The responses over the next few weeks will be far more interesting.
But let's take a wider view. None of this should come as a surprise. Did anyone truly expect an embracing of true harm reduction, and admission of failures of past strategy, a consideration of wholescale review? Oh come on! Only the truly deluded could have envisaged anything other than more of the same, with bigger sticks and more mealy carrots.
Those who have predicted reform, or review of the drugs laws, or new developments have singularly failed to recognise that the "war on drugs" far from being over, is just gearing up for its next phase. Bigger powers, less rights, more enforcement, new weapons. This will only be the start. There will be more punitive measures to come.
I don't expect bravery and great things from the Home Office or the machine of Government. They are well past the stage of rational and balanced debate on drug strategy. But what amazes and depresses is the huge range of players who facillitate and legitimise the war on drugs while at the same time decrying its choice of weapons.
Take for example the much-derided "consultation" that led up to the new drugs strategy. Look at the energy that went in to it - Drugscope's series of regional events, the contributions from Transform, Release and others. Some of these organisations must have believed that their contributions would be read, evaluated, pored over. Others knew it was a sham. But still they participated.
In doing so they legitimised both the consultation and the resultant strategy. Rather than, en masse, boycotting the consultation as the farrago that they surely knew it was, they made their contribution. They had their say. Surely more powerful, more striking for a big group to withdraw from the process? But no. And so the new strategy, flaws and all, gains legitimacy from the consultation.
What if? What if as a group Addaction, Turning Point, CRI, Compass, RAPt, Drugscope, EATA, FDAP, Release and Transform had said NO! Said "we won't participate unless we are convinced that the resultant strategy will take real account of our views." They could have done. Once.
Now of course it becomes too dangerous for many of these bodies to bite the hand that feeds. Dependent on contracting culture, the good will of the Home Office, they can't and won't speak out significantly. A finacially weak Drugscope, other contract-dependent providers, political access achieved by compliance and silence.
Any new measure, punitive or otherwise, demands organisations to implement it. Look at the example of the threat to suspend benefit payments to clients who fail to attend an Assessment. This alone could be scuppered overnight if the big drugs agencies said, as a block, that they would not undertake assessments that were achieved at the threat of benefit suspension. So while we watch to see which agencies make the most show of condemning the measures in print, watch with equal care the number of agencies who refuse to take the contracts. No-one will refuse this dirty work because it pays, and refusal will result in decomissioning.
Historically the drug field was diverse, fractured and independent. This did result in a wide variance of provision. But it protected the field from the sort of Stalinist planning and control that we now see.
Having stripped away this independence, consolidated and centralised provision, agencies now have little choice but to comply with directives.
For drug policy to change the drugs field needs to change, and rediscover its voice and independence. This can only happen from the grass roots. We have ceased to be able to reply on the independence of the ACMD, or the representation of the field, to stem the political excesses of Government strategy. In the war on drugs, we have never, so badly, needed some effective resistance.
Equally predictably, the Strategy has received a range of responses, from outright condemnation to mixed welcomes. The response so far has been muted. The responses over the next few weeks will be far more interesting.
But let's take a wider view. None of this should come as a surprise. Did anyone truly expect an embracing of true harm reduction, and admission of failures of past strategy, a consideration of wholescale review? Oh come on! Only the truly deluded could have envisaged anything other than more of the same, with bigger sticks and more mealy carrots.
Those who have predicted reform, or review of the drugs laws, or new developments have singularly failed to recognise that the "war on drugs" far from being over, is just gearing up for its next phase. Bigger powers, less rights, more enforcement, new weapons. This will only be the start. There will be more punitive measures to come.
I don't expect bravery and great things from the Home Office or the machine of Government. They are well past the stage of rational and balanced debate on drug strategy. But what amazes and depresses is the huge range of players who facillitate and legitimise the war on drugs while at the same time decrying its choice of weapons.
Take for example the much-derided "consultation" that led up to the new drugs strategy. Look at the energy that went in to it - Drugscope's series of regional events, the contributions from Transform, Release and others. Some of these organisations must have believed that their contributions would be read, evaluated, pored over. Others knew it was a sham. But still they participated.
In doing so they legitimised both the consultation and the resultant strategy. Rather than, en masse, boycotting the consultation as the farrago that they surely knew it was, they made their contribution. They had their say. Surely more powerful, more striking for a big group to withdraw from the process? But no. And so the new strategy, flaws and all, gains legitimacy from the consultation.
What if? What if as a group Addaction, Turning Point, CRI, Compass, RAPt, Drugscope, EATA, FDAP, Release and Transform had said NO! Said "we won't participate unless we are convinced that the resultant strategy will take real account of our views." They could have done. Once.
Now of course it becomes too dangerous for many of these bodies to bite the hand that feeds. Dependent on contracting culture, the good will of the Home Office, they can't and won't speak out significantly. A finacially weak Drugscope, other contract-dependent providers, political access achieved by compliance and silence.
Any new measure, punitive or otherwise, demands organisations to implement it. Look at the example of the threat to suspend benefit payments to clients who fail to attend an Assessment. This alone could be scuppered overnight if the big drugs agencies said, as a block, that they would not undertake assessments that were achieved at the threat of benefit suspension. So while we watch to see which agencies make the most show of condemning the measures in print, watch with equal care the number of agencies who refuse to take the contracts. No-one will refuse this dirty work because it pays, and refusal will result in decomissioning.
Historically the drug field was diverse, fractured and independent. This did result in a wide variance of provision. But it protected the field from the sort of Stalinist planning and control that we now see.
Having stripped away this independence, consolidated and centralised provision, agencies now have little choice but to comply with directives.
For drug policy to change the drugs field needs to change, and rediscover its voice and independence. This can only happen from the grass roots. We have ceased to be able to reply on the independence of the ACMD, or the representation of the field, to stem the political excesses of Government strategy. In the war on drugs, we have never, so badly, needed some effective resistance.
12 July 2007
Speaking Frankly! - frank confused on cannabis
At the end of May 2007 FRANK published their Action Update, "Cannabis Explained." It was made available as a hard copy, distributed to DATs and drugs services, and available as a download from the Home Office website.
At the end of June, a month later, the document was withdrawn from print and off the Government websites. This withdrawal was not accompanied by any notification or official explanation. Indeed, if you didn't know that the document existed, one might not have known that it had ever been there. But the short life of the "Action Update" and the tale of how it came to be removed from circulation raises some important questions about Quality Standards and accountability at Frank.
When the Action Update came out, KFx, alongside other organisations such as the UKCIA noticed some rather glaring errors. These are discussed here. Now while we would accept the interpretation put on Frank to be partisan and loaded, we don't expect it to be factually wrong. But on this occasion there were a number of errors and ommissions which were both obvious and serious. So for example, the document misrepresented the law on cannabis as applicable to under 18s; it said that smoking cannabis in a joint was the least hazardrous, and it didn't mention cannabis contamination at all.
We, alongside the UKCIA and others made representations to the Home Office about these errors and ommissions. And a long and fairly convoluted process began.
For the first couple of weeks, the document remained available on the Home Office website; although serious concerns about its accuracy had been raised, there was not attempt at this stage to suspend distribution while it was reviewed. Given that at least two of the errors were so obvious and so easy to check, this seemed inexcusable. All we got was reassurance that it was being looked at.
A phone call to Frank at this time was illuminating: The initial call handler referred the case swiftly to her senior call handler. The senior handler didn't know about the Frank Action Update, and was unaware of its content. He was suprised at what the action update said about spliff smoking and said that was different to the information on his screen. He said I should contact the Home Office to discuss this.
Frustrated by lack of action - and that the Home Office still hadn't retracted the document, we followed up the initial emails to the Home Office with a phone call. As a nice factual example of a serious inaccuracy, we used the coverage of under 18s and the legal process in relation to cannabis. This was a fairly charged discussion, with the contact at the Home Office not understanding the legislation and explaining that the relevant section had been "signed off" by a Senior Police officer and so had to be right.
Undaunted, emailed to the PA of the senior police officer in question; this email was forwarded to several officers in the relevant force until a helpful Officer emailed me back. after a couple of to-and-fro emails he emailed me back, confirming that he thought the position in the Frank document was wrong.
Back to the Home Office with this information, and after a short delay, they came back describing this information "of concern" and suspending distribution from the website. But in practice the update could still be found after a quick Google search.
A week later, the person in the Home Office wrote back again; this time, followig feedback from the Department of Health, they said
"In the interest of ensuring FRANK provides up-to-date and credible information, DH have recommended that some of the contents of the pack be amended or the issue explored further...As you are aware we have suspended distribution of the pack and removed it from the drugs.gov.uk website. We intend to re-issue the pack later in the year."
This was the right decision by Frank, and should be applauded. But it was a slow decision and an unpublicised one. While the LCA issued a press release about the withdrawal FRANK didn't. Unfortunately few agencies picked up on the LCA announcement. Unfortunately the Daily Dose, who now receive sponsorship from Frank, either didn't get it or didn't consider it sufficiently newsworthy.
There are a number of things about this story that cause concern. How did this flawed document slip through various proofing stages, why were the Home Office so slow to suspend distribution, and why was the suspension so low key when they did decide the document was flawed?
Authorship of the document is not clear; some of it appears to be cut and pasted from other sources. It has the same spellings (and even the same typo at one point) as other FRANK written documents so it suggests that some of the information has merely been recycled from other sources and not been reviewed.
One would hope that a final draft of the document would then be passed to others for scrutiny but clearly this didn't happen or if it did, the scrutiny was severely flawed. The information that we have gleaned suggests that the senior police officer would have understood and checked about the new ACPO guidance on cannabis - which was accurate, but wouldn't have checked the sections on Under 18s and processes under the Crime and Disorder Act, which were wrong.
But most worrying, we would hope that Frank would have a rapid and effective method of first suspending distribution and then informing readers of their errors. They were slow to do the first; they simply didn't bother to do the second.
Despite the branding and publicity material, FRANK is merely a vehicle to distribute drugs information. This epidode has demonstrated that the arbiters of this content are the Home Office. And on this occasion the Home Office have demonstrated their difficulty in commissioning and distributing accurate copy on an important subject.
And let's be clear, this is not the first time that FRANK's content has been found to be wanting. The initial content of the FRANK website was riddled with factual inaccuracies. The revised information still has many items which are of dubious accuracy. So, as one correspondent to KFx noted, if you go to DF118s you get taken to information on Methadone. Different compounds, different information?
FRANK urgently needs to review how it manages content. Remember that the FRANK image includes marketing and branding "experts" who know nothing about drugs. There's the call handling service, which knows something about drugs but has a tendency to regurgitate what is on the screen. And there's the Home Office and DoH which so far haven't managed to produce the level of accuracy that users and workers need.
Perhaps Frank would be best served bringing together an independent panel which could proof, review and advise on their output. That, and an improved system for responding to serious errors, would go some way to ensuring that they do not spend their million-pound budget distributing factually wrong information.
KFx: 12.7.06
At the end of June, a month later, the document was withdrawn from print and off the Government websites. This withdrawal was not accompanied by any notification or official explanation. Indeed, if you didn't know that the document existed, one might not have known that it had ever been there. But the short life of the "Action Update" and the tale of how it came to be removed from circulation raises some important questions about Quality Standards and accountability at Frank.
When the Action Update came out, KFx, alongside other organisations such as the UKCIA noticed some rather glaring errors. These are discussed here. Now while we would accept the interpretation put on Frank to be partisan and loaded, we don't expect it to be factually wrong. But on this occasion there were a number of errors and ommissions which were both obvious and serious. So for example, the document misrepresented the law on cannabis as applicable to under 18s; it said that smoking cannabis in a joint was the least hazardrous, and it didn't mention cannabis contamination at all.
We, alongside the UKCIA and others made representations to the Home Office about these errors and ommissions. And a long and fairly convoluted process began.
For the first couple of weeks, the document remained available on the Home Office website; although serious concerns about its accuracy had been raised, there was not attempt at this stage to suspend distribution while it was reviewed. Given that at least two of the errors were so obvious and so easy to check, this seemed inexcusable. All we got was reassurance that it was being looked at.
A phone call to Frank at this time was illuminating: The initial call handler referred the case swiftly to her senior call handler. The senior handler didn't know about the Frank Action Update, and was unaware of its content. He was suprised at what the action update said about spliff smoking and said that was different to the information on his screen. He said I should contact the Home Office to discuss this.
Frustrated by lack of action - and that the Home Office still hadn't retracted the document, we followed up the initial emails to the Home Office with a phone call. As a nice factual example of a serious inaccuracy, we used the coverage of under 18s and the legal process in relation to cannabis. This was a fairly charged discussion, with the contact at the Home Office not understanding the legislation and explaining that the relevant section had been "signed off" by a Senior Police officer and so had to be right.
Undaunted, emailed to the PA of the senior police officer in question; this email was forwarded to several officers in the relevant force until a helpful Officer emailed me back. after a couple of to-and-fro emails he emailed me back, confirming that he thought the position in the Frank document was wrong.
Back to the Home Office with this information, and after a short delay, they came back describing this information "of concern" and suspending distribution from the website. But in practice the update could still be found after a quick Google search.
A week later, the person in the Home Office wrote back again; this time, followig feedback from the Department of Health, they said
"In the interest of ensuring FRANK provides up-to-date and credible information, DH have recommended that some of the contents of the pack be amended or the issue explored further...As you are aware we have suspended distribution of the pack and removed it from the drugs.gov.uk website. We intend to re-issue the pack later in the year."
This was the right decision by Frank, and should be applauded. But it was a slow decision and an unpublicised one. While the LCA issued a press release about the withdrawal FRANK didn't. Unfortunately few agencies picked up on the LCA announcement. Unfortunately the Daily Dose, who now receive sponsorship from Frank, either didn't get it or didn't consider it sufficiently newsworthy.
There are a number of things about this story that cause concern. How did this flawed document slip through various proofing stages, why were the Home Office so slow to suspend distribution, and why was the suspension so low key when they did decide the document was flawed?
Authorship of the document is not clear; some of it appears to be cut and pasted from other sources. It has the same spellings (and even the same typo at one point) as other FRANK written documents so it suggests that some of the information has merely been recycled from other sources and not been reviewed.
One would hope that a final draft of the document would then be passed to others for scrutiny but clearly this didn't happen or if it did, the scrutiny was severely flawed. The information that we have gleaned suggests that the senior police officer would have understood and checked about the new ACPO guidance on cannabis - which was accurate, but wouldn't have checked the sections on Under 18s and processes under the Crime and Disorder Act, which were wrong.
But most worrying, we would hope that Frank would have a rapid and effective method of first suspending distribution and then informing readers of their errors. They were slow to do the first; they simply didn't bother to do the second.
Despite the branding and publicity material, FRANK is merely a vehicle to distribute drugs information. This epidode has demonstrated that the arbiters of this content are the Home Office. And on this occasion the Home Office have demonstrated their difficulty in commissioning and distributing accurate copy on an important subject.
And let's be clear, this is not the first time that FRANK's content has been found to be wanting. The initial content of the FRANK website was riddled with factual inaccuracies. The revised information still has many items which are of dubious accuracy. So, as one correspondent to KFx noted, if you go to DF118s you get taken to information on Methadone. Different compounds, different information?
FRANK urgently needs to review how it manages content. Remember that the FRANK image includes marketing and branding "experts" who know nothing about drugs. There's the call handling service, which knows something about drugs but has a tendency to regurgitate what is on the screen. And there's the Home Office and DoH which so far haven't managed to produce the level of accuracy that users and workers need.
Perhaps Frank would be best served bringing together an independent panel which could proof, review and advise on their output. That, and an improved system for responding to serious errors, would go some way to ensuring that they do not spend their million-pound budget distributing factually wrong information.
KFx: 12.7.06
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