DRUGS: IT'S ALL IN THE PRICE

The street price of illegal drugs in Britain has never been lower. The
message should be clear--prohibition has failed

IF THE government is looking for evidence about how it is faring in the
battle to stop illegal drugs flooding Britain's streets, it need look no
further than what is happening to prices. When Home Office officials and
police chiefs meet next month for crisis talks about the exploding use of
crack cocaine, they will have to confront the fact that the drugs they most
fear have never been cheaper or more plentiful.

The threat of crack, the most dangerous and unpredictable of illegal drugs,
has been fuelled by the easy availability of cocaine. During the past ten
years, the street prices of both hard and soft drugs have fallen sharply.
Cocaine and heroin have declined by nearly a third, while ecstasy has
dropped by more than half (see chart).

In real terms, the figures, compiled by the National Criminal Intelligence
Service (NCIS), represent an even sharper fall. While whisky and beer
prices have doubled and cigarettes almost tripled in price over the decade,
illegal drugs are now often cheaper than a night out in a pub. The cost of
LSD, a hallucinogenic drug, is less than a packet of cigarettes.

These figures confirm that the increasing resources employed to disrupt the
illegal drugs trade are having little impact. Over the past five years,
heroin seizures have more than doubled and cocaine seizures have increased
five-fold. But Customs and Excise officials accept that they are
intercepting only a fraction, probably less than 10%, of the drugs coming
into the country. Terry Byrne, director of law enforcement at Customs and
Excise, acknowledges that the street prices of drugs have never been lower.
He also admits there is no evidence that the efforts of his and other
agencies are "reducing availability or increasing the price of illegal drugs".

Neither Customs and Excise nor NCIS are willing to discuss the forces
driving the market. But Home Office officials say that events in
Afghanistan have had a key role in boosting heroin supply. The increasing
use of cocaine appears linked to the West Indies. Large amounts are being
brought in by West Indian "drug mules", often women who agree to swallow
packets of cocaine and smuggle them in at high risk for a couple of
thousand dollars.

Given that the streets are awash and that buying of both hard and soft
drugs has never been easier, the government's national anti-drugs strategy
set out four years ago looks increasingly like a work of fantasy. One of
the government's main targets, to reduce the availability of Class A drugs
by 25% by 2005 and by 50% by 2008, is so far adrift that an increase in
availability is more likely to be recorded than a fall.

The Association of Chief Police Officers says bleakly that if existing
drugs policy is to be judged "by measurable reductions of people who use
drugs and the amount of crime committed to get money to buy drugs", then it
is failing.

The Home Affairs select committee said in a report, published last month,
that the government should concentrate its efforts in treating the
estimated 250,000 hard-core addicts rather than pursuing criminal
penalties. It called for "safe injecting houses" for addicts to be set up
together with a large-scale trial of heroin prescribing. It also wants
ecstasy to be downgraded to a Class B drug.

Predictably, this is all too radical for the government. But the home
secretary, David Blunkett, has moved a long way from the policy of his
predecessor who, two years ago, dismissed a demand by a distinguished
committee of medical, legal, police and drug specialists for reform of
Britain's archaic drug laws. A revised national drugs strategy is to be
published next month which is likely to back many of the committee's
recommendations. Mr Blunkett has already announced that he plans to
downgrade cannabis to a Class C drug, which means the penalties for
possession becoming nominal. He is also sympathetic to strictly monitored
trials of heroin prescribing. The new strategy is likely to focus on
treatment rather than enforcement.

A new approach is badly needed but whether this shift towards treatment
will work is uncertain. One problem is cost. Prescribing heroin to
hard-core addicts could cost more than ?250m ($363m) a year. But Transform,
a pressure group in favour of legalisation, claims that the current regime
costs at least ?10 billion a year, if the burden of dealing with
drug-related crime and prisons are included in the calculation. Almost
two-thirds of those who are arrested test positive for drugs. Doing nothing
may be politically safe but it is not a cheap option.

The Background: Illegal Drugs

With retail sales of around $150 billion, the trade in illegal drugs is in
the same league as consumer spending on legal drugs like tobacco and
alcohol. Cannabis is produced in both rich and poor countries. Opium
cultivation continues to spread in Asia, while coca is a major export of
Colombia, Peru and Bolivia. A growing sideline is in drugs such as
methamphetamine and ecstasy, which are made from simple chemicals.

Governments haven't always cracked down on these substances. Indeed, some
countries tolerate them today. But most governments invest in costly
anti-drugs policies, none more so than America. Supporters of such policies
highlight the harm drugs cause to individuals and society.

Yet the resulting drugs war is being waged (and lost in Britain) at perhaps
an even greater cost. Not only are lives lost, but corruption and misguided
drugs policies are encroaching on civil liberties. Legalising the
possession of and trade in drugs would probably increase the number of
users. But it might also reduce crime and poverty, and solve many other
problems.