A STARTLING INJECTION OF COMMON SENSE

The report from the Royal Society of Arts Commission on Drugs tells us
what most thoughtful people have known for some time: Britain's drug
laws have been shaped by moral panic, rather than a rational analysis
of the problem of substance abuse.

The two-year study argues that the focus of government policy should
be on harm reduction. In common with last year's report by the
Parliamentary Science Select Committee, it recommends that the
existing "ABC" classification system be scrapped in favour of an
"index of harms", which would extend the definition of drugs to
include alcohol and tobacco. It also argues that there should be an
emphasis on "medicalising" the problem of heroin abuse, urging the
roll out of "shooting galleries" for heroin users and wider
prescription of the drug by doctors.

The report's authors feel addiction should be seen as a health and
social problem rather than simply a criminal justice issue. If drug
taking does not harm anyone, criminal sanctions should not be applied.
Jail should be reserved for only the most serious drug-related crimes.

They also correctly identify the major reason why this is not already
happening: politicians. The response of the former Home Secretary,
David Blunkett, to the proposals yesterday sums up the problem. He
rejected the arguments of the RSA in favour of reform and argued that
the present approach by the Government is working perfectly well.
Meanwhile, the former Tory leader, Iain Duncan Smith, who is shaping
the Conservative Party's own policy on drugs, was also critical of the
RSA recommendations. Mr Duncan Smith does at least have a strategy for
improving on the present situation. He stresses the need for
residential rehabilitation for addicts. But by arguing that getting
people off drugs altogether should be the only objective of government
policy, he too demonstrates why politicians are failing on this
crucial issue. Too many in Westminster feel it is their responsibility
to stigmatise addicts, rather than help them.

Of course, the reason ministers are clinging on to the crude policy of
prohibition is that there is still a wide-spread mindset in this
country, stoked up by the populist press, that all drugs are "evil"
and that, by extension, so are those that take them. The summersaults
performed by ministers over the downgrading of cannabis demonstrate
just how in thrall to this popular prejudice they remain. The RSA
report argues that: "The evidence suggests that a majority of people
who use drugs are able to use them without harming themselves or
others. The harmless use of illegal drugs is thus possible, indeed
common." One can already predict the shrieks of alarm that will
emanate from the prohibitionist lobby at this eminently reasonable
statement.

The political classes have been afraid to challenge those who demand a
"hard line" on drugs. They must begin to do so urgently. The present
blanket prohibition is not working. A vast proportion of crime
committed in Britain is related to the drugs economy. The Home Office
has estimated that the social cost of drug abuse is between UKP10bn and
UKP17bn a year. Our jails are bursting because they have been forced to
take in so many drug addicts. As Professor Anthony King, the head of
the RSA Commission, pointed out yesterday: "The quickest way into
treatment is to commit a crime". What this shows is a society with its
head in the sand when it comes to the question of drugs. It is high
time we pulled it out.

The clock cannot be turned back when it comes to drugs. The reduction
of harm must become the explicit goal of government drug policy, or we
will all continue to pay a heavy price.