THE POLICE AND HARD DRUGS: THE CLEVELAND REPORT

The Association of Chief Police Officers will announce next month a
new position on hard drugs, advocating the legalisation of heroin.
This shift of policy builds on controversial research published two
years ago by Cleveland police in the north east of England which was
used by Chief Constable Barry Shaw, who remains in charge of the
force, to propose a new approach to the "war on drugs". While the
proposals were not adopted by Cleveland at that time, they are now
set to become the focus of a national debate in the wake of the rapid
liberalisation of the debate on policing drugs.

What The Cleveland Report Says

These are extracts from the Cleveland report. The full report is
available from the pro-reform pressure group Transform and can be
read here.

Availability

Recreational drugs have been used by humans across the world for
thousands of years. Current UK policy (proscription) dates from the
Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 and is clearly based upon American
experience. The UK government is also signatory to international
treaties rendering the drugs trade illegal worldwide.

No Logic

"It can be argued that there is no logic to the current pattern of
illegality. Some drugs (alcohol, nicotine) are freely available
despite very clear evidence of their harmful effects. Others such as
cannabis are proscribed with their possession being subject to severe
penalties, despite the fact that they are perceived by many medical
scientists to be less harmful than alcohol. The illogicality of this
approach (which seems to be based upon no more than historical
accident) leads many young people in particular to level charges of
hypocrisy at `the establishment'. This is a very difficult argument
to counter".

The Failure Of Prohibition

"There is overwhelming evidence to show that the prohibition based
policy in place in this country since 1971 has not been effective in
controlling the availability or use of proscribed drugs. If there is
indeed a `war of drugs' it is not being won; drugs are demonstrably
cheaper and more readily available than ever before. It seems that
the laws of supply and demand are operating in a textbook fashion ...

Members may wish to ask themselves whether we have learned the
lessons from alcohol prohibition in the United States in the 1920's,
from Gandhi's civil disobedience campaign in India in the 1940's and
from the Poll Tax here in the UK in the 1980's. If a sufficiently
large (and apparently growing) part of the population chooses to
ignore the law for whatever reason, then that law becomes
unenforceable. A modern western democracy, based on policing by
consent and the rule of law may find itself powerless to prevent
illegal activity - in this case the importation and use of controlled
drugs."

Drugs And Crime

The report considers the links between drugs and crime, arguing that
"as a result of this illegality their market price is very high
indeed, as the suppliers carry significant risks".

Organised Crime

The report quotes government assessments that the illegal drugs trade
is worth UKP 400 billion - 8% of all international trade - and is as
big as the global trade in oil and gas. "The profits to be made are
truly enormous - the pharmaceutical price of heroin is less than UKP
1 per gram, but the street price in the UK is about 80 times higher.
At these sort of profit margins it is well worth while buying a gun
to protect your investment - and a third of all firearms incidents
committed in Cleveland in 1998 are demonstrably drug related.
Organised crime gangs are every bit as difficult to stamp out as are
terrorists, once they have taken root, and provided the market
continues to exist. The best example of this is the mafia in the USA
whose development was given an enormous boost by alcohol prohibition."

Commission Of Crime

"Many prohibited drugs are very strongly addictive, as well as
expensive. A serious heroin user needs to find say UKP 50 per day to
fund their habit, in cash. This sort of money is difficult to obtain
by legitimate means, so they have to turn to crime. Nationally about
30% of persons arrested by the police are dependant upon one or more
illegal drug, and about 32% of the proceeds of crime seem to be
geared to the purchase of heroin, cocaine or crack. .... The main
crimes committed are shoplifting (by far the greatest), selling drugs
and burglary. One research project has shown that 1,000 addicts
committed 70,000 criminal acts during a 90-day period prior to their
intake for treatment. It is clear that the very high cost of drugs is
caused by their illegality, and that these high costs are causing
large amounts of acquisitive crime. Is this acceptable?"

Criminalisation

"Most drug users seem not to commit significant amounts of crime -
their only offence is to choose to use a drug which is technically
illegal. The best example of this is cannabis (the UK has the highest
rate of cannabis use in Europe, higher even than in the Netherlands
which has a tolerance policy). The illogical pattern of proscription
causes people who abuse alcohol or nicotine to be treated purely as
victims, whereas those who abuse cannabis become criminals. If caught
they face a criminal record and social exclusion.

Alternatives

"There is only one serious alternative to the proscription policy -
the legalisation and regulation of some or all drugs. Any debate
about such an approach must raise and then deal with fundamental
questions about the societal effects. What would be the health and
social impact? Would the use of drugs increase or decline? What would
be the impact on crime? The potential consequences are very
significant indeed - are they to be countenanced?"

The report argues that "since legalisation and regulation for the
currently proscribed drugs has never been tried properly anywhere in
the world there is little hard evidence available", although lessons
can be learnt from the regulation of legal drugs like nicotine and
alcohol, and from liberalistation

"Some European cities (notably Geneva and London) have experimented
with radical solutions by issuing heroin under prescription. A number
of studies have now demonstrated crime reductions as a result (in
some cases startling ones). Heroin users previously caught up in a
cycle of drugs and crime started to lead reasonably stable lives,
some holding down jobs and a `normal' family life. These experiments
(whose results have not always been clear cut) have not been
continued largely because they were to the detriment of maintained
methadone programmes which are the currently `approved' method of
reducing addiction.

There is also contrary evidence. Defacto legalisation is in place in
parts of South America where the drugs trade is out of any control.
The effects are quite frightening. However this is without any
effective regulation, and without the health improvement and harm
reduction programmes which seem to have been so successful in the UK
(even in the limited fashion seen to date).

Conclusions

A number of tentative conclusions can be drawn from the available evidence:

Attempts to restrict availability of illegal drugs have failed so
far, everywhere

There is little or no evidence that they can ever work within
acceptable means in a democratic society

Demand for drugs seems still to be growing, locally and nationally.
The market seems to be some way from saturation

There is little evidence that conventional conviction and punishment
has any effect on offending levels

There is, however, growing evidence that treatment and rehabilitation
programmes can have a significant impact on drug misuse and offending

There is some evidence that social attitudes can be changed over
time, by design. The best example available to date is drink-driving,
but success has taken a generation to achieve

If prohibition does not work, then either the consequences of this
have to be accepted, or an alternative approach must be found

The most obvious alternative approach is the legalisation and
subsequent regulation of some or all drugs

There are really serious social implications to such an approach
which have never been thought through in a comprehensive manner,
anywhere