'IT WAS NOT THE DRUG, BUT THE CRIMINALISATION OF IT THAT KILLED MY SON'

Fulton Gillespie On Why Drug Policy Should Be Turned On Its Head

I had been expecting Scott's death for some time. But when it came, just a
month from his 34th birthday, it was none the less devastating. The blow
was felt more keenly by his four siblings, especially his elder sister,
Fiona, who was closest to him and who had tried so hard for so long to help
him. But none of them, all drug-free, had suspected that he was so far down
the road. The last time I saw him, just four days before he died, I knew he
would not see 40 and said so. No one wanted to believe me.

Up to his early teens, his school reports would have won him a place in
heaven. He was everything any parent would have wished for - sensitive,
conscientious, well fitted into school life and so on. Then a fellow pupil,
a doctor's son, took some Valium tablets from his father's surgery and gave
some to Scott. There was the wholly-to-be-expected flurry of panic-stricken
letters between headmaster and parents, and the guilty boys were separated.

But Scott had tasted the forbidden fruit and, for reasons he could never
explain then or later, the taste and the danger appealed. None of the other
lads involved ended up on drugs, only Scott. After another episode with
pills when he was about 15, I sought advice from friends, doctors and
psychiatrists. There was much hand-wringing but nothing else.

Taking a stronger tack, I marched him off to Cambridge police station,
where I had arranged for a chief inspector to receive us in full uniform. A
stern lecture concluded with Scott being banged up in a cell for five
minutes to give him a taste of what the future might hold. He was
singularly unimpressed. It began to dawn on me that the son I once had,
anxious to please, keen to play by the rules, was now rapidly slipping
away. Why? What had we done? What made him different from the rest of the
family? We didn't know then and we don't know now.

At age 17 came his first arrest for possession of amphetamine sulphate.
Stories in the local papers, family tears, public disgrace, embarrassment,
humiliation for him, and more hunting around to find someone, some place,
some service to help him. Nothing. A year later he was in court again on a
similar charge, and this time he was found a place in a probation hostel.
For a time, it looked as though he might find a new direction, but on his
release he headed for London and we lost him for good.

In the years up to his death, he kept in touch by letter and telephone,
particularly with Fiona, and occasionally he would visit, or he and I would
meet in a pub somewhere. His conversation was always about the pain of
existence in a world where two-thirds starved so one-third could live well.
He hated war, poverty and injustice, and felt powerless to alter things.
But he would always try to get back home for the family Christmas, and we
took heart from that, happy that he hadn't rejected us completely.

On his last but one visit, I found him trying to steal from a handbag in
the kitchen. I said nothing because his confusion and embarrassment said
enough for both of us. I knew then, with total heartsink, that he was on
heroin, because that's what heroin addicts have to do - steal from anyone
or anywhere for cash to buy their stuff. This constant scraping around and
the toxicity and the malnutrition is what eventually kills the addict. At
his death, this tall, handsome, unaggressive misfit, who found the world so
difficult to live in, had 29 convictions for theft, all to buy adulterated
drugs.

He spent the last five weeks before his death on remand for theft. He
turned out to be innocent and was released. I picked him up and drove him
to his flat. He was drawn and tired. He didn't want to come for a meal, he
said, he just wanted to get his head down. My last words to him were:
"Well, make sure you keep your head down." His parting words were: "Don't
worry, dad. I'll be all right." Four days later he died, asleep in the arms
of the old harlot, heroin.

On the wall of his flat we found this hand-written valediction to the drug:

The hot chills and cold sweats, the withdrawal pains,

Can only be stopped by my little white grains.

There's no other way and no need to look,

For deep down inside you know you are hooked.

You'll give up your morals, your conscience, your heart,

And you will be mine until death us do part.

So why, in the wake of so much pain, do I want to see drugs legalised?
Because I believe it was not the drug itself - unlike alcohol and tobacco,
heroin has no known long-term side effects - but the criminalisation of it
that killed my son. In fact, a number of things contributed to his death:
he was stupid enough to use heroin in the first place; he had spent five
weeks in prison without drugs; on release his body could not take his
normal dose (the coroner's view); and the heroin was toxic (revealed by the
inquest pathology report).

I am convinced that he would be alive today if all drugs had been legalised
and controlled, because he would have had no need to steal and would not
have been in prison, the heroin would have been controlled and therefore
not toxic, and proper treatment would have been available under such a
regulated system.

Drugs, for me, should be a public-health rather than a criminal matter.
First, they should be removed from the monopoly clutches of crime. Second,
the billions saved in the costs of law enforcement, street crime and
property theft should be redirected towards regulation, licensing,
education, prevention, treatment and rehabilitation. The present
uncontrolled drugs free-for-all will mean that thousands more will follow
my son to the grave, victims of criminally supplied impure drugs, unless
western governments recognise that the so-called "war against drugs" is
unwinnable and wholly counterproductive.

Many will ask how this can be morally justified. My view is that there is
more moral justification in trying to cut crime and save lives than in
leaving things as they are - under the control of criminals. Those who
believe legalisation will make more hard drugs available to more young
people overlook the fact that drugs of all kinds are more available to more
young people now than ever, even with prohibition in force. There is not a
whit of evidence to support the idea that there is some massive reservoir
of disaffected youth about to rush out and die. There are more pushers out
there than chemists' shops, so those who want to use hard drugs are using
them now and will continue to use them come what may. Therefore we should
make sure the drugs they use are safe. This can only be done under
legalised regulation.

Just like alcohol prohibition in America, attempts at enforcement have
served largely to demonstrate the lethal impotence of the law. We are
beginning to see US-style gang warfare in our towns and cities. Apart from
the health costs, multibillion-pound drug cartels, by bribery and terror,
are undermining and corrupting law-enforcement and political systems across
the world. Prohibition is simply fuelling this fire. We are spending
billions dribbling water in at one end while criminals are making billions
pouring their toxic fuel in at the other.

Prohibition did not work in the past and it will not work in the future,
simply because - now as in 1920s America - crime is controlling the supply.
Therefore the link with crime must be broken. This would be a first step to
removing the drugs issue from the monopoly control of crime and putting it
where it belongs - in the area of public health, where it can be most
effectively dealt with. Drug abusers, like alcoholics, should be treated as
patients needing help rather than criminals to be punished. At present, we
cannot control the drugs supply, either in quantity or quality, because we
are not in charge of it. The Al Capones are.

So we must dump prohibition and go for control by legalisation. Setting up
a royal commission would be a good start. Decriminalisation will not
provide a long-term answer because it leaves the offence on the statute
book and leaves supply in the hands of crime. It will mean repealing or
amending a number of United Nations treaties, including the 1961 UN Single
Convention on Narcotic Drugs, which prevents the unilateral legalisation of
hard drugs by individual governments. But the drugs laws provide
governments with powerful enforcement tools which are often used for
non-drug purposes - like Nixon and Watergate - so these are tools that will
not be surrendered easily. Further, there are lots of people who live off
drug prohibition who will not want to give up their seats at a number of
influential tables.

I am no advocate of drugs - I wish to God people wouldn't use them -
because for my son the drugs road led to a very dead end. But that need not
be so for thousands like him if we take control of the supply. At least we
will be sure that they will get treatment and the chance of rehabilitation.
And for those foolish enough to keep using, we will be sure that what they
take will not kill them.