DHA in the Media
- It's not a moral panic. Drugs really do distroy communites (Vernon Coaker, response - Guardian, 25 May 2007)
- Increment of harm (Danny Kushlick, Guardian, 16 May 2007)
- Drugs policy must embrace public health says new alliance (Drink and Drug News, 7 May 2007)
It's not a moral panic. Drugs really do destroy communities
Vernon Coaker
Friday May 25, 2007
The Guardian
Danny Kushlick argued that the government should view drugs as a social rather than a criminal problem ( Increment of harm , May 16). I share his commitment to reducing the harm caused by illegal drugs, but I don't agree with his approach. Too often the drugs debate is characterised by polarised viewpoints: those arguing for harm reduction versus those arguing for greater prohibition and tougher punishments for dealers and drug users.
The drugs debate, however, is more complex, and I do not see this as an either/or issue. Our strategy needs to consider how best to reduce drug use, and this is best done through a strategy that focuses on enforcement, early intervention, education and treatment.
Danny argued that "most of the drugs initiatives in the last decade have had draconian law-making at their core". I make no apology for making tough sentences available to the courts for convicted drug dealers. Drug use destroys individuals, families and communities, and this is not in response to "moral panic" but legitimate concern about the effects of drug-taking. Tough enforcement, however, complements support for education and treatment.
Since 2001/02 we have invested over £9bn in enforcement, education and treatment. This has enabled police to crack down on dealers; offer treatment, support and hope to thousands of drug users; and provide credible information on the dangers of drugs to millions of young people. And we have seen positive results. Overall drug use has fallen, drug use among young people has fallen by 21%, and class-A drug use remains stable. In addition, drug-related crime has fallen by a fifth in the last four years, while the harms caused by illegal drug use have declined by nearly a quarter.
This is largely due to the hard work of dedicated professionals and volunteers from a wide range of organisations and agencies around the country.
Danny wrote that many in the drugs field are frustrated by the government's obsession with crime reduction, and suggested that we must choose between public health and enforcement. I regularly meet professionals on the frontline and that has not been my experience. We do not have to make a choice between public health and tough enforcement. We need both if we are to continue to drive down drug use.
Danny also recommended that we look to other countries - the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland and Portugal among them - which adopt a public-health approach to tackling drug use. We can always learn from abroad, but we have to be wary of making assumptions and comparisons. Ultimately, each country has to tailor its own strategy appropriate to its history, traditions and culture, through open and honest discussion about the problems it faces.
I welcome that discussion and do not accept the charge that there has been "almost no genuine debate". We will shortly consult on a new drug strategy that will draw on the experience of communities, families, former drug users and professionals to see how we can sharpen our focus. I hope Danny and others will play a constructive role.
· Vernon Coaker is a Home Office minister.
public.enquiries@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk
Increment of harm
Danny Kushlick
Wednesday May 16, 2007
The Guardian
Government obsession with drug crime has overshadowed the needs of the truly marginalised UK drug policy is unique. In no other area of social policy do we criminalise at one stroke both recreation and disadvantage. In no other area have we seen so much evidence of the counterproductive effects of a predominantly criminal justice response to a public health problem. And we have seen almost no genuine debate or evidence-based scrutiny from ministers. The last 10 years of this parliament's tacit and active support for a policy based on moral panic has finally broken the camel's back. As the Home Office reviews its last 10-year strategy - results are expected next month - the Drugs and Health Alliance has been formed to bring together organisations committed to bringing about a public health-led approach for the next decade.
In the mid-80s the Conservative government, in the face of a potential HIV/Aids epidemic, initiated a proactive harm reduction strategy that led to the UK having one of the world's lowest rates of HIV. It was based exclusively on a pragmatic public health and harm reduction approach to dealing with unsafe sex and injecting. No one suggested that we should ramp up penalties for injecting drugs or make unsafe sex illegal. How times have changed. Twenty years later there are significant political taboos among senior policymakers who dare question the prevailing tough criminal justice line on drugs. The result has been that most of the drugs initiatives in the last decade have had draconian law-making at their core.
Our current policy is completely at odds with social and legislative norms, a strategy based on criminalising drugs in order to reduce social harm. Yet, as the PM's strategy unit drugs report of 2003 showed, it is the very illegality of the supply and use of drugs that causes harm. Despite our commitment to harm reduction, drug use exists within a political and legal framework that is harm maximising; hepatitis C remains at 80% among injecting drug-users and HIV, while still very low, is on the increase.
Throughout the last decade government has shown a pathological unwillingness to debate the efficacy of the current approach. Witness the lack of genuine engagement with the Police Foundation drugs report of 2000, the Home Affairs Select Committee report of 2002, the Science and Technology Committee report on drug classification of 2006 and the recent RSA report, as well as the announced and then withdrawn public consultation on the drug classification system and the lack of consultation or parliamentary scrutiny of the Drugs Act 2005. The list is endless. One concern is that the upcoming consultation on the future of the UK drug strategy will end up looking strikingly similar to the last one.
The frustration of many working in the drugs field is that the obsession with crime reduction has overshadowed the need for improvement of individual and public health. We are demonising some of the most marginalised people in the UK rather than offering them effective treatment. For commissioners of services, this ought to look perverse and bizarre: enforce the drug laws in such a way as to increase the offending of problematic users of the most dangerous drugs, "identify" them through the criminal justice system and finally spend money on "treatment", as ordered by the court, as a way of reducing their offending. The £13bn to £16bn in crime costs associated with the current drug policy should suggest an urgent reallocation of the billions spent on counterproductive heavyhanded enforcement, toward education, dealing with underlying social problems and treatment in a primary care setting.
Ultimately, we need a new paradigm for drug policy development, one based around health and wellbeing rather than macho posturing and knee-jerk, short-term responses to the failures of the current criminal justice-based policy. The UK sits atop the rankings for levels of problematic heroin and cocaine use. The Dutch, Spanish, Swiss, Portuguese and numerous other nations have all adopted a more public health-focused approach. The average age of heroin users in the Netherlands is 40. They have half the rate of cannabis use compared to the UK. Isn't it time that we joined them?
The consultation on the new strategy offers a window of opportunity for change that will close again soon. This is our chance to let government know that tough enforcement does not reduce harm, it creates it. We should grab the chance with both hands.
· Danny Kushlick is spokesperson for the Drugs and Health Alliance
Drugshealthalliance.net
dannykushlick@yahoo.co.uk
Drugs policy must embrace public health says new alliance
7 May 2007
Drink and Drug News
A newly formed Drugs and Health Alliance is calling for public health to be put at the heart of UK drugs policy.
Launching this week in London, representatives from lobbying groups, academia and treatment services spoke about the need for the criminal justice approach to be overturned. The group called for drug strategy to be taken from the Home Office and 'shifted to an evidence-based public health approach'.
'This is a momentous moment - a watershed for drugs policy,' said Danny Kushlick of the Transform Drugs Policy Foundation, spokesperson for the group. DHA's active recruitment has so far attracted The Alliance, the Beckley Foundation, the International Harm Reduction Association (IHRA), the Kaleidoscope Project, Release, the SocialistHealth Alliance, Plymouth Public Health Development Unit and the UK Harm Reduction Alliance (UKHRA).
With 'no strong evidence base for continuing a criminal justice based strategy', there was need to underpin new strategy with evidence and consider how the £13bn annual costs of drug crime could be channelled towards health and wellbeing.
'The 2005 Drugs Act was not supported by the drugs field,' said Mr Kushlick. 'The Drugs and Health Alliance is the manifestation of concerns about where strategy might go, particularly because of the lack of public consultation.'
Gerry Stimson said his organisation, IHRA, was pleased to be part of the alliance, as 'we have to speak up for what we believe in'.
According to Prof Stimson, the public health approach to harm reduction was relatively simple, being 'facilitative, non-coercive and non-punitive'.The Labour government had downplayed public health while they got 'tough on crime' he said, but talk of 'war on drugs' was 'hurtful and harmful' in a number of ways:
'We're talking to a bunch of people who are already down. It's a policy trap and difficult for politicians to break away from, as they're then seen as weak on crime,' he said. It was a fundamental error to move drugs to the Home Office, away from public health, he added: 'It's clearly time to get back to what works for drugs policy and the wider community.
Researcher Neil Hunt acknowledged that the government had 'done a lot that's right' to improve drug treatment, but wanted drug strategy to be better at guaranteeing treatment for all who needed it. 'General, good, basic healthcare', from family planning to dental care, could make a big impact, he pointed out, alongside addressing patchy hepatitis C treatment, that was 'largely inaccessible in many areas of the country'.
'Research around good day programmes doesn't exist,' he said. Similarly there was lack of evidence on targeted prevention for young people.
'I'm seeing innovative, creative people having their funding taken away, but there's no spending to investigate which of these programmes work,' said Mr Hunt. 'We don't invest in the many things that work, and this needs to change in the drugs strategy.'
Martin Blakeborough, director of the Kaleidoscope Project and a member of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), said the DHA's agenda involved health in its widest sense, from housing to wellbeing.
'We should not be criminalising and stigmatizing people,' he said. 'We need to look at why people want to get into that state in the first place.'
'I hope other services sign up to this alliance,' he added. 'Surely it's not that controversial to say that health is the most important thing.'
DHA's website is www.drugshealthalliance.net