Future drug policy
The paradigm shift currently underway in the understanding of drugs and drug policy will lead eventually to a new set of social, legal and institutional responses to drug use by our society. How this will happen remains to be seen; the precise forms these responses will take are there to be decided over the coming years. While the present cultural conversation surrounding possible drug policy alternatives tends to assume the black and white form of either prohibition or legalisation, there exists a range of forms that society’s response to drug use might take. In addition, there are differing styles of prohibition and legalisation, with varying emphases. We will briefly consider some of these here, dividing up the possibilities into four sets of options (though in principle these may be recombined in any number of ways). They represent a scale of decreasing criminalisation and increasing liberalisation- that is, of diminishing levels of state intervention in citizens’ drug consuming conduct.
1. One set of policies involves maintaining more or less the current set of legal restrictions on the possession, distribution and production of drugs, but changing the policy emphasis towards one of public health. This would involve spending more of the government drugs budget on treatment and other health interventions, particularly innovative modes of treatment such as heroin prescription, drug consumption rooms and so on. Such measures would be combined with less stigmatisation of users and increased and more effective education to help people avoid the pitfalls of using drugs.
2. Next we could consider a general prohibition, but with the public-health focus supplemented by depenalisation of for example, all possession offences: that is, nobody will go to prison for possessing drugs for their own use. The offence, however, is still criminalised, and would go on an individual’s record. Furthermore, supply would still be viewed as a serious criminal offence—though a separate offence category of “social supply” might be enacted to cover those cases where people pool money to score, in order to distinguish profit-driven dealing from social dealing.
3. The next set of options consists of decriminalisation. Here, possession offences, social supply offences and other drug-associated offences (allowing premises to be used etc) become civil offences like parking fines—citizens do not acquire criminal records for drugs offences, and punishments such as imprisonment are not applicable. Advocates of this approach usually argue that possible increases in use that may result can be countered by accompanying improvement in public health, treatment and educational services. There is a paradoxical situation present with this option, which is that supply remains a criminal matter subject to strict penalties.
4. The option of legalisation erases this policy conflict by bringing the entire drugs market within the law: production, consumption, distribution and supply. This is the most radical of the sets of options, and in some ways the most conceptually coherent. Conceptual coherence does not necessarily mean it will work in practice, but advocates argue that many of the problems linked to drugs stem from the circumstances and styles of use rather than the drugs themselves. There is considerable historical evidence to support the belief that repression of drug use has usually resulted in more harmful forms of drugs being used, as well as in the stigmatisation of those who use them. On the other hand, some would argue that the legalisation argument often under-estimates the harmfulness of certain drugs, and that not all harms can be tidily attributed to prohibition. In addition, if free-market principles were to apply in a legalised setting, immensely powerful profit-driven corporations would attempt to deploy sophisticated advertising techniques toward stimulating demand for drugs. To prevent a potentially large increase in numbers of users, the state would need to regulate this activity, and to conduct public health and educational campaigns designed to minimise harms.
These are simplified, formal sketches of a range of options. It may be that the most pragmatic and effective response is to take certain elements from each of them and mix and match when and where we see fit. Likewise, it is possible that one set of responses is appropriate in one place while another is appropriate elsewhere. If one were to claim to possess easy answers in the face of the proliferating complexities of globalisation, we would do well to approach their argument with considerable caution. On balance, nonetheless, we would suggest that repressive, “drug-war” approaches have manifestly failed; that the desire to use mind- and mood-altering substances is a perennial part of the spectrum of human appetites, and must be tutored rather than suppressed. We believe that a general trend toward pragmatism in policy responses is both necessary and desirable. Perhaps the most important thing at the moment is that these questions should be fully opened up to debate, with no position ruled as being outside the conversation; the legalisation position remains an excellent one for critiquing the drug policies of the past 100 years. Whether it will prove, in its entirety, a practical and effective solution to some or all the problems thrown up by prohibition remains to be seen.
