A FIX FOR THE MIDDLE CLASSES

Legalising drugs will help the well-to-do, says Katie Grant, but drive the
poor deeper into despair

Bruce Anderson called in last week's Spectator for the legalisation of
drugs, and his remarks were timely. In Scotland, Dr Richard Simpson, the
Holyrood Parliament's deputy justice minister, has echoed Mr Anderson's
sentiments, if not his solution, by drawing an official line under
Scotland's 30-year war on drugs. 'The only time you will hear me use terms
such as "War On Drugs" or "Just Say No" is to denigrate them,' he said.
When Bruce Anderson, a glowering bull mastiff on a short fuse, and Richard
Simpson, a gentle bearded collie with herding instincts, find common
ground, something is clearly up. What is up, of course, is that both men
have been upset by the images of the black and bloated body of a pretty
girl killed by a bad heroin fix.

Doubtless both Mr Anderson and Dr Simpson -- and the LibDems, who have just
called for the legalisation of cannabis -- will be congratulated by
professionals who are fond of a decent spliff, toss down the odd E and have
no wish to see their experimenting children turned into criminals. But
their contributions, while worthy, ignore the great big difficulty that
lies at the very heart of the drugs debate. Drugs are a class issue. If
everyone were as clever and well-to-do as Mr Anderson, or as educated and
thoughtful as Dr Simpson, we could legalise drugs tomorrow. Everybody would
have an equal opportunity to take them or to resist them. The libertarian
argument that forms the core of the legalisers' camp -- that the state has
no place in regulating the private behaviour of individuals -- would be
unanswerable.

Yet while flawless logic and consistency of approach -- the academically
unimpeachable grounds on which Mr Anderson stands -- are splendidly
appealing to those sneaking a post-glass-of-claret snooze behind copies of
the Times in the Reform Club, they look quite different if you are sitting
on a grimy copy of the Daily Record eating a poke of soggy chips in a
bleak, rubbish-strewn stairwell on one of Glasgow's desolate peripheral
estates. A mother watching her newly literate four-year-old spelling out
'fuck the Pope' or 'Lesley's a f--- c---' from the graffiti which, along
with used syringes and the odd condom, decorate the slide in the derelict
park, will not be persuaded by Mr Anderson's solution to the drugs problem.

To many of the parents on Scotland's sink estates, the fact that the law
does not work is irrelevant. To them, it is the one thing that stands
between their children and the pusher. Take away the sanction of the law
and they know, with almost religious certainty, that the drugs problem will
get worse. To these women, legalisation is the path to hell, and they are
already halfway there. They may well be open to debates about how the petty
criminality that funds a drug habit should be dealt with, but they see
debates about legalisation as being the middle classes at play.

Groups such as Mothers Against Drugs laugh when you say that at least the
supply of heroin will be controlled if it is legalised. Controlled for
whom, they ask? For the middle classes, perhaps, who would go to official
outlets to get their fix. But the plight of the socially excluded, the
underclasses, those whose chaotic lives suit street dealers perfectly,
would be no better off. Drug barons, unwilling to give up without a fight,
would simply undercut the official outlets using the existing networks. A
UKP1 coin may not be much to a doctor's daughter, but it is a lot to a
22-year-old on benefit. If using cheaper heroin meant taking a bit of a
risk, they would think the risk worth taking, just as they go to a loan
shark instead of to the bank.

This is how, in socially deprived communities, the current debates about
drugs are seen: as the middle classes taking care of their own. So long as
middle-class youngsters can take heroin, cocaine or Ecstasy safely
(E-safety kits are very much in vogue at the moment), then the drugs
problem will be deemed to have been solved. If the risks to their children
posed by impure heroin are removed, Tory grandees and New Labour groupies
will be satisfied -- particularly since, if the children of the well-to-do
fall into addiction, they can always be sent by their parents into private
rehab centres. Addicts from the underclasses will, of course, not be so
lucky. Places on state-funded rehab or detox courses are few and far between.

Of course there is an argument that legalising drugs would cut crime. But
is this not just a fudge that allows politicians and society, on the back
of blissfully decreasing crime statistics, to ignore with clear consciences
the underlying causes that lead to drug-taking on sink estates: lives
bereft, generation after generation, of any meaning or structure, appalling
living conditions, dismal, third-rate education, poverty of aspiration,
moral turpitude and welfare dependency?

But perhaps this is the point. Who really cares if coarse, foul-mouthed,
feckless single parent Karen McNumpty and her hideous boyfriend die in the
gutter of a long-term heroin addiction funded by pimping and prostitution?
If legalisation does not help them, so what? The unspoken thought seems to
be that the important thing is to help others who are more deserving;
others, indeed, such as Rachel Whitear, a middle-class girl whose 'sweet
face sang of the hope and joy of youth', to quote Mr Anderson. She has
elicited his sympathy in a way that Karen McNumpty -- graceless at 12,
pregnant at 16, an addict by 19 -- never could. Mr Anderson thinks that
legalisation might help girls like Rachel -- and indeed it might. But where
does that leave Karen? Should a civilised society enact legislation that is
really designed to help only one of its constituent parts?

By the age of 15, nearly all children in Scotland have been offered drugs.
Some will swell the ranks of the 56,000 addicts already registered. Of the
2.6 million offences committed each year in Glasgow alone, 90 per cent,
according to police, are drug-related. One child in every 100 takes drugs
before their 11th birthday. Clearly, a new strategy is needed.

But let us never forget that there are two worlds out there, one that
operates through logic and consistency and another in which things are much
more chaotic and complicated. Those pushing for the legalisation of hard
drugs must not let their view of how things should be prevent them from
seeing how things are. All middle-class parents want reassurance that,
should their children take heroin, they will not die. All middle-class
taxpayers want the crime statistics, and therefore their insurance
premiums, to fall. But although our world is run by the middle classes, it
is those whose lot in life is rather less comfortable who would bear the
real brunt of moves towards the legalisation of hard drugs. They do not
seem to be full of enthusiasm for the idea. As one addict, now on his
second methadone programme, told me last week, and I paraphrase for ease of
comprehension, 'Legalisation? What a joke. Christ! What planet are they
living on? God, those bloody chatterers. They'll be the death of us all.'