Feature

Why arrest isn’t a cure for drugs

Policy is shifting from punishing to treating drug users – but little will change while drug use remains a criminal issue, argues Steve Rolles

When the new Labour government appointed Keith Hellawell as ‘Drug Tsar’, there were fears of a move towards an American-style ‘war on drugs’. The US drug tsar, General Barry McCaffrey, on whom the UK appointment was nominally modelled, has led the anti-drug crusade by relying on an enforcement model notable for the militarisation of policing and ever more draconian punishments.

Fortunately these fears have not been realised in the UK, and the drug tsar’s first annual report, published in April, demonstrates a welcome move away from US rhetoric. The spin put on the report was based on new targets for dealing with our deteriorating drug problem and the introduction of new treatment and testing orders for drug offenders as an alternative to prison. Both warrant closer inspection.

The new targets largely appear to be a ploy to reassure the public and deflect attention from the sorry state of current drug policy, revealed elsewhere in the report. Audits commissioned from regional Drug Action Teams showed that drug prevention and treatment initiatives have been ineffective, unmonitored or overwhelmed.

Hellawell has acknowledged that targets are fairly meaningless given that the accurate data needed to set a baseline do not exist. But on a more positive note, at least the targets focus on reducing drug misuse and drug-related crime rather than simply on the number of arrests.

Treatment and testing orders are court-supervised treatment programmes and act as an alternative to prison. They are monitored with regular mandatory drug tests which can, if positive, result in suspension of the order and a custodial sentence.

The shift from punishment towards treatment appears to be motivated more by economic necessity than compassion. Research by the Home Office and others has long shown that investing in drug treatment is far more cost-effective than the traditional enforcement approach.

At present around £4bn a year is spent on drug law enforcement (on policing, courts, prison and probation), and yet the key indicators of effectiveness – levels of drug use and drug-related crime and health problems – have increased consistently over the past 30 years, and especially in the past decade.

If there is a real political will to treat drug misusing offenders rather than punish them, why is the treatment being carried out within the criminal justice framework when it is clear that this will work against best practice? Drug treatment should not be forced, does not always involve immediate abstinence, and should not be characterised by demeaning compulsory urine testing. Ultimately it should be patients and doctors who make treatment decisions, not judges.

The limitations of treatment and testing orders are evident, since they have already been around for some time. Thirty per cent of those offered treatment and testing orders choose prison instead. These are presumably people who have no intention of ending their drug use and also those who are most likely to reoffend on release, casting the ultimate success of the whole programme into doubt.

It is also clear that these orders are only appropriate for a small proportion of drug offenders since the majority do not have a drug problem which requires treatment in the first place.

The ‘new’ approaches have to be seen in the context of the UK’s attitude to drugs. The fact that drugs are illegal creates the vast criminal market that brings so many people into the criminal justice system. Leaving control of the drug market to organised crime and criminalising millions of drug users has been completely counterproductive, creating many of the problems we associate with drugs.

Heroin provides a stark example of this. In 1971, when the Misuse of Drugs Act was passed, there were around 2,000 registered addicts. Today there are between 200,000 and 300,000. Heroin addicts often turn to property crime to fund their habit, to the tune of £2bn a year – around half of all property crime.

If heroin were to be legally available on prescription (as was the case before 1971) much of this crime would end, as has happened in heroin prescription projects in cities such as Frankfurt and Zürich. Such pragmatic, evidence-based social policy has a vision beyond the moral indignation that has framed so much failed drug policy in the past.

There would also be health benefits in terms of providing care to marginalised groups, providing heroin of known strength and purity and reducing the spread of diseases such as HIV and Hepatitis C.

There are huge institutional obstacles to achieving this sort of reform. Such initiatives require co-operation between government departments, for which there is little precedent. A real shift away from an enforcement-based drug policy would involve a correspondingly large shift in resources away from the Home Office to health and social services – and departments jealously guard their budgets.

Keith Hellawell clearly has a difficult task ahead of him. He has his hands tied by a political agenda beyond his control and he also faces huge institutional barriers. As long as his role is interdepartmental he ultimately has no real power beyond his advisory role.

To deal with our drug problem we need to get rid of the criminal market for drugs and approach drug use as a social and medical issue rather than a criminal one. In the end, this means a government-regulated drugs market, otherwise achieving the new targets will remain pie in the sky.

Transform: the Campaign for Effective Drug Policy is a national membership-based campaign group. Tel: 0117 9398052. Web: www.transformuk.freeserve.co.uk.