The Problem
The UK Drug Policy Commission has issued a report stating that the UK has the highest level of drug use and the second highest number of drug-related deaths in Europe . Drug addiction rates in the UK are double those in France, Sweden, Germany and the Netherlands.
The UK illegal drugs market is worth about £5bn/year, drug-related crime is estimated at more than £13bn. About one in five people arrested is a heroin addict. There has been a 111% rise in drug-related offences between 1994 and 2005. This is not surprising when you consider that the heroin street price has dropped, falling from £70 a gram in 2000 to £54 in 2005.
The Commission said: "Tougher enforcement should theoretically make illegal drugs more expensive and harder to get. The prices of the principal drugs in Britain have declined for most of the last 10 years and there is no indication that tougher enforcement has succeeded in making drugs less accessible."
More addicts are being treated than ever before, but the UK Drug Policy Commission said that: “the benefits were limited, and there was little evidence education schemes had had an impact.”
Cannabis
Jan Berry, Chairman of The Police Federation of England and Wales has said the Federation believe cannabis is the number one illicit gateway drug.
“Cannabis is a problematic drug not least because of growing evidence of links to psychotic illness in young people and contemporary attitudes to the drug as being ‘soft’.
We expressed our concern over a year ago over on whether the correct decision had been made to reclassify the drug from a Class B to a Class C, as we felt it would create confusion among the public on the legality of possession.
This has already presented problems for police officers throughout the country who are tasked with enforcing this confusing law and we would therefore support the reinstating of cannabis to a Class B drug category”.
According to a study by Queen's University Belfast, teenagers as young as 14 are using cannabis every day. Dr Patrick McCrystal said: "These young people are telling us that by the age of 15 they have moved beyond experimental or recreational use of an illegal drug to more sustained usage." Of daily cannabis smokers, a quarter reported being in trouble with the police on more than 10 occasions while almost one fifth had been summoned to court in the year prior to the survey.
The solution?
Ken Jones, the president of the Association of Chief Police Officers, has called for an increase in the prescription of diamorphine (also known as heroin) on the NHS.
The British Medical Association say Afghanistan's opium-poppy harvest should be used to tackle an NHS shortage of diamorphine. Diamorphine is also used to relieve pain after operations and for the terminally ill. Due to a shortage doctors are having to rely on less effective drugs.
Dr Vivienne Nathanson, head of science and ethics at the BMA, said: "If we actually were harvesting this drug from Afghanistan rather than destroying it, we'd be benefiting the population of Afghanistan as well as helping patients and not putting people at risk. There must be ways of harvesting it and making sure that the harvest safely reaches the drug industry which would then refine it into diamorphine. It should be possible, and really government and the international groups that are in Afghanistan should be looking at this and saying how can we convert it from being an illicit crop to a legal crop that is medicinally useful."
Dr Jonathan Fielden, a consultant in anaesthesia and intensive care medicine in Reading, said: "The biggest difficulty will be changing the views of those countries, particularly the US, where this drug is banned. That will take a great cultural change to let them realise that a very cheap drug, easily produced, beneficial to patients, can be brought back in and used, rather than being seen as a drug of abuse."
The Afghan authorities and the UK government are against using the poppy crop to produce medicines and are stepping up their efforts to destroy new crops. Diamorphine is still in limited supply more than two years after the government was warned there were serious shortages. The amount being used in the NHS is a fraction of what it was before the current problems with supplies began.
So, should we make Heroin available on the NHS, would it take away the cool factor and reduce drug related crime? I would like to think so, the Police and drug experts seem to think it would. This is something that could easily go on trial in one town or city and the crime figures would give an immediate indication of it’s effectiveness.
As for Cannabis - the drug is believed to be up to ten times as potent as it was only ten years ago. Medical experts are growing increasingly concerned about the link between Cannabis and Mental Illness. The Police want it’s reclassification reversed back to a class B drug and I think it was a serious act of incompetence by the Government to reclassify it in the first place. God alone knows how much damage it has caused or what mental health problems our teenagers are going to have in the future.
What do you think?
4 comments:
Yeah, why not make it class B again.
After all, whatever you do to it, however many 'farms' you raid.
However many people go to prison for its use. You will never be able to eradicate it.
You will never stop people using it.
Its a great plant, easy to grow and with a whole host of beneficial uses besides a pleasant and mild intoxication.
Of course if the government wants to be believed about the dangers of any substance, natural/synthetic or otherwise it ought to start being honest about cannabis.
Why has its considerable use in our textile industries right up too 1930 been removed from our history books and museums?
Why does the Netherlands (where cannabis is accepted) not have a higher incidence of psychotics than the UK ?
How much threat does it really pose to the drug companies to have the patients afflicted by Glaucoma, MS, Arthritis and any other painful condition grow their own medication ?
How easy it is really to make a fuel from hemp plants that can run your diesel engine with practically zero harmful effects on the environment ?
No, that would be stupid! people will abuse whatever is avaliable (with in reason)! Particually young people exploring their new world. The idea that a reclassification will set an "example" is stupid! They need to include toxicology and human biology in compulsary school subjects from yrs 6 to 11, with a GCSE in it! cannabis users wont care if its B again anyway, its too late to tun back the clock now. And, in any case, they are sending out very mixed messages by allowing the sale and promotion of the more dangerous drug alcohole (no chance of turining back that very long clock). I say each drug has its uses, and its limits of use and beginings of abuse! Education and monitoring is the only way to provent the gateway affect of cannabis to harder drugs. it is true that heavy abuse can lead to hsalth problems, on the whole the drug reduces mental health, sure, but there are many who CHOOSE to use it, who are just fine - you cant ban everything!
If it is changed back to B no one will care. Also the reson we have such a high drug rate is not because of cannabis as the most widle used drugs in the UK is cocain which is why the drug rate is high. If it was made legal there would stop the drug gateway as if it was availble in shop you could control the age that its avalible and stop all the chemicals that are being put in cannabis. The goverment cant make it a C a few years ago then move it back.
Anon,
I'm torn, I don't know if there should be a massive crack down on drugs, or to make them all legal. Both have good points. I think that either solution would be better than what we have now.
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