Drug WarRant

Rubin · ___ Joined: 18 Jul 2006 Posts: 23 Location: UK

There have been two calls for the current UK drugs classifications to be over-hauled.

1) Prof. Colin Blakemore (CE MRC) and Prof. David Nutt (Chair of the ACMD technical committee) have written a paper for the Lancet (yet unpublished) which attempts to analyze present UK drug classes in terms of harms (in modern parlance it does risk assessments).

UK Parliamentary SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY committee takes evidence on 7 June 2006 (see Q1138)

daksya · Moderator Joined: 09 Feb 2006 Posts: 391

Is it possible to get a hold of either of the two papers?

Rubin · ___ Joined: 18 Jul 2006 Posts: 23 Location: UK

Not yet.

1) The Lancet paper will, most likely, be published soon. I was actually under the impression that it was many months away. It's nice to hear that the draft has already been written and, presumably, submitted to the Lancet and awaiting approval (which should be a formality - given the status of Blakemore and Nutt).

Nutt & Blakemore forthcoming Lancet paper

2) The internal Home Office report "Review of the Drugs Classification System", sits in Limbo. They don't want to publish it until a 3rd report is published! If a UK MP isn't allowed to read it we won't be:

Paul Flynn's question

3) The 3rd report is parliament's Science and Technology committee's report on Scientific Evidence and how government handles it. They have been investigating the drugs classification system as a case study - and are far from happy with it. The minutes of their 4 evidence gathering sessions on drugs make facinating reading.

http://www.geocities.com/PoliticsOfSin/clarke/index.html

I have no idea when that will be finished - I guess, sometime after the summer.

EDIT - replaced my old site URL

Rubin · ___ Joined: 18 Jul 2006 Posts: 23 Location: UK

MPs: Scrap useless drug classification, by Sophie Goodchild and Angela Foster

Rubin · ___ Joined: 18 Jul 2006 Posts: 23 Location: UK

More news:

MPs savage government's 'ad hoc' drug policy

Drug classification rethink urged (The BBC have actually read the Nutt/Blackmore forth-coming Lancet paper)

The actual report by the Science and Technology Committee: "Drug classification: making a hash of it? (HC 1031)"

HTML (web), report

PDF, report plus background documents (recommended)

Rubin · ___ Joined: 18 Jul 2006 Posts: 23 Location: UK

Cannabis more harmful than LSD!

This is a chart from the forth-coming Lancet paper by David Nutt and Colin Blakemore. It uses quite a subjective harm scale, but then every risk assessment has a huge sujective element to it.

That paper is Appendix 14 of the report and Appedix 12 of the same report is the procedure they used:

Appendix 14 of MPs report

Appendix 12 of MPs report

My page about the Clarke saga

daksya · Moderator Joined: 09 Feb 2006 Posts: 391

There's much to pick apart, but I'm in the process of moving. Till tomorrow.

Rubin · ___ Joined: 18 Jul 2006 Posts: 23 Location: UK

Factual Correction

Above I wrote:

Rubin · ___ Joined: 18 Jul 2006 Posts: 23 Location: UK

Google News has a list of reports but ...

I notice that the US press are ignoring this as usual. Hardly anything ever seems to get into the US press. Are they paid to ignore controversial drug reports or are they all just wankers? Today's Slate had an article on meth trafficker databases on the web - a sort of Megan's Law against druggies. It's sad that Shafer feels the need to justify reporting on such a shameful abuse of human rights as this; anticipating his critics. Shafer has already, recently reported on drug abuse within the media this week and last. So, the US media ignore or hype drug stories; do they gang up on other journalists who refuse to toe the party line?, perhaps Shafer was just joking when he excused the recent flood of meth stories at Slate.

There are quite of lot of other editorials in the British media on this Science & Technology Committee Report too.

The reason it's big here is because the ACMD seem to have broke ranks with government by leaking the Lancet paper to just about everyone whom they thought should read it. It made its way to the BBC, who printed the comparative drug harm chart and are hosting the full report.

The essence of the dispute between government and ACMD seems to be one over roles. The government must consult the ACMD before changing the law but are under no obligation to listen to the ACMD's advice. Given that the ACMD are drug experts and the government are largely ignorant this is bound to cause friction. UK government want to keep the final say so in deciding drug classifications and reserve the right to determine the social harm caused by a drug. In contradiction the ACMD see it as their role to determine social harm by looking at the evidence base. Now government are ignoring the evidence-base (and have been doing so since year dot) because their assessment of social harm is purely subjective (e.g. alcohol is not socially harmful because it's normalised within society!). But things came to a head early this year when Home Office minister Charles Clarke declared that the government had an evidence-based drugs policy. Perhaps Clarke didn't know the truth and simply made a mistake? The upshot was that Clarke agreed to publish a report within weeks into drugs classification. That was 6 months ago and the report still rots in the new Home Secretary's (John Reid) in-tray.

All is not lost, John Reid was quoted last year saying: "Prohibition doesn't work, as the US found out many years ago." Now he faces a dilemma. UK enforcement of the drugs laws depends on the drug class. Most resources are spent enforcing prohibitions against class A drugs and such drugs have the highest penalties (including, a more or less, mandatory prison sentence for dealing). But the drug classes are pretty meaningless. How can they justify enforcing prohibitions against LSD and Ecstasy when these are rated less harmful than booze and tobacco? The alternative enforcement scheme advocated is to enforce and punish according to the degree of criminality involved in the drug trade. That will mean that it can no longer be justified to automatically imprison all small-time class A drug dealers. It implies a huge change of policy; which I don't think we'll see.

PS1: Many people will look at that chart on the BBC site and immediately come to the conclusion that it's wrong. I don't think it makes sense to quibble over details such as glue is more dangerous or cannabis is less dangerous. You'd be missing the point if you did. It's pretty arbitrary but, those experts do actually know more than most of us here. There are still some sensible criticisms of the classification system to be made. The point is the actual schema to decide harm is wrong because it ignores the effect of prohibition in creating harm.

PS 2: Line 3 above. English use of the term wanker (rather than Australian).

Rubin · ___ Joined: 18 Jul 2006 Posts: 23 Location: UK

I've updated my page:

UK drug reclassification debate and enquiries

It has my specific criticisms of the new drug harm scale written by the ACMD. I'd be interested in any other criticisms that can be made of this document - or do people thing it isn't worth bothering with - given that we, in the UK, still have the A,B,C system, and that you in the States will ignore it anyhow?

It nevertheless, seems that this is putting a huge nail in the coffin of the A,B,C system and I wouldn't be surprised if my government already have the answer, in the form of, a (skeletal) new and more sophisticated, prohibitionist policy ready in the wings.

allan · ______ Joined: 09 Feb 2006 Posts: 582

Thanks Rubin. Keep it coming!
_________________
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the illegality of cannabis is outrageous, an impediment to full utilization of a drug which helps produce the serenity and insight, sensitivity and fellowship so desperately needed in this increasingly mad and dangerous world.
- Carl Sagan

Rubin · ___ Joined: 18 Jul 2006 Posts: 23 Location: UK

Althought the ACMD proposals are quite conservative (with a little 'c') they are too much for the UK government. Yesterday saw the leaking of a "secret dossier compiled by Tony Blair's own No10 Strategy Unit" to the UK tabloid's The News of the World and the Daily Mail. The essential message was that the minor decriminalization of cannabis from class B to class C has produced an explosion (is the correct term epidemic nowadays?) of both cannabis and hard drug use (don't forget that cannabis is a gateway drug!). The target in the tabloids' sights is the ACMD - who are regarded as having committed apostasy by forgetting the drug war mantra - the purpose of drug policy is to send out a message that drug use is harmful. Actually writing that paper was a step too far and in the government's eye is probably seen as an attempt to influence policy.

This 'leak' is a Blairite trademark. They've been giving unofficial briefings and leaks to the press ever since they came to power in an effort to manipulate public opinion to their way of thinking.

PS 1: The ACMD are actually conservative with a small 'c'. Their problem is that they think the government should have a rational (prohibitionist) drug policy. Little do they know that drug policies everywhere have generally been political footballs - sending all sorts of messages to us.

PS 2: Normally the Home Office is responsible for crime (policy and gathering data on) so you'd expect the leak to come from there wouldn'd you? Wrong. The ACMD are part of the Home Office. By originating a leak from the Prime Ministers office our government are able to slap the ACMD down without being seen to be openly against them. After all, Blair can say: "our internal report (written for the purpose of analysis) was somehow leaked to the press". No one can prove that Blair ordered it! Likewise, even if the ACMD suspect a deliberate leak, they can't point the finger at their boss - John Reid.

daksya · Moderator Joined: 09 Feb 2006 Posts: 391

Rubin - The essential message was that the minor decriminalization of cannabis from class B to class C has produced an explosion (is the correct term epidemic nowadays?) of both cannabis and hard drug use (don't forget that cannabis is a gateway drug!).

Then Daily Mail says, "There are an estimated 3.5million regular cannabis users", with a seemingly weird definition of 'regular' i.e. past year use.

The 2003 Strategy Unit Report (Phase I) reported 3.1 million past-year users in 2000. So the change from 2000 to 2005/6(?) is close to 400,000 or 13%. We need figures for 2003 to have a better idea.

Almost all heroin and crack addicts began by smoking cannabis, the report adds.

That was true, before as well. What are the new rates?

Rubin, is this leaked report available somewhere?

Rubin · ___ Joined: 18 Jul 2006 Posts: 23 Location: UK

I don't think there is a leaked report. I think this was a briefing given to the press (with the PM office's approval) so that they would slam the ACMD for being too liberal.

Many so-called "leaks" which mention reports often fail to give any details of the actual report they are supposed to be commentating on - in a world of the internet and e-publishing that is truly bizarre. It should be piss easy for a real whistle-blower to get hold of an actual report for the press to see.

The give-away clue is in the low quality of the papers to whom the so-called secret data was "leaked". Quality newspapers such as the Times, Guardian, Independent and Telegraph get real leaks. Trash like the Daily Mail and News of the World are more likely to be vehicles for news-management from the PM's office.