Fab New Strategy

There, I tried to jazz up the title but I fear anything with the word strategy in it is likely to sound oh-so-dull.

Anyway, it arrived fresh and squeaky yesterday and is the new national drug strategy. The welcome seemed rather muted though, the press weren't all over it, maybe because there's a lot of other hard news and I haven't spoken to anyone in the field who is desperate to chat about it - not yet anyway.

Good bits:

• Roll out of heroin prescribing programme subject to the pilots going OK - for those who just can not clean up their act any other way. Very brave politically.
• A call for more innovative treatment.
• A surprising (so it seems at first glance) emphasis on treatment, we all thought it would be much more enforcement.
• Acceptance of evidence base for treatments which were thought controversial e.g. methadone maintenance.

Not so good bits:

• Continuation of emphasis on law'n'order including asset seizing on arrest. Another erosion of basic law i.e. assumption of guilt until proven innocent.
  

Really awful bit:

• Removal or denial of benefits if you don't comply with treatment. What? Are they expecting treatment agencies to grass up clients to the benefits agancies if they miss an appointment? I must read this bit again in detail but it smacks of poor policy development.
  

Now read on....

Whingein' n Bingein'

Moral panic time - young people it seems are drinking themselves silly on cheap alcohol in public.

Well it's true - a bit.

We are a nation of bingers - as are most northern European countries. Try spending an interesting couple of hours in Finland at chucking out (and I mean that in many senses of the word) time on a Saturday night.

What to do about it? Well one thing would be to enforce the laws we already have and do it properly. The police should be policing licensed premises and ensuring they are not selling to underage drinkers - trading standards officers too. But it appears they don't have the time despite the bingeing problem being top of the media and public list of 'things to get rid of'.

Here's a new idea. Let 16 year-olds in to pubs and allow them to drink alcohol in moderate amounts. Pubs are safer environments in which to drink than local street corners or rec grounds after glugging down 12 pints of Stella or cheap cider. There is evidence (anecdotal at least) that pubs have become better managed since the reform of the licensing laws. It also means that the right-of-passage in to the pub moves down age-wise, a bit. 16 year olds can be supervised a little better and under 16's might find it a bit harder to get booze on account of looking younger, although I accept that lots of 14 year olds can look older if they try, but hey.

Go aggressively after businesses which sell to underage drinkers and take their licences away.

Why isn't this happening? Answers please.

Ghastly Stuff Happened

So 'Steve' Wright (why not Steven? Why grant him the dignity of a nickname?) has gone down for a long, long time.

Good.

Why do I care? Well he killed 5 sex workers - at least- and in the most disadainful, self gratifying way. Taking advantage of women who were on the streets to earn a little cash to pay for their big habits. But here's the thing, and yes I am very cross about this - why did it take their deaths to galvanise the drug services, the police and all the rest in to taking care of women who have to take care of business?

It's very simple. Sex workers (I refuse to call them prostitutes; they're women, mothers, daughters too) are still considered to be lowlifes. Not worth bothering about.

Well they are worth bothering about. Why wasn't an easy access methadone or other treatment programme available to them years ago? It was where I worked, althought it's proving hideously difficult to get one going where I work now. Why weren't the police getting stuck in to the 'demand side'? Which idiots in the NHS weren't getting the women in to the STD clinics? Oh, I could go on but why bother? It's Friday night and I'm middle-class, safe and warm at home - and they're not they're dead. And no doubt some of their colleagues will be too in the future.

How to ensure a drug gets used.

Here are the ground rules.

1. As a government agency put out press releases which ensure maximum prime-time coverage. You could be the police, Home Office, Dept of Health etc.

2. Claim that the drug you are concerned about a) comes from the US thereby conferring mysterious foreign drug status and b) that it is really poky and dangerous stuff.

3. Also claim that you are 'warning' the public not to take it.

4. Make sure you have widely publicised its romantic street name e.g Crystal Meth.

5. Tell us that there isn't much of it around at the moment then helpfully add that details of how to make it can be easily found on the WonderWeb.

6. Try to put up a former user of the drug (FDU) who can report on his or her 'drug hell'. This is especially exciting to the media. But tends to miss the point that the FDU has survived the drug hell to tell the tale which suggests it (the drug) might not be quite as dangerous as everyone thought.

7. Recommend setting up a task-force which will target the drug and do your career no harm at all in the process.

8. Sit back and watch as the drug becomes established on the scene despite all your warnings.

There, easy isn't it?

Huffle Puff

Cannabis... it's the new coke. Our Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) has been asked to consider upgrading the drug from class C under the Misuse of Drugs Act (MDA) to B. It only got downgraded a few years ago and the MDA is in the business of classifying drugs according to their perceived risks. 2003 - not very risky, plus the police were fed up with the paperwork associated with nicking users of a drug generally considered to be 'mostly harmless' - to coin a Douglas Adams' phrase. 2008 - suddenly it's Devilspawn. Why?

Well there are a number of media outlets which consider any relaxation of drug laws to be the end of civilisation. Two, there is a small but vocal group of concerned others who have had the distressing experience of seeing a loved one succumb to mental illness and to have smoked the weed. Plus we have seen the entry in to the market of a small but significant amout of high-strength Cannabis. All of this has meant that the government - headed up by a puritan-leaning PM, is now considering re-upgrading to class B.

Why this a mistake:

1. When it was a class B drug it did not deter any experimentation or regular use. The European Drugs Monitoring Group reported that the UK market was 'saturated'.

2. A very small number of people experience horrid effects from Cannabis. These include upset/vulnerable teenagers and people who have a pre-disposition to or an actual major mental illness. Admissions to mental health units for Cannabis-related illness run at 14 per week for the whole UK. Too many but not an epidemic.

3. There is an over-hyped fear of new, high-strength Cannabis - skunk. Actually most people who use high-strength puff equate it to alcohol. You might drink a bottle of beer in one evening but you wouldn't drink a bottle of whisky. You'd just have a couple of glasses.

But all this pales to nothing because the government has let it be known that it will upgrade to B no matter what. So too bad ACMD with its thoughtful academics and practioners - plus users and others.

Cannabis use might be driven further underground by reclassification and users would be less likely to come forward for help if they were having troubles in the mental health dept. Why don't we spend the money on enforcement on getting health messages across to the punters instead? For example printing health warnings on the inside of cigarette-paper packs warning of the risks? This approach worked magnificently in the UK's fight against AIDS in the 80's and 90's - plenty of good advice and contact numbers for health education on toilet doors, condom packs and so on.

But no - that's too pragmatic and too easy and not enough to satisfy the press monsters and a fearful PM.

Unleash the dogs of drugs wars - boringly and stupidly in their mean, ignorant, brutish way.