So This is What a Sucessful Policy on Cannabis Looks Like!

The ACPO report on Cannabis Policing "Three Years On" makes depressing reading. It looks at the way that the UK cultivation of cannabis has changed over the past three years and should represent compulsory reading for anyone who believes that the prohibition of cannabis has been a success. These developments over the past three years, considered alongside the developments over the past thirty plus years, highlight just what a disaster the prohibition of cannabis within the Misuse of Drugs Act (and before that the Dangerous Drugs Act) has been. The policy has seen:

• between 1974 and 2002 there was a ten-fold increase in people found guilty or cautioned for cannabis offences (1)
• increase in levels of cannabis use in the UK which have only recently dropped off slightly since their reported peak in the mid 90s;(2)
• a drop in the age of onset of cannabis use; (3)
• increased potency in terms of THC levels (4)
• the emergence of imbalanced forms of cannabis containing high levels of THC and minimal levels of CBD (5)
• concentration of cannabis production in the hands of criminal gangs who are also involved in other drugs, people traficking, weapons, counterfeiting and other offences;
• yearly increases in number and quantity of cannabis seizures but without a significant impact on the availability of cannabis in the UK (6)

By any measure, it is hard to view as a success a strategy of prohibition that has seen the substance being controlled become more potent and less safe, be used more widely, by younger people, despite a non-stop policy of crop and drug seizure, arrest and criminalisation of users and producers.

The evidence from the ACPO report on cannabis production is the latest evidence that in addition to prohibition acting as a driver for less safe, unregulated cannabis markets, prohibition and the profits associated with it have concentrated the production and distribution of cannabis in the hands of a smaller number of large producers, controlling the market with increased force, and with crossover to other offending.

Historically, before gaining power, both David Cameron and the Liberal Democrats wanted to reform the law on cannabis. David Cameron, who it is widely accepted had dalliances with at least one controlled drug when younger, endorsed the moving of cannabis from Class B to Class C. Once elected leader of the conservative party is belief in evidence based policy seemed to evaporate and argued instead for Cannabis to return to Class B.

The Liberal Democrat policy historically was for radical reform of drugs legislation, and in terms of cannabis proposed "adopting a policy of not prosecuting possession for own use, social supply to adults or cultivation of cannabis plants for own use." (7)

However, since entering the ConDem coallition, the Liberal Democrats have been silent on this subject, and it will not be a suprise if, when the Government drug strategy is published in October, all mention of cannabis reform is lost.

But even the Liberal Democrat's old, relatively progressive stance is inadequate and by leaving production and supply in an unregulated market, perpetuates the problems in terms of criminal production, unregulated strength and unmanaged supply.

Given the ongoing disaster of cannabis prohibition the need for Government to fully revise the laws on cannabis are long overdue. Cannabis needs to be licensed and regulated to make it safer. Features of a regulated cannabis market would include:

• licensed, registered outlets with staff who receive training on cannabis use and risks
• age-restricted sales to people aged over 18 only
• sliding bracket of taxation on retailed cannabis with higher strength products being taxed at a higher level;
• products labelled to indicate THC and CBD content, with appropriate health messages
• taxation from cannabis sales ring-fenced to fund awareness and treatment interventions
• personal possession of up to three cannabis plants, by persons over 18 no longer a criminal offence
• licence production in UK and overseas, to encourage (for example) Afghani opium producers to produce hashish not heroin.

Given the current resurgent abstentionist climate, the puritanical approach of the Conservatives to drugs, and the apparent willingness of the Liberal Democrats to trade belief for power, it is vanishingly unlikely that any changes will be forthcoming. So in the meantime, it is back to the prohibition hole and time to keep digging. Sanity, anyone?

The Straw Man of Recovery

The Times today reports that The Home Office will be pushing ahead with a drug strategy focussed on achieving abstinence from both illicit controlled drugs and prescribed substitutes. The article also reinforces the impression that the strategy will include payment by results and that it may include coercive measures like removal of benefits.

The Times' article doesn't offer any substantive new evidence for this. There has already been a significant amount of information (e.g. the NTA business plan, comments from Cameron et al, and the consultation on the Drug Strategy) which strongly indicate the direction of travel.

The Conservative predilection for abstinence-based interventions should come as no suprise. Nor should the threat of coercive measures.

The real icing on the cake though, has been the idea that abstinence is readily achievable. This is where the newly vocal and high profile neo-abstentionists in the Recovery movement have been so successful. A core message that has been promulgated in a number of forums is the idea that the treatment of people with drug dependency is a conspiracy primarily cooked up by pharmaceutical companies and drugs workers out of some sort of self interest. This straw man, as repeatedly offered on recovery forums suggests:

- that a key driver for the ongoing prescribing of methadone is the financial interests of the manufacturers of methadone;

- that drugs workers don't really want to assist people to end their drug use because either (a) they don't believe people can stop or (b) they don't want people to stop because they will lose their jobs

- that the combination of medical dogma, professional self interest and big-pharma is active in keeping people in addiction.

Having created this simplistic model, the argument seems to then extend - these services and structures are a barrier to recovery and by sweeping these away and replacing them with user-led, recovery focussed projects drug users will see the recovery of others, be "infected" by the contagion of recovery and then learn from others how to live productive drug free lives.

It's a very simple and very seductive message. And it has found a ready ear with the Conservatives who are using the recovery mood music to say that the previous Government merely offered substitution not freedom and for the first time this Government will offer true Recovery.

Ignore the history - that the earliest drug treatment services in the UK were mostly established by ex-users in recovery themselves - and while they successfully helped some people they were not a panacea for all. Ignore the fact that the UK drug field has a significant number of people with histories of dependency who can and do believe and know that people can achieve lasting recovery, sometimes with medication, sometimes without. The idea that drugs workers want to keep people addicted for their salary is a vicious lie.

Ignore the practicalities - that payment by results will disadvantage small and independent charities and start ups who can't afford the overheads.

Ignore the safety considerations - that supervisory frameworks from, for example the Care Standards Commission helped ensure minimum levels of safety in residential treatment. Remember that not every residential drug service offers or offered a safe, therapeutic or high quality service and stripping away safeguards leaves the most vulnerable at risk;



Ignore the casualties - that on the one hand reduced, time-limited abstinence driven models will assuredly deliver a larger number of people who are drug free at the end of treatment (and this will be the measured success) but there will be the people who are driven out of or drop out of treatment, some of whom will die. They will not be a measure of success.

Ignore the lost - the people who will lose their benefit, lose their housing, their medical care and their toe-hold in society. Forget that the route back to recovery for these people will be that much harder and some won't make it. Except of course unless you believe in a Jellinek-type model where people have to hit rock-bottom before they will turn to recovery;

Ignore the inconsistencies: that some people will consider Treatment a "failure" if the person has stopped using heroin and crack but continues to use cannabis, even if this is under control. Abstinent from what - and by whose standards? Addiction Today's?

Ignore the cost: the DCLG proposes cutting costs by up to 40% and this will affect budgets including Supporting People - which does a huge amount to help people with drug and alcohol problems secure housing and sustain independent living. The work of some residential social landlords to support people with drug problems has been a shuge success story in some parts of the country. The feared cuts to SP money will destroy this work. And trying to help people with drug problems sustain change without housing is a fools errand.


But hey, who needs these petty problems. Just bathe in the mood music from the Recovery Community and ignore the real-politick of the situation. and when it all comes crashing down make sure that the people who are held to account are not just the policiticians who introduced the policy, but also the neo-abstentionists whose evangelism is rapidly becoming the new dogma.

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.