CLARKE CLINGS TO THE GRAND ILLUSION OF PROHIBITION

The Furore Over Pot Masked A UKP16bn Crime Bill For Demonising 'Hard Drugs'

The debate on reclassifying cannabis has served the government well
in diverting attention from the miserable failure of its entire drug
policy. Like an accomplished conjuror, Charles Clarke has created an
illusion of concern over young people's mental health while presiding
over a policy that is creating mayhem from Bogota to Brixton - drug
prohibition. Far from engaging in a debate on the efficacy of
continuing a policy that costs the UK UKP16bn a year in drug-related
crime, he has become trapped in a meaningless furore over the
relative naughtiness of producing, supplying and possessing dope.

In the week that Mr Clarke decided to make no new decision about
cannabis classification, what should have been a significant
opportunity for intelligent people to discuss the efficacy, or not,
of attempted prohibition, sometimes became a parade of misinformation.

In an otherwise cogent piece articulating the idiocy of cannabis
reclassification, Marcel Berlins espoused some long-standing drugs
propaganda, and dismissed the legalisation discourse with
disappointing flippancy (Charles Clarke shouldn't fret about the
legal chaos over cannabis. It's not even on his boss's respect
agenda, January 18).

Berlins was absolutely right to point out that cannabis is not
demonised in the same way that other drugs are, but then went on to
repeat the myths that demonise other so-called "hard" drugs. Indeed,
if you look at the drug classification system as a whole, it becomes
very clear that the drugs with the highest classifications are not
the ones that cause the most harm, such as alcohol and tobacco, but
those with the highest demonisation quotient. Not since Paul Betts'
Sorted campaign have we been told that ecstasy is "quite often
fatal". In fact, even in the unregulated illegal market ecstasy is
relatively safe, with a tiny number of deaths each year compared to
the number of doses taken.

And no, "pot" isn't stronger than it was in the 60s. There have
always been both strong and weak versions of cannabis, as recent
European research tells us. What has happened is that prohibition has
created a skunk monoculture where growers produce the variety with
the highest yield, potency and profit margin - thus denying consumers
the opportunity to buy weaker versions. As for legalisation, of
course it would "make the product less subject to criminal
influence". It is prohibition that gifts the entire market to
criminals and unregulated dealers. And mark my words, legalisation
will happen. Global drug prohibition will be history within 15 years
- - its counterproductivity makes it untenable in the long term. Twenty
billion pounds a year for another 10 years ... you do the maths.

Danny Kushlick is the director of Transform Drug Policy Foundation
and a former drug counsellor in the criminal justice system tdpf.org.uk

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