History of Release: 2000s

2000

Police in England and Wales issued 57,000 cautions for cannabis use and possession.

2001

The Paddick experiment runs for a year from July 2001. Under the plan floated by Senior Police Officer Cdr Brian Paddick, head of the Metropolitan Police Lambeth division, which covers Brixton, proposes that drug users found with small amounts of cannabis should be let off with a formal warning rather than being arrested. Release opens Young Peoples Legal Help Line.

2002

The Home Secretary, David Blunkett, announces intention to reclassify cannabis from a class B to a class C drug. Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Simon Hughes says: "The announcement on cannabis is welcome but it is extraordinary that it has taken so long." Release launches Heroin Helpline, which produces first booklet Safer Heroin Use and conducts a 1700 subject survey on heroin using trends

2003

The Home Office estimates as many as 42,000 people use steroids in the UK, and last year the British Medical Association categorised steroid misuse as a public health risk. Release Heroin Helpline project publishes second booklet Treatment Options for Opiate Users and opens discussion with National Addiction Centre for joint evaluation of data from survey.

Release's Forward Thinking on Drugs Initiative presents report at United Nations.

Release's specialist Legal and Heroin helplines fielding in the region of 200 calls a week.

Release publishes new brochure.

Release prepares itself for increase in demand for its specialist services in the face of much new legislation likely to affect drug users and drug services in 2004.

2004

A hectic year for the newly regenerated Release sees us involved in intensive consultations with the government regarding a raft of important legislative changes. Many of these are concerned with various elements making up the Drugs Bill, with its extension of police powers and further moves in the direction of coercive treatment. Release is engaged with the consultation process at every stage of the Bill's passage toward the statute books, publishing a joint statement with Transform Drug Policy Foundation outlining our concerns with the direction of policy away from public health and toward criminal justice & enforcement solutions to what remain social problems.

A broad range of reports and papers are produced by the Release teams, dealing with the recent stream of proposals and changes in domestic law and policy, and with international problems such as the opium trade in Afghanistan.

Sebastian Saville became Executive Director of Release in 2003

2005

Release rings in the New Year with a major new publication entitled Sex Workers and the Law. This text is directed at women and men working in the UK’s burgeoning sex industry, and provides accurate, accessible information regarding the rights of those working in it. It also offers full information on the legal, social and health-related risks run by sex workers and advice on minimising and dealing with them, in addition to contacts and practical resources for obtaining further help with specific problems.

We are one of an alliance of organisations to analyse and report on the disturbing social, legal and human rights implications of ASBOs.

In April, the Home Secretary refers the classification of cannabis back to the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. This step was taken in the light of reports that the drug could “cause schizophrenia.” Following the ACMD’s eventual advice that cannabis should remain a class C drug, a flurry of reports nonetheless indicate that the government may ignore the advice of its advisory council and upgrade the drug once again to class B status. Release writes to the Home Secretary recommending that the government listens to its own experts.

2006

In January, the government announces that cannabis will remain in class C. Release runs Legal Outreach Projects at drug treatment services at The Drugs Advisory Service Haringey (DASH), The Caravan Project at St Mary’s Hospital and at Westminster Drug Project, Harrow Road (WDP). This year, with demand expanding, two further Legal Outreach Projects began, one in Hackney, the other in Hammersmith and Fulham, assisting in excess of 340 clients over the April 06-07 financial year.

2007

Release celebrates its 40th anniversary with a cover story in Druglink and a major conference where speakers included Release co-founder Caroline Coon, Simon Hughes MP, Simon Jenkins, Lord David Ramsbotham, Ethan Nadelman and a host of others engaged with the drug policy debate that characterises our age.

2008

A very eventful new year and a time of big changes for Release, as a new brand, logo and website is launched. The Legal Team expands dramatically and a new Campaigns Team is set up to publicise the urgent needs associated with failing drug policies and to drive forward the debate about what should replace them. Campaigns include addressing the need for and access to Medical Cannabis, the problem of Hepatitis C (the silent epidemic), improved access to Drug paraphernalia and Women in Prison as a result of convictions as “drug mules”.

The Drug Workers’ Online Legal Manual is launched to provide accurate and current legal information to those involved in the drug treatment field; this is the first of a number of online resources planned for the new website.

The Government’s new Drugs Strategy is unveiled, and, while bearing a strong resemblance to the last one, includes measures for coercing drug-using benefit claimants into treatment. Release publishes a response to the strategy, highlighting concerns around such proposals.

Release is also associated with the setting up of a new website called ‘Talking Drugs’, which uses the internet and related digital technologies to launch a global conversation about drugs and drug policy, telling the stories of those whose lives are touched, in whatever way, by drugs....

Release commences the provision of administrative services for the International Drug Policy Consortium, a global network of NGOs dedicated to promoting an open debate on national and international drug policies with a view to making them more humane and effective.

2009

Release's legal outreach service expands to new projects at Tower Hamlets and the Blenheim project in Notting Hill.

Release's campaign appears on London buses

A major new Release campaign was launched entitled Nice People Take Drugs. The campaign quickly became very popular, its bite size message appearing on T-shirted carriers across the globe from London to Berlin to New York City and Vilnius. Originally launched with an advert on a red London bus, the campaign was designed to attract attention to the wide variety of people who use drugs in contemporary societies. The campaign continues to stimulate debate regarding the present set of drug laws and policies—a debate which is sadly lacking in the official spaces of representative democracy.

1960s - 1970s - 1980s - 1990s - 2000s

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