FREE THE COCAINE TWO

Lawrence Dallaglio and George W. Bush are heading for career ruin this
week - for a crime that millions of us commit every week. Where's the
justice in that?

Last night, I had a rum and coke - two lines, actually. It is a cheap gag.
But it shows that cocaine is no longer seen as a frightening, dangerous
drug, a gateway to a dark underworld. We can joke about coke. More and more
of us use cocaine powder, generally for recreation, and typically in fairly
small amounts. And the number of people needing medical help for cocaine
misuse is tiny and unchanged. No moral crisis has been provoked by the wider
consumption of the drug.

None the less the powdery tentacles of the cocaine monster can still ruin
lives, or at least careers, as two talented men are discovering this week.
Lawrence Dallaglio, former England rugby captain, faces a Rugby Football
Union hearing on Wednesday following his boasts to a News of the World
reporter about snorting the drug. If enough evidence is forthcoming, last
night's game against the USA Eagles will have been his last in a white
shirt.

Meanwhile, in the homeland of the Eagles, one of the brightest hopes of the
Republican Party is struggling to free himself of a potentially devastating
dusting of rumours about cocaine use. The efforts of George W. Bush to kill
off the speculation by indicating that he has not taken drugs since the
mid-Seventies have had precisely the opposite effect. Asked if he would have
passed a drugs test during his father's presidency, the candidate paused,
apparently to do some mental arithmetic, and then said he would.

Does this mean he did take drugs before then? 'I am going to tell people
that I made mistakes and that I have learnt from my mistakes,' he has said.
Pressed on whether he might not be better off simply coming clean, he said:
'I don't want to send a signal to my children that whatever I may have done
is OK.' His spin-doctors hoped that claiming he has done nothing wrong for a
quarter of a century, since he was 27, will chime with earlier admissions
about 'youthful indiscretions' and quell speculation. That seems unlikely.
It is not inconceivable that his ambitions are about to run into the sand,
and all because he may once have taken a drug. The lessons of the Bush case
are so far unclear. It may be that, post Monicagate, US voters hate his
failure to tell the truth more than any alleged drug-taking. By failing to
answer the fundamental question - have you taken drugs? - he leaves the
press plenty of room for digging and looks shifty. The very nature of the
politicians that American voters want is being tested yet again. Do they
want cardboard cut-out politicians, like Al Gore, machine politicians who
have never strayed in their lives? Or do they want real people, who, when
they talk about drug use, might just have some idea what they are talking
about? Are drugs and double standards always to be bed-fellows? Bush himself
supported stringent sentences for cocaine possession as Texas governor,
leaving him open now to accusations of hypocrisy. It is hard for the public
to stomach politicians being tough on drugs during the day and high on them
at night.

Most of all, the debate over George W. Bush demonstrates the looking-glass
nature of the politics of drugs on both sides of the Atlantic. A quarter of
the 1997 intake of MPs have used drugs, according to a poll guaranteeing
anonymity. How many will admit it? How many will support Charles Kennedy's
call for a Royal Commission on the legal status of cannabis, the mildest
possible step towards a more liberal drugs policy?

The bizarre contradiction between real life, where drugs are tolerated and
used widely - one in two under-30s have taken an illegal drug - and public
life is even more amply demonstrated in Dallaglio's fall from grace. He is
one of the most fearsome back-row forwards in the world and an admired
captain. He boasted to reporters that he had taken drugs in the past,
refused to take the cocaine they offered and has earned the necessary prefix
'disgraced' whenever mentioned in the tabloid press. Like Bush, he has not
categorically denied ever taking cocaine. So perhaps he has - but so what?
Rugby may be a professional sport these days, but a world in which we expect
rugby players to have lived virtuous lives is a strange one indeed.

In the next couple of weeks, figures from the British Crime Survey will be
published, showing a rise in the proportion of people reporting that they
use cocaine to around one in 20, with higher figures for younger people.
Consider these facts, too: 40 per cent of 16-year-olds have taken an illegal
drug. Ten per cent of 15- and 16-year-olds have taken cocaine powder - and a
third of this age group have been present when someone else has taken a line
or two. 'There is more cocaine coming into the country,' says Dr John
Marsden, lecturer in addiction studies at the Institute of Psychiatry. 'But
only 2,000 people a year embark on a course of treatment with a primary
cocaine problem, out of around 50,000... a lot of people are using the drug
infrequently, and for recreation.'

Given the political imperative to be tough on drugs, with no exceptions,
these are uncomfortable messages. The reality is that most cocaine use is,
to use the medical jargon, 'non-problematic'. And the vast majority of
people using the drug are not sitting around in stinking squats or smashing
windows; they are in dance clubs, living rooms, at dinner parties.
Unpublished research into use of the drug by the National Addiction Centre
shows that the most common reason for taking coke is 'to keep going on a
night out with friends', followed by 'to stay awake'. And the reasons why
people take the drug is a powerful predictor of whether their use will
become chronic, or affect their health, says NAC researcher Annabel Boys.
'People use drugs for different reasons, they are not going to go from
cocaine to heroin if they are taking it to stay awake - because heroin might
have the opposite effect,' says Boys. At the same time, attitudes towards
drug use are relaxing across the globe. Fifteen years ago 60 per cent of 18-
to 24-year-olds in the UK opposed legalising cannabis; now just 30 per cent
do. Although polls which ask simple questions such as 'Should drug X be
legalised?' usually get an overwhelmingly negative answer, questions
differently phrased garner different responses. Ask whether people should be
able to put what they want in their body so long as no one else is harmed,
and a majority say yes.

The contradictions between what is happening on the ground and the surreal
world of the Palace of Westminster cannot last much longer. Most GPs, most
chief constables, and most MPs privately support a more liberal approach. It
is clear that prohibition has utterly failed as a policy - but still the
Government's pronouncements on the drugs problems fail even to mention legal
reform.

'There is a vicious circle here,' says Dr Russell Newcombe who runs the
masters degree course in drug use and addiction at Liverpool John Moores
University 'Politicians say they can't raise the issue of reform because it
is not a vote-winner, but then because they block any serious debate the
public remains in a state of ignorance - and it is only when people are more
informed on the reality of drug use rather than the myth, that they view the
law differently. But it will happen - it has to.'

But Newcombe talks of a 10-year time frame for even cannabis legalisation.
Perhaps the distorted drugs debate will move on, and catch up with real
life. Perhaps politicians will choose this as an area where they can lead
opinion, rather than lamely follow in its wake. In all likelihood it will be
too late for George W. and Lawrence, but one day we might all grow up.