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Alas Smith and Brown

Wednesday/07/May 2008 Filed in: Commentary
The lunacy that has been demonstrated this morning with regard to the classification of cannabis has clearly come about as a result of a real change in what we now view the purpose of drug strategy in the UK to be. Whereas once - back at the time of the 1995, 1998 and even 2002 drug strategies - the aim of strategy was clearly to pragmatically tackle the harms related to drug use, it is now the clear intention of this government, led in this respect by Jacqui Smith and Gordon Brown, to turn the clock back to a time when all you had to do was say "No" and everything was fine and dandy

Despite the clear evidence that cannabis use has fallen among young people and that help seeking behaviour has increased since cannabis was declassified, the government has decided that it would rather take a moral - if ineffective and dangerous - stance, than respond effectively to the needs of young people and families.

When the ACMD recommended a change to the status of cannabis under the Misuse of Drugs Act in March 2002 they were clear about one thing. That reclassification needed to be accompanied by a clear public health campaign targeted at those groups most at risk that sought to reduce both the use of cannabis and its associated risks. This has not happened. The ACMD also recommended that the government provide clear and unambiguous information to the public about why the decision had been made and what it would achieve. This has not happened.

Once again in its report published today, the ACMD said

Cannabis can unquestionably cause harm to individuals and society. The Council therefore advises that strategies designed to minimise its use and adverse effects must be predominantly public health ones. Criminal justice measures – irrespective of classification – will have only a limited effect on usage. We therefore urge you to invite the UK’s Chief Medical Officers to develop, on behalf of the government, a public health strategy that will meet our shared goals. Anything less will prejudice the health of future generations.

The media in the UK have been sending out some pretty spectacularly dodgy information about cannabis over the past few years. From the myth of cannabis adulterated with heroin and cocaine ("to get children hooked') to the the myth that a single joint of cannabis raises the risk of schizophrenia by 40%, (the ACMD said "the magnitude of the effect of cannabis use on the subsequent development of schizophrenia does not appear to be substantial") no depths have been too low to plummet.

But perhaps the most dangerous of all these myths is the supposition that increasing the classification of a drug reduces the harm it causes. And of all the myths, this is the one which has probably had the greatest impact on the disastrous decision made by Smith and Brown today.

There is no evidence whatsoever to support the assertion that increasing penalties reduces the harm cannabis does. To the contrary, if we look at the dangers and risks to young people of engagement with the criminal justice system, the risks of a market driven further underground, the fear and stigma attached to drugs with higher sanctions that can impact on people seeking help for problems ("if I go to the doctor about this will they call the police?") you may come to suppose like me that the decision made today can only further endanger the health and wellbeing of young people and communities. You may also like me wonder if the ACMD actually looked at the role of classification and the criminal justice system in the harm cannabis causes and the likely impact of a change in classification on those harms? The answer is no. Since their savaging by the Science and Technology committee in 2006 they have shied away from exploring anything other than the actually health harms of the drug itself. In isolation from the legal or social context in which it is used.

Jacqui Smith interviewed on the World At One on Radio 4 stated that the Government would accept all of the ACMD's recommendations except those around the Misuse of Drugs Act (that's a bit like saying to a Doctor "I'll obey all your directions about my lifestyle except the ones that are about health). I wonder if we will see a public health strategy directed around cannabis? And I wonder what the government will do when that public health strategy recommends that increasing the criminal justice response has increased the public and individual health risks - as it surely must? We shall have to wait and see.

Among the other recommendations of the ACMD is a renewed emphasis on research into dealing with what they call cannabis addiction - with some focus on looking for pharmacological treatments for dependency. To be honest, for me, the prospect of cannabis users being flung into the same game as heroin users - playing as the ball, flipping to and fro between the table tennis bats of medicalisation and criminalisation ad infinitum - is somewhat depressing. But of course there is nothing like the setting of unrealistic goals to generate huge amounts of sisyphean industry and this would not be the first time the death of pragmatism had lead to investment in noble if essentially ill fated endeavours. 

In the meantime there's a substantial piece of work for that ever shrinking team at the Home Office to start to get to grips with as well, and only a couple of weeks for them to do it in.

In two weeks time, its "National Tackling Drugs Week". DATs across the country have been pulling together all their materials and information for stands in shopping centres and libraries, community centres and schools publicising the successes of the Government in tackling drug issues. As a former DAT co-ordinator I can tell you that one of the most popular leaflets - particularly for young people and parents - relates to cannabis and its attendant risks. Presumably the Home Office has a new version standing by ready to go out across the country to make sure that people are well informed about this shift in the Government's position and the rationale behind it.

Or will they be leaving that, along with policy making, to the tabloid press?

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