Professional Documents
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Rsa Illegal Drugs Report 2007
Rsa Illegal Drugs Report 2007
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RSA_Drug_Report_Part_IV_prf4:Layout 1 1/3/07 16:44 Page 321
Drugs facing facts
322
Using the harms index
Basing the regulation of drugs on a harms index would present
ministers and other policymakers with a range of new options
when it came to the regulation of existing or new drugs.
How it might work for heroin
In the case of heroin, for example, its likely position at the top
of any hierarchy of harms would virtually rule out any relaxation
of the law relating to its supply. The production, manufacture,
import, distribution and sale of heroin would almost certainly
remain illegal and subject to the strictest penalties. Various
questions might arise, however, over the possession of heroin
for personal use and whether this should remain illegal.
The point of centring a legal framework on a harms index
is obviously to seek to reduce the harms caused. Policymakers
contemplating heroins position at the head of a harms
index would need to consider whether continuing to treat
the possession of heroin for personal use as a criminal offence
causes more harm than it prevents. Should personal possession
of heroin be made legal? Should it remain illegal but be
punishable only by civil penalties? Should it remain illegal
but with those found guilty of possession required to
undergo treatment?
On the one hand, making the possession of heroin legal would
make it easier to identify and approach users with a view to
persuading them to stop, or to reduce their use, or at least to
minimise the harms associated with it. Legalizing possession
would have the effect of removing one burden the threat
of criminal sanctions from a group of people many of whose
lives are already chaotic. Most agencies including many
within the police and prison services would agree that there
is little to be gained from punishing drug addicts by subjecting
them to a prison environment. Drugs are readily available
in prison, any efforts individuals may have been making on
the outside to seek treatment or to maintain family relationships
are disrupted, and the likelihood of their reintegration
into society becomes ever more remote as they become
increasingly stigmatized.
On the other hand, making it legal to buy and possess heroin
while keeping production and supply illegal incorporates
a basic inconsistency: for a condoned act to take place, a criminal
one must already have been committed. Legalizing possession
would make it harder to identify and punish supply offences
without introducing the type of thresholds for personal
RSA_Drug_Report_Part_IV_prf4:Layout 1 1/3/07 16:44 Page 322
possession that have recently been abandoned as impractical.
Outright legalization would undoubtedly encourage suppliers
to market their wares more aggressively, and, although it seems
unlikely, it could have the effect of increasing significantly the
number of those who use heroin.
One possibility that policymakers might consider would be
to replace criminal penalties with administrative ones in order
to avoid imprisoning or giving criminal records to drug users
who have committed no other offence. That said, it is rare for
drug users, even heroin users, to be sent to prison merely for
possession. More usually, if they are imprisoned, it is for crimes
they have committed to finance their habit or, indeed, for
non-payment of the fines that magistrates have imposed precisely
in order to avoid imposing a custodial sentence.
How it might work for cannabis
Cannabis is likely to fall roughly in the middle of any harms
index. Concerns over the age at which people are starting
to use it, the levels at which some people use it, the wider
availability of stronger forms of the drug, the frequent
adulteration of what is sold on the street and the intensifying
debate around its possible long-term links with mental illness,
all indicate that cannabis should continue to be controlled.
But its position on the harms index several places below both
alcohol or tobacco suggests that the form this control takes
might have to correspond far more closely with the way in
which alcohol and tobacco are regulated.
In this connection, it is worth noting that cannabis is often most
harmful when combined with alcohol and tobacco. Significant
numbers of people are believed to drive under the combined
influence of cannabis and alcohol, which is more dangerous
than driving under the influence of either on its own. Smoking
cannabis with tobacco (which helps burning) can promote
tobacco use, which in turn, because tobacco is strongly addictive,
increases the likelihood of cannabis dependence. Those who
depend on both substances are harder to treat successfully for
either. In addition, tobaccos health impacts are on the small
airways of the respiratory system while cannabis primarily affects
the large ones, with the result that the combining of the two
is apt to cause more serious lung problems
Aligning the control system for cannabis more closely with
the control system for alcohol and tobacco would help to
remove a discrepancy that has done more than anything else
to undermine the credibility of drugs policy over the last fifty
A new legal framework for the regulation of drugs
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years, with cannabis users penalized and the users, producers
and retailers of alcohol and tobacco left comparatively free.
If the harms index suggested a change in regulation was
appropriate, ministers and other policymakers would need to
consider some possible options. First, they would have to consider
whether the large-scale production and distribution of cannabis
might be licensed along the same lines as the controls applied
to the production and sale of alcohol and tobacco, with careful
quality controls and restrictions on when, where and to whom
cannabis might be sold and with stricter penalties for unlicensed
production and supply on any scale. Second, ministers would
have to consider whether the small-scale growing of cannabis
for personal use like the making of home-made beer or wine
might be legalized, as it is, for example, in some Australian states.
Finally, ministers would have to consider whether the possession
of cannabis for personal use and so-called social supply might
become legal, with the same kinds of restrictions as apply to the
possession of alcohol and tobacco.
Licensing the production of cannabis would make it possible
to control the strength and the quality of a substance for which
there is likely to be a large and continuing demand. It would
produce revenue that could be ploughed back into prevention
and treatment. At the same time, exerting this kind of control
over the supply of cannabis might have the effect of largely
detaching it from the illegal market for drugs ranked far
above it on the harms index. On the other hand, the existence
of a legitimate market would be no guarantee that the illegal
market would disappear, and the end result might simply be the
multiplication of the sources of supply.
Legalizing the possession of cannabis would place it on the
same footing as substances alcohol and tobacco that are
used by large numbers of people in very much the same ways,
in much the same social settings and for much the same reasons
as cannabis. On the other hand, the mere possession of cannabis
in practice is almost never severely punished, and there may
be no need to take a controversial step that would be widely
construed as condoning or encouraging the use of a substance
that has the potential to cause harm: being less harmful than
alcohol or tobacco does not make cannabis harm-less.
Indeed, the case for using the law to discourage more effectively
peoples use of alcohol and tobacco is at least as strong as the case
for legalizing the possession of cannabis. If alcohol, tobacco and
cannabis are to be brought more closely into line in the eyes
Drugs facing facts
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of the law, then perhaps the move ought to be in the direction
of making alcohol and tobacco possession more difficult rather
than in the direction of making the possession of cannabis easier.
The harms index, with its supporting matrix and map, would
be a tool for every agency responsible for implementing a new
drugs strategy. It could and would be used in connection with
treatment, education and other kinds of prevention and
discouragement as well as in policing and sentencing. With
a means of calculating more precisely how much or how little
harm an individual drug offence had caused, magistrates and
judges would be able more easily to apply appropriate penalties,
and, with a shared but independent reference of this sort to hand,
there would be less scope for personal prejudice. Police services
could use the index to prioritize their efforts to reduce the
harms caused by drugs, much as the Metropolitan Police plans
to use its Criminal Networks Prioritisation Matrix to target
its operations against organized criminal networks. Treatment
services could use it to help drug users set their own behaviours
in context. Teachers, drugs workers and those responsible for
public information campaigns would have a comprehensive
source of up-to-date information, one that their audiences
might actually take seriously the more so if the index
included alcohol and tobacco as points of reference. Policy
makers and politicians would be able to point to an objective
assessment of a drugs harmfulness to justify a change in the
way it was handled, and drugs policy might even be taken to
a considerable extent beyond the reach of partisan politics and
media hysteria.
Concluding reflections
One of the themes of this report has been the need to shift
drugs policy away from its current focus on crime reduction
and the criminal justice system and onto a concern with drugs
as posing a much more varied and complex set of social problems.
Drugs in our society are not just about crime; they are about
individual health, public health, family life and the health and
well-being of entire communities. It cannot be good for the
UK that it is currently the drug-using centre of Europe.
Nevertheless, although we want to shift the focus of policy,
we are certainly conscious that drugs and crime are intimately
interrelated and that a principal aim of any civilized drugs
strategy must be to reduce the amount of crime, especially
violent crime, related to drugs. Harm reduction certainly
includes crime reduction. Under this heading, we would
Concluding reflections
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want to emphasize two points. The first is that, in our view, the
principal preoccupation of the police should be with the fight
against organized crime; the focus of police work should be on
the disruption of the criminal networks that profit hugely from
the sale of drugs and have a monetary interest in ensuring that
drugs, including dangerous drugs such as heroin and cocaine,
are widely marketed.
The second point we would want to emphasize is that the overall
approach advocated in this report, even if it were to prove only
modestly successful, would almost certainly have the effect
of reducing crime. There is no contradiction between providing
a wide range of educational, treatment and other services and
reducing crime. On the contrary, the best way to reduce crime
is almost certainly to focus precisely on providing such services.
Someone who has been made aware of the risks of taking drugs,
or who is in appropriate treatment, or who has been properly
housed, or who has been assisted in putting his or her family
life back together, or who has been helped to find a job, is much
less likely to commit crimes than someone who has not had
support of this kind. Everything we know about the incidence
of problematic drug use shows beyond any doubt that people
who are emotionally, socially and economically deprived are far
more likely both to abuse illegal drugs and to commit criminal
offences related to drugs than those who are not. It follows
that the best drugs policy may not be a drugs policy at all but,
instead, a range of policies designed to address the use of drugs
in their wider social setting.
In this report, we have focused mainly on illegal drugs and to
a lesser extent on alcohol and tobacco. But we need to make
it clear that, although we have said little about legal drugs,
we believe that many of them can be as problematic as illegal
drugs, alcohol and tobacco and, for that reason, should be brought
within the remit of a new Misuse of Substances Act. Over-the-
counter drugs and prescription drugs, like solvents, can be, and
are, frequently misused and abused. Some over-the-counter drugs
and some prescription drugs are highly addictive, and many can
be used in ways that harm those who use them and those around
them. We are also conscious that in this report we have focused
mainly on drugs and other psychoactive substances that already
exist. But we are acutely conscious that new drugs potentially
harmful as well as beneficial are coming onto the market all the
time. One of the reasons we advocate the passage of a new, more
flexible Misuse of Substances Act is to minimize the risk that
harmful new drugs and other substances will, so to speak, slip
under governments radar. The Advisory Council on the Misuse
Drugs facing facts
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of Drugs or some similar independent body needs to be given
a significantly augmented role for the same reason.
It goes without saying that many of the practical measures
proposed in this report will cost money. Additional staff may
be needed, and many of those already working in the field need
additional training. We would, in an ideal world, have liked to
provide a rough estimate of what the total bill will be. But that
was beyond our competence and resources. However, what
should be clear is that public spending along these lines would
almost certainly be, even in purely financial terms, cost-effective.
At the moment, huge amounts of money are wasted on education
that does not educate, on efforts at interdiction that fail to interdict,
on police work that moves problems on rather than solving them,
on coordination that fails to coordinate, on the meeting of wholly
inappropriate targets and, not least, on banging up in prison
people whose incarceration, often for very short periods, costs
a fortune, benefits neither them nor society and is likely to
increase rather than diminish the chances of their re-offending.
No one has ever counted the amount of money wasted in these
and a myriad other ways. It has never been in anyones interest
to do so. Even if it were in someones interest, it would probably
be impossible to do so. But it is hard to believe that the large
amounts of the money that is wasted could not be better spent.
This Commission was established in large part because those
of us who initiated it were conscious that politicians in all parties
perfectly understandably from their point of view run scared
on almost everything to do with drugs. No one wants to be seen
as soft on drugs. Illegal drugs and the people who use them
are demonized. The press retails, sometimes with evident relish,
horror stories of drug-related deaths, conveniently overlooking
the far larger number of drink- and tobacco-related deaths.
It is a curious but significant fact that no government in the past
hundred years has dared to commission a wide-ranging inquiry
into drugs and drugs policy. There is nothing in it for ministers;
the downside risks of being seen to commission such an inquiry
seem to them to be too great, especially as any inquiry would be
bound to recommend major changes.
In fact, however, the large-scale survey of the general public that
we commissioned from the polling organization YouGov suggests
that ministers and other political leaders have more room for
manoeuvre than they think they have, that the general public
knows more about drugs and is readier to contemplate changes in
the laws relating to drugs than most politicians realise. Some of
the surveys more significant findings are included as an appendix
Concluding reflections
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to this report. The survey reveals that almost no one believes that
drugs can be eliminated entirely from our society. It also shows
that a large majority of people believe sharp distinctions can be
drawn between, on the one hand, so-called hard drugs such as
heroin and, on the other, so-called soft drugs such as cannabis
and, moreover, that public policy should also distinguish sharply
between the two. A majority not only support the downgrading
of cannabis from Class B to Class C but go further and believe
the mere possession of cannabis for personal use should no longer
be treated as a criminal offence. Perhaps most significant of all is
the fact that roughly two-thirds of people believe that people who
use illegal drugs but who have not committed any other crime
should be treated as people who may need medical treatment
and other forms of support rather than as criminals who should
be brought before the courts. Our view, in short, is that ministers
and other political leaders caution in handing the issue of drugs
is perfectly understandable but also somewhat excessive.
As we finish work on this report, we are conscious that whatever
we have accomplished constitutes, at most, a beginning. We as
a Commission will remain in being to take part in the debate about
the future of drugs policy that we hope we succeed in provoking.
We hope to put into practice some of the specific ideas contained
in our report. But we are well aware that it will be up to others
mostly ministers, officials and people in local government and the
voluntary sector to build on the foundations that we hope we
have laid. In particular, we urge ministers to set in train work on
a new Misuse of Substances Act and to undertake with urgency
the task of reorienting drugs policy and redirecting it towards
a broader conception of harm prevention and reduction. As we
said in the Introduction, current policy is broke and needs to
be fixed. Needless to say, we hope that leading figures in the
opposition parties will support the redirection of policy that we
propose and, while subjecting the detail of any proposed changes
to rigorous scrutiny, will resist the temptation to score points
off ministers who will, after all, be undertaking a difficult task.
Reforming drugs policy is already, politically, a thankless task.
It should not be turned into a politically suicidal task.
One thing should be clear, to whomever is involved. This is not
a field in which there are magic bullets, quick fixes or instant
solutions. Reducing the amount of harms that drugs cause will
take a long time, and there will be false starts and undoubtedly,
from time to time, disasters along the way. Everyone involved
will be in for a long haul. But, if by, say, 2010 or 2020 the abuse
of drugs is no longer the blight on our society that it is now,
it will have been worth it.
Drugs facing facts
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Appendix
RSA/The Daily Telegraph YouGov survey on the attitudes
of the general public towards drugs and drug use
On behalf of the RSA Commission, YouGov elicited the
opinions of 2,938 adults across Great Britain online between
21 and 26 June 2006. The data have been weighted to conform
to the demographic profile of British adults as a whole. YouGov
abides by the rules of the British Polling Council.
Full details of the surveys findings can be found on the
Commissions website at www.rsadrugscommission.org. Only
a portion of the findings have been set out below. All of the
numbers in the tables are percentages of the total sample.
Which of the following do you think is the more realistic view?
All Born Born Born
respondents before 1945 1945-60 after 1960
It is possible to eliminate
drugs completely from
our society: that is, to
stop everyone or almost
everyone from using drugs 7 7 6 8
Whether we like it or not,
there will always be people
who use drugs, and the
aim should be to reduce
the harm that they cause
themselves and others 89 91 91 86
Dont know 4 3 3 6
From what you know, which of the following do you think causes the
most serious harm to the largest number of people and their families?
And which causes the next most harm? (The percentages combine the
results of the answers to both questions.)
All Born Born Born
respondents before 1945 1945-60 after 1960
Consuming alcohol 78 76 77 80
Smoking tobacco 60 50 56 60
Taking illegal drugs 55 70 60 48
Dont know 6 4 6 7
Appendix
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At the moment different illegal drugs are classified from A to C, roughly
according to how much harm they are thought to cause individuals and
society. For the guidance of the public, do you think different alcoholic
drinks and different forms of tobacco should be classified in the same way?
All Born Born Born
respondents before 1945 1945-60 after 1960
Yes, they should 62 60 66 61
No, they shouldnt 29 33 28 29
Dont know 9 7 6 11
Thinking only of what are sometimes called hard drugs, such as heroin
and cocaine, which one of the following statements comes closer to your
own view?
All Born Born Born
respondents before 1945 1945-60 after 1960
It is possible for some
people to use hard drugs
quite safely, without doing
themselves and those around
them any more harm than
drinking alcohol or smoking
in moderation 17 12 11 21
Using hard drugs almost
always causes a lot of harm
to the users and those around
them more harm than is
caused by drinking alcohol
or smoking in moderation 76 81 83 70
Dont know 7 6 6 9
Drugs facing facts
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Same question but asked only about what are sometimes called soft
drugs, such as cannabis.
All Born Born Born
respondents before 1945 1945-60 after 1960
It is possible for some
people to use soft drugs
safely, without doing
themselves and those
around them any more
harm than drinking alcohol
or smoking in moderation 64 50 61 71
Using soft drugs almost
always causes a lot of harm
to the users and those around
them more harm than is
caused by drinking alcohol
or smoking in moderation 28 43 31 22
Dont know 7 7 8 6
From what you know, which one of the following statements about
so-called hard drugs, such as heroin and cocaine, comes closest to your
own view?
All Born Born Born
respondents before 1945 1945-60 after 1960
A majority of those who
use hard drugs never become
involved in other crimes at all 4 2 3 6
A majority of those who use
hard drugs become, as a result
of using the drugs, involved
in committing other crimes 72 78 77 66
A majority of those who use
hard drugs are the sorts of people
who would become involved in
committing other crimes even
if they did not use these drugs 13 12 9 16
Dont know 11 8 10 12
Appendix
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Same question but asked only about so-called soft drugs such as cannabis.
All Born Born Born
respondents before 1945 1945-60 after 1960
A majority of those who use
soft drugs never become
involved in other crimes at all 43 35 40 47
A majority of those who use
soft drugs become, as a result
of using the drugs, involved
in committing other crimes 30 42 33 25
A majority of those who use
soft drugs are the sorts of people
who would become involved
in committing other crimes
even if they did not use
these drugs 11 11 9 12
Dont know 16 13 18 15
Thinking about hard drugs, such as heroin and cocaine, which one of the
following statements comes closest to your own view?
All Born Born Born
respondents before 1945 1945-60 after 1960
Not only the sale of hard drugs
but the possession of them for
personal use should remain
a criminal offence as now 73 82 78 67
The possession of such drugs
for personal use should remain
illegal but should be regarded
as a lesser offence, like speeding
or parking illegally, rather than
a criminal offence 17 11 15 20
The possession of such drugs
for personal use should no
longer be illegal 6 4 5 7
% saying possession for personal
use should no longer remain
a criminal offence as now 23 15 20 27
Dont know 5 2 3 7
Drugs facing facts
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Same question asked about soft drugs, such as cannabis, but with
different options.
All Born Born Born
respondents before 1945 1945-60 after 1960
Both the sale of soft drugs
and possessing them for
personal use should be
treated as criminal offences 38 51 37 34
Selling such drugs should
remain a criminal offence
as now, but possessing them
for personal use should be
regarded as a lesser offence,
like speeding or parking illegally 30 29 33 28
Selling such drugs should
remain a criminal offence
as now, but possessing them
for personal use should no
longer be treated as an
offence at all 13 11 12 14
Both the sale and the
possession of soft drugs
should no longer be against
the law: they should both
be legalized 15 8 13 18
% saying possession for personal
use should be treated as a lesser
offence or not treated as an
offence at all 58 48 58 60
Dont know 5 2 5 6
Suppose people use illegal drugs but have not committed any other crime.
In your opinion, should such people be treated as criminals and brought
before the courts, or should they be treated as people who may need
medical treatment and other forms of support?
All Born Born Born
respondents before 1945 1945-60 after 1960
They should be treated
as criminals and brought
before the courts 30 36 31 28
They should be treated
as people who may need
treatment and other forms
of support 62 63 63 62
Dont know 7 1 6 10
Appendix
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People often talk about treatment in connection with drugs. From what
you know how effective do you think treatment can be?
All Born Born Born
respondents before 1945 1945-60 after 1960
With proper treatment and
support, even confirmed drug
users can be weaned off drugs
so that they become and
remain clean 42 37 40 46
With proper treatment and
support, confirmed users can
start to lead more normal,
crime-free lives even if they
are not entirely free of drugs 37 40 39 34
Even if they are given proper
treatment and support, it is
virtually impossible for confirmed
users to lead normal lives or
become free of drugs 9 11 9 8
% saying treatment works 79 77 79 80
Dont know 12 12 12 12
In the case of heroin users who do not respond to other forms of treatment,
which of the following do you think is the more appropriate course of action?
All Born Born Born
respondents before 1945 1945-60 after 1960
Doctors should be encouraged
to prescribe maintenance doses
of methadone or possibly even
heroin so that the users health
can be monitored and he or
she is less likely to steal in order
to get money to pay for drugs 48 49 51 45
Doctors should not be encouraged
to prescribe maintenance doses
of any substance and the heroin
user should be brought before the
courts and either fined or required
to undergo additional treatment 36 39 34 36
Dont know 17 12 16 18
Drugs facing facts
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If one or more drugs were either decriminalized or legalized completely,
what do you think would be the effect on the number of people using
those drugs?
All Born Born Born
respondents before 1945 1945-60 after 1960
Many more people would
use those drugs than now 30 40 33 24
Some more people would
use them than now 32 33 31 32
Only a few more people
would use them 21 15 19 25
No more people would
use them 9 6 9 11
Dont know 8 5 8 9
If drugs were either decriminalized or legalized, what do you think would
be the effect on the number of street crimes and burglaries associated with
drugs? Would the number of such crimes?
All Born Born Born
respondents before 1945 1945-60 after 1960
Fall sharply 10 9 11 10
Fall a little 20 17 17 22
Neither increase nor fall 27 28 26 26
Increase a little 13 11 13 13
Increase sharply 18 27 20 14
Dont know 13 9 11 15
Appendix
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