CLASS MATTERS

The war on drugs has never been winnable, and now the campaign being
waged is revealed as so incoherent that it could have been designed by
a general who was himself under the influence. Controlled substances
are banded into classes A, B and C, supposedly on the basis of risk,
and this settles the punishments that they carry. But a report
yesterday from the Commons select committee on science showed that
classifications are often arbitrary.

The anomalies are staggering. Last year, for example, fresh magic
mushrooms were criminalised and put in the most serious class A. Yet
the drug is not addictive and not linked to crime. Indeed, the
government's drugs adviser, Sir Michael Rawlins, could give no
explanation at all: the drug was in class A, he commented, "because it
is there". The law distinguishes amphetamine pills from (more harmful)
preparations of the same drug for injection; yet it treats all forms
of cocaine alike - from mild coca leaves, chewed and brewed across
South America, to highly addictive crack. And while the government
listened to the experts on cannabis, it continues to resist their
calls to downgrade ecstacy from class A.

Sir Michael said of one unjustifiable ranking that "it was not a big
issue". But that is not how it will seem to anyone found in
possession, as with class A status comes a jail term of up to 14 years
- - as many youngsters have found to their cost. A brutalising spell
inside can snuff out a bright future just as surely as any drug, and
the adverse effects go beyond the unfortunate individuals caught: the
misclassifications fuel a bulging prison population, which is costly
for taxpayers and detrimental to the hope of reforming dangerous
criminals. The futility of the current regime was seen last year when
it was decided not to put ice (crystal meth) in class A in spite of
alarming evidence, for fear that this would "increase interest" in
it.

The report suggests a new scientific scale of harm, decoupled from
penalties, and extended to cover alcohol and tobacco. Publicising the
real risks of drugs is imperative. The government, though, may prove
resistant as this more rational approach as it would raise some deeper
questions. Clear exposition of the risks of heroin would expose how
medicalisation could reduce harm better than criminalisation. And
including legal drugs would raise the issue of why alcohol can be
aggressively marketed when people are punished for using other
substances of similar danger. So for all the committee's good work, a
rational drugs policy is likely to remain a pipe dream.