The War on Drugs

I notice this Monday morning that a Commons select committee is recommending a review of the drugs laws in the UK. Two things to say at the outset. The first is that, apparently, the use of illegal drugs and offences connected with them, have been falling significantly. This may mean the current war on drugs is succeeding or, as I suspect, it simply means drugs are becoming less fashionable. Secondly, there is a wide gulf in cultural outlook of people who were born before 1945 and those who were born since. Yes, as precise as that. The older of the two groups will be, on the whole, very fearful of any liberalisation of drugs laws;the younger group, however, are likely to take a more balanced view. Thus, as the older 'drugs-conservative' group age, or die, or at least vacate positions of influence, the agenda is bound to change merely through the passage of time. That time is approaching. My view is very strong, which is that virtually all drugs should be de-criminalised unless there is a dramatic threat to public health (ketamine may be an example. It is absurd that alcohol and tobacco remain legal while other types of narcotic are not. But, more compellingly, there is a deep philosophical argument that says the state has no business telling peole how they lead their lives. Many people voluntarily take risks and we do not make such activities illegal, as long. of course, as there is an extensive public campaign to demonstrate the risks (as occurs with smoking and alcolhol consumption. True, the activity of persading people to take risks, i.e. use potentially dangerous drugs, may well be a crime, but, here again, we do not prosecute people for persuading them that parachute jumping, hang gliding or extreme mountaineering are good ideas. No, the misuse of drugs is a health and cultural issue and should be treated as such. Ask yourself this question. 'If we were to start again from scratch, knowing what we now know, and drugs narcotics suddenly appeared on the scene, would we handle the situation as we currently are ?' Clearly not. By crminalising the production, marketing and use of narcotics we would be creating a whole new set of crimes and a whole new criminal community overnight. So, we must study, carefully and rationally, the experience of Holland, Portugal and the handful of US states who have voted to legalise cannabis. But I would be more radical. In the specific case of heroin and crack cocaine, the state should offer all current (not new) users free prescriptions in return for agreement to undergo rehabilitation programmes and to use the drugs under controlled conditions. This would destroy the market for such drugs virtually overnight, take away the incentive for anyone to persuade others to start to use such drugs (there would no longer be a commercial interest in doing so, by pushers and dealers)and would eliminate the crimes associated with use and dealing. In particular, users would not have to resort to crime or prostitution to finance their habit. This will only happen, of course, when the demographic as I described above comes about. But that time is coming. I believe that, in ten years time, such changes in law and practice will become publicly acceptable. We should start preparing for that day right now.