A famous immigrant to the United States during
alcohol prohibition commented:
"The prestige of government has undoubtedly been
lowered considerably by the prohibition law. For
nothing is more destructive of respect for the
government and the law of the land than passing laws
which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that
the dangerous increase of crime in this country is
closely connected with this."
Surely we don't have to be Einstein to accept his
conclusions?
[Albert Einstein, "My
First Impression of the USA," 1921]
Prohibition is wrong in principle:
It prevents reasonably safe use as well as harmful
use. It contravenes general policies to educate
against harm to user and regulate only against harm
to others [see also Risky
Activities]. It prohibits the trade in drugs from
developing countries with few natural resources,
protecting the trade in more dangerous drugs that
Western governments profit from.
Home Affairs Select Committee
report 'Government Drugs Policy: Is it Working?':
"54. Liberty's submission to the Committee laid
out the philosophical reasons for this [legal
regulation] being desirable:
"as part of a free, democratic society
individuals should be able to make and carry out
informed decisions as to their conduct, free of state
interference, or in particular the criminal law,
unless there are pressing social reasons otherwise.
Liberty is of the view that the decision by an
individual to take drugs is such a decision and comes
within the ambit of personal autonomy and private
life. John Stuart Mill argued that the state has no
right to intervene to prevent individuals from
harming themselves, if no harm was thereby done to
the rest of society. 'Over himself, over his own body
and mind, the individual is sovereign.' Such
fundamental rights are recognised by government, both
in allowing individuals to partake of certain
dangerous activities, for example drinking, extreme
sports, and also in international treaties".
www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200102/cmselect/cmhaff/318/31802.htm
Prohibition does not work:
Government's report '10 year
strategy for tackling drugs':
"…however impressive the enforcement
activity in general, there have been no signs of
street level availability reducing over recent years."
www.archive.official-documents.co.uk/document/cm39/3945/aim-4.htm
"strategies to restrict availability of
illicit drugs relate to control of production,
importation and sale. However, evidence suggests that
these supply control strategies are not highly
effective in reducing demand, increasing price or
reducing misuse (Buckstein, 1995, Botvin, 1999)".
[p.26, The Substance of Young Needs -
review 2001 (Health Advisory Service) ]
"broader policies of social inclusion,
improved education and eradication of poverty that
may indirectly reduce tobacco use, may have the most
profound effect".
[p.26, The Substance of Young Needs -
review 2001 (Health Advisory Service) ]
" 'research evidence rather than enthusiasm
for a current prevention fashion should guide
commissioners and practitioners' (Witton 2001). The
importance of relying on the evidence is all the more
critical since well-meaning but ill-informed
intervention can do harm (Dishon et al 1999,
LeMarquand et al 2001)."
[p.25, The Substance of Young Needs -
review 2001 (Health Advisory Service) ]
Prohibition makes drugs more dangerous:
Home Affairs Select Committee
report 'Government Drugs Policy: Is it Working?':
"51. Mr Nick Davies of The
Guardian told the Committee "what drug becomes
safer, in terms of health or social damage, if you
make it illegal?"
www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200102/cmselect/cmhaff/318/31802.htm
Department of Health's 'A Parent's
Guide to Drugs and Alcohol':
"The following are risks involved in
using any illegal drug.
- The user can never be sure of exactly what
they are taking.
- What is bought is unlikely to be pure, and
they won’t know what it has been mixed
with.
- Not knowing the strength of what has been
bought could lead to accidental overdose.
- They can’t be sure what effect a drug
will have, even if they have taken it before.
- It is often very dangerous to mix
different drugs, and this includes taking a
drug and drinking alcohol.
- If needles, syringes or other injecting
equipment are shared there is a serious risk
of dangerous infections being spread such as
HIV and hepatitis B or C. Injecting can also
damage veins.
In addition, unlawful possession of a controlled
drug is a criminal offence. A drugs conviction can
cause problems obtaining a travel visa to enter some
countries. It can also affect job prospects. An
employer may check if an applicant has a criminal
record or any past convictions."
http://www.doh.gov.uk/drugs/pdfs/thepg.pdf or phone 08701 555 455 to order a copy
Prohibition funds organised
crime:
Home Affairs Select Committee
report 'Government Drugs Policy: Is it Working?':
"37. It is also self-evident that the
estimated £6.6 billion spent on drugs by users each
year represents a lucrative source of revenue to the
suppliers—mostly organised crime—and it
would be surprising if this did not generate
considerable violence amongst drug dealers seeking to
extend or protect their territory".
www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200102/cmselect/cmhaff/318/31802.htm
Why do parents whose
children have died from heroin overdoses want
cannabis legalised?
"Until his son's death
from a heroin overdose, Fulton Gillespie was a
student of the "hang 'em and flog 'em"
school of drug policy. He now believes that a
legalised system of heroin distribution might have
saved his son's life."
"Mary Smith is a founder of Knowle West Against
Drugs (KWADS). KWADS was one of the first community-led
mothers against drugs groups to be set up in the UK.
Mary's son was a problematic heroin user and a major
pain in the arse for his mum and the community in
which they lived. She recently announced that she was
now supporting legalisation as the most sensible way
of dealing with drugs in her community."
www.observer.co.uk/drugs/story/0,11908,780581,00.html
Why make criminals of the most deprived
minorities in our society and those suffering from
addiction?
Government's report '10 year
strategy for tackling drugs':
"Research suggests that there are all
kinds of reasons for misuse; that key factors include
unemployment, low self esteem, educational failure,
boredom and physical, psychological or family
problems. And many people misuse drugs because they
don't have the opportunity to lead fulfilling lives."
www.archive.official-documents.co.uk/document/cm39/3945/ad-intro.htm
"…the Rolleston Committee [UK Government]
report of 1926 defined addiction as a disease
requiring medical treatment, including maintenance
prescribing. This was a 'harm reduction' approach…"
www.rcplondon.ac.uk/pubs/books/nicotine/4-addiction.htm
Quotes:
"He had discovered a great law of human
action, without knowing it - namely, that in order to
make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only
necessary to make the thing difficult to obtain."
"Tom Sawyer," by Mark Twain, Chapter 2,
"The Glorious Whitewasher"
"Insanity is doing the same old thing over
and over again and expecting a different result."
Bill Clinton, campaign debate, October 11, 1992
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely
exercised for the good of its victims may be the most
oppressive."
C.S. Lewis, in "The Humanitarian Theory of
Punishment," an essay from "God In The Dock"
"Totalitarianism is when people believe they
can punish their way to perfection."
House Speaker Newt Gingrich, at a President's Day
Republican fundraiser, May 1998
"Penalties against possession of a drug
should not be more damaging to an individual than the
use of the drug itself."
President Jimmy Carter, Message to Congress, Aug.
2, 1977
"Abusus non tollit usum." [Abuse is no
argument against proper use.] Latin proverb
"There is no way of having a free society in
which there is not abuse. Abuse is the very hallmark
of liberty."
Lord Hailsham, former Chief Justice, "The
Dilemma of Democracy"
"Laws do not persuade just because they
threaten."
Seneca, A.D. 65
Report of the Home Affairs
Select Committee - extract (for
full report go here).
50. The Angel Declaration, a manifesto for change of
the drugs laws, uses similar arguments: "the UK
prohibition of controlled substances, now embodied in
the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, has proved ineffective
in the achievement of its objects, counter-productive
in its side-effects, wasteful of public resources,
destructive in its cultivation of criminality and
commercial abuse, and inhumane in its operation. The
Act no longer constitutes an appropriate form of
social regulation, consistent with the UK's Human
Rights commitments".
56. Transform put it in this way: "drugs should
be legalised because they are dangerous not because
they are safe". A legal system would, it is
argued, allow the Government to regulate and
guarantee the quality and dosages of drugs supplied,
and to make available the safest equipment to
administer the drug, all of which could be buttressed
with health advice. Legalisation might take away some
of the stigma of drug use, encouraging more drug
addicts to seek treatment. Mr Fulton Gillespie, whose
son died of a heroin overdose, said to us:
"how can we regulate supply if we are not in
charge of the power station? We have to take control
away from criminals and place it back where it
belongs, with us".
57. It is also argued that it would be easier to
deter new users through truthful education policies
if the laws on drugs were consistent with those on
alcohol and tobacco, just as health education in the
recent past has had a positive impact on prevalence
of tobacco smoking. Even if legalisation did result
in an increase in experimental drug use, we have been
told, higher prevalence would be a small price to pay
for all the other associated benefits of a legal and
regulated market, as use does not necessarily lead to
problematic use.
58. A legal supply system, it is argued, would take
away a massive source of income for the organised
criminals currently supplying the drugs market, and
hence reduce organised crime. The legalisers argue
that, while it is no doubt true that an illegal
market could not be completely eliminated, it is
logical to assume that it could be reduced
significantly by the existence of a legal market,
hence making the funding of organised crime more
difficult, at least in the short-term.
59. It is also argued that legalisation and
regulation of drugs would reduce crime committed by
addicts to fund a drug addiction, as addicts could
buy their supply relatively cheaply from licensed
retailers. Dr Brewer commented: "many people who
find themselves...dependent on heroin and therefore
having to do frightful things in order to raise
enough money to buy it, would either not need to
commit crime or would commit far fewer crimes, like
impoverished alcoholic patients".
60. Others took a different view. The Minister, Mr
Ainsworth, told us that "it is often the case
that those who advocate legalisation advocate it as a
potential panacea for many of the costs that are
imposed upon the criminal justice system, without
necessarily looking at the downside". The Police
Federation disagreed with the claim that legalisation
would have a significant impact on organised crime:
"This assumes that the powerful international
drug cartels would simply fade away into the night.
More likely scenarios are that they would fight to
maintain their lucrative street trading".
61. Mr Ainsworth told us that the criminal market
could never be entirely removed even within a
legalised system, "unless you were prepared to
sell it at a low price to almost anybody". He
went on, "if you attempted to tax it, regulate
the price, or prevented it getting into the hands of
people whose hands you did not want it to get into
then a secondary market would grow up around the
legal market, and we would have some of the same
problems of enforcement that we have now". Mr
Nicholas Dorn of DrugScope pointed out that organised
crime is not dependent on the drugs trade for its
survival:
"I do not think the enormous criminal conspiracy
is going to collapse by the removal of drugs from it.
If you look at your average UK drug trafficker or
European-based drug trafficker, they are likely to be
involved not exclusively in drugs trafficking but
also in some other activities...We are not going to
have a clean house and get rid of organised crime".
62. Opponents also argue that a rise in new users and
in problematic use would cancel out any harm
reduction gains of a legalised and regulated system.
The speculation that the removal of illegality would
encourage more new users and make it easier for new
users to experiment with drugs has been the most
widely-held objection to legalisation heard by the
Committee. Mr Ainsworth told us:
"I do not believe that heroin is as freely
available to young people as it would be in the kind
of regime you describe. I think it would be a lot
more available".
63. Sue Killen, Director of the Anti-Drugs Unit at
the Home Office, told us that illegality carries a
deterrent effect, and Mr Geoff Ogden, Co-ordinator of
the East Riding and Hull Drug Action Team, told the
Committee: "The word on the street for a long
time about cannabis is the youngsters think it is
going to be legalised...so it is cool to use it".
Mr Ainsworth told us that: "it is proven beyond
all doubt that illegality discourages use; that
legalisation would lead, to some degree, to an
increase in use".
64. Data on the deterrent effect is scarce, but a
MORI poll conducted for the Police Foundation's
Independent Inquiry found that the main reason why
people do not take drugs is personal choice rather
than a fear of the consequences or the legal
implications. 56% of people questioned said the main
reason people do not take drugs is they simply do not
want to; 51% cited fears for health; 50% fear of
death and 46% fear of addiction. 30% of adults and 19%
of children felt that people did not take drugs
because they did not wish to break the law; 17% (12%
of children) said they did not because they were
afraid of being caught by the police.
65. We have listened carefully to the arguments. We
acknowledge that there is force behind some of those
advanced in favour of legalising and regulating. The
criminal market might well be diminished (though not
eliminated); likewise drug-related crime. Harm may
well be reduced, although this would have to be
balanced against an inevitable increase in the number
of drug abusers if drugs were more widely and cheaply
available. It is inevitable too that, however tightly
the sale of drugs was regulated, there would be a
significant leakage to under-age abusers, as there is
already with cigarettes and alcohol. We do not agree
with the contention that illegal drugs are already as
widely available to under-age abusers as they would
be under legalisation. We agree with those who say
that legalisation would send the wrong message to the
overwhelming majority of young people who do not take
drugs. We also accept that a significant number of
young people—we can argue about the numbers—are
deterred from drug abuse by the fact that drugs are
illegal. Finally, we note that however forceful the
arguments, no other country has yet been persuaded to
legalise and regulate. Nor can we ever foresee a day
when it would be possible to legalise a drug as
dangerous as crack cocaine, which leads to violent
and unpredictable behaviour.
66. While acknowledging that there may come a day
when the balance may tip in favour of legalising and
regulating some types of presently illegal drugs, we
decline to recommend this drastic step.
