DECRIMINALISING DRUGS

Ecstasy Should Not Be Judged Like Cocaine

The police have always been ahead of politicians in the field of illegal
drug reform. They have been several steps ahead again this week. The two
most senior umbrella groups - for chief officers and superintendents -
supported the idea of downgrading ecstasy to a class B drug. This is in
line with the Police Foundation's independent inquiry into the misuse of
drugs laws that reported last year. Metropolitan police commander Brian
Paddick, in charge of Brixton, went one step further, noting that it was
wrong to label all drug users as problems. Many were sociable, sensible and
able to control their habit. Indeed they are.

Tonight and tomorrow up to 500,000 young clubbers will use ecstasy. As a
Joseph Rowntree Foundation study in 1997 discovered, many take the pills to
ensure they get their money's worth from the UKP20 entrance charges. It
gives them the energy to dance through to the early hours as well as
feelings of well-being. For the overwhelming majority, the illicit
recreational drug is part of the current consumer lifestyle, fully
integrated into their social lives. For the police, the drug poses few
problems. There are two nightclubs in Brixton. One has a reputation for
drug-taking and causes the police no problems; the other provides free
alcohol with its entrance fee and involves regular fights and brawls.

None of this, so far, has persuaded the home secretary. And indeed ecstasy
is not risk-free. It can lead to dehydration and even excessive rehydration
if too much water is drunk. There may be damage to the nerve endings in the
brain. But to place the drug in the same A category as crack and cocaine is
absurd and dangerous. It can lead young people who have used ecstasy into
believing crack and cocaine are no more dangerous.

With his readiness to downgrade cannabis to C class and promote wider use
of prescribing heroin, David Blunkett must have thought he had pre-empted
the home affairs select committee's current inquiry. He has been proved
wrong. But rarely has there been a more propitious time for drugs reform. A
significant libertarian section of the Tory party wants reform, as do the
Liberal Democrats. The latter are expected to adopt the Portuguese
approach, under which the personal use of any drug is no longer a criminal
offence. That is the right direction: serious addiction can be a medical or
social problem, but should certainly not be a criminal offence.