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For a long time the Government has talked up its war on drugs. But has it in fact simply given in? The Centre for Policy Studies' new report, The Phoney War on Drugs, shows that the focus of government drug policy is no longer on abstinence or rehabilitation but on harm reduction.
The idea today is not to combat all drug use but to try to manage the problems of addicts.
All too often this means the state just gives them methadone and clean needles - and not much else. Government spending on methadone increased threefold between 2003 and 2008.
In this twilight world of Government-sponsored drug use, some 147,000 souls are now prescribed methadone.
As a youth and drug worker I spend a lot of my time on the street with people affected by drugs.
I can see that the official policy has sent the wrong message. Young people now don't see using cannabis as a big deal, yet I see so many young people affected by heavy cannabis use.
Only this week I had a conversation with two young boys: neither of them made any connection between cannabis use and the high incidence of mental health problems in our community. Yet there's now a huge amount of evidence for the link.
It also took some time for them to see the link between "bunnin" (smoking) cannabis and crime.
One of the boys, a 15-year-old, told me he needs £200-£400 to have a good weekend: when I pressed him on why he needs so much money, he said: "I need enough to buy a draw and some drink."
It's one of the missed points about class-B drugs, because we tend to associate crime with class-A drugs such as heroin, but let me assure you that a lot of young people and adults fund their class-B drug use through crime.
Yet they do not link the two in their heads because they don't see themselves as "crackheads" or drug addicts.
I also speak to many people who use heroin and then are moved on to methadone. I often hear the statement "no one gets off methadone".
I wonder - is this because once you are on a Government programme a box is ticked and that's job done, because the Government counts people in treatment as a success? But it does not track what would be a real success: how many people abstain.
So people resign themselves to a life in and out of treatment. They know many others in this position.
It becomes normal to them. But we are building up a backlog of people who have been in and out of treatment and know they will not be given any reason or help to stop.
If you are a long-term user, it is very scary to stop using drugs. Only with an ethos of abstinence can you get people away from drugs.
We do not have a coherent drug policy. The UK drugs market is estimated to be worth £5 billion a year and the age of children's initiation into drugs has dropped. Forty-one per cent of 15-year-olds and 11 per cent of 11-year-olds have taken drugs.
If we compare ourselves with nations like Sweden and the Netherlands, once famed for their liberal approach, we will find they have long since given up on that.
They are now bearing down on the illicit use of all drugs, not the symptoms caused by drug use.
They have abandoned the harm reduction approach to focus on treatment, abstinence and rehabilitation. It is time we did the same.
Shaun Bailey is co-founder of MyGeneration and a youth and drugs worker in North Kensington. He is propsective Conservative parliamentary candidate for Hammersmith.
Reader views (18)
Shaun im afraid to say i disagree with you. the war on drugs hasn't worked here in the UK or in the USA. Sending users to prison isn't the answer because all that will happen is they will simply learn in prison to take more drugs.
Making drugs illegal especially cannabis for example doesn't help. When something is illegal ie with cannabis it becomes a lot less safer it is mixed with unsafe ingredients and therefore the effects are worse - an example of this is with the deadly strain of cannabis skunk. Also with it being illegal the real vilains of the peace the dealers who are destroying families and introducing people into crime and drugs make money from it being illegal, if drugs were legalised and regulated like alcohol, it would be done safer, the dealers would be driven out and it would become less of a forbidden fruit to take so less people would take drugs. All this would mean more could be spent on rehabilitation and health advice on the dangers of drugs rather than prisons.
- Stephen Hoffman, st albans , England
Pot Smoker, I am not misreading you at all and the facts dictate the Smoking Pot does cause Mental Illnesses. Numerous statistics show regular, not daily, but regular smokers have harboured mental health problems and numerous scientific date shows that this is the case due to smoking pot. These are cold hard facts and are littered all over the internet. If you do not wish to believe this - then so be it but it is your choice not to believe the truth.
You appear to assume that you can state anything you wish without knowledge and or with some outlandish far flung idea and it will be true. This I see as an insult to my work and my experience. I work with these people, daily and I am a professional and I see the cause being smoking Cannabis - so are you calling me a liar? Because it does appear as such.
The same with Suicide as well. We find numerous cases where suicide was brought on due to the mental health problems a person had from Cannabis. There are numerous cases littered all over the world for this but there is some kind of belief that this drug, it is a drug by the way, that this drug causes no harm. It is grossly idiotic to assume a neural suppressant and sedative in one wouldn't cause long term harm.
You also misread the Schizophrenia stats. I said, Drugs for Schizophrenia have improved and lowered rates - but the wide spread use of drugs like Cannabis has kept statistics stable. This is due to drug peddlers like Terrorists - which you are supporting.
Thanks.
- Gary Mcclintock, Glasgow, Scotland
no gary you work with people who already had a mental illness which MAY have been worsened with their drug use, whos to say it wasnt something else, there are no cold hard facts to say cannabis definately causes mental health problems, where as on the other hand there are cold hard facts about the dangers of smoking tobacco and drinking alcohol yet you dont risk getting your door kicked through in the early hours of the morning because you enjoy the odd tipple or cigarette/pipe/cigar.
You seem to have misunderstood my comment about the schizophrenia rate, for someone who apperently works with these folks youd think you would know that what i meant was - cannabis use has more than tripled, yet the number of newly registered schizophrenics has remained roughly the same year on year, for as long as records exist. you say to check the suicide rate, you can blame suicide on anything cos you cant ask the person why they did it, they may have been suffering depression for years, tried canna as a last reort to try and sort themself out it didnt work so goodnight Irene. Take the tragic circumstances around bridgend lately, looking at the similaritys between cases you could say that most of them were members of social network sites, that does not mean just because there is a similarity that social network sites are the reason for suicides in bridgend does it, same thing with cannabis, many depressed people smoke, drink and do other drugs to try and forget there misery.
- Pot Smoker, north wales
If I could answer Pot Smoker North Wales. Although these are answered below - I'll elaborate for you.
In the US Cannabis has been introduced as "medicinal" as a tax, in states that are struggling economically. This is basically factual in Portugal as well and also Holland i.e. They introduce it (smoked marijuana) as medicinal and then send them to Care homes, rehab centres (huge booming industry in the US thanks to Pot) which funnels money into the state's economy. So basically, it's economical - not medicinal.
Drugs for Schizophrenia have helped curb the problem for many - helping more and more people with psychotics, so what keeps the statistics stable? Well, pot smoking and other psychogenic drugs like it are the problem for most world wide health institutes and governments now - this is why statistics are stable - due to psychogenic drugs like marijuana.
Also, finally, you are not "born" with mental health problems. We're all basically different but when that difference is a problem to our life, socially, our well being - then we are deemed mentally ill. In the case of psychogenics like Marijuana and the prevalance of Hospital admission due to it, Marijuana has caused psychosis. As has been requested by another, check the rising suicide rate due to Cannabis and yes - it's true, you can't just deem mental illness as something someone will get - ridiculous. It's the same with aids or cancer.
Gary, Psychiatrist, Glasgow. I work in these conditions.
- Gary Mcclintock, Glasgow, Scotland
£200 to £400 a weekend, What a load of rubish, anyone who uses or has used cannabis will clearly see you made that up, it's people like you who lie in obviose ways who confuse youngsters, try telling the truth for once, becouse of people like you the youth of the world are forced to buy cannabis from criminals who will push harder drugs on them, you make me sick
- Sick Of Lies, london
there is no evidence other than government propaganda that cannabis causes mental health problems, the governments own statisics show that in the last decade cannabis use has increased 3 fold YET SCHIZOPHRENIA CASES HAS REMAINED STATIC ! where are the thousands of schizophrenics running around holland?
This country demonises something that now quite a lot of countrys are prescribing, take a look at the US a number of states have decriminalised medicinal cannabis ( i.e. the well grown, unadulterated, strong cannabis that has become known as skunk here ). the problems from cannabis come from it being illegal. The criminal element would be erradicated immediatly if it was legalised and removed from the criminal fraternity thats running it at the moment, people claim it is a catalyst drug to harder drugs, in my experience its visiting dealers that leads you onto harder drugs !
As for the person likening mental health to something AIDS shows your ignorance, mental problems arent something you can catch, its not infectious, its something you were born with.
- Pot Smoker, north wales
I'm sorry to say but there is no such thing is a Cannabis Psychosis Myth. People admitted into hospitals with Psychotic Illnesses whilst regular Cannabis users are found to be Psychotic, due to the Cannabis - because once the Cannabis is removed, without any drug or psychological therapy - the psychosis disappears.
Other tests are also indicative of this.
I found the angle from the pro-pot smoking community that Cannabis and Psychosis aren't related wholly and detrimentally inconsiderate and without compassion. Would you say they same to Cancer and AIDS sufferers? That they would have got Cancer and AIDS anyway - even if they hadn't gone near something that caused them that? That they were destined for an illness that suffocates them? Like a curse?
It's grossly nasty to support such a view just so that you can sedate yourself regularly and to wholly glorify and celebrate sedating yourself like there is no other joy in life? Very very strange indeed.
For more information, look up the Cannabis and Suicide link and also see the rise and continual rise in Hospital admissions for Cannabis - this doesn't include those who only go and see their Doctor for help or outside therapies...
- Arnold Simpson, Birmingham, UK
The cannabis psychosis myth is further confused by the fact that those in the early stages of any mental illness will seek relief, and cannabis very often provides it, and much more.
Anyone with a serious mental illness is likely to have looked in many places for relief. The fact that cannabis is a natural choice, and the likelihood of someone in the early stages of, say, schizophrenia having tested it being so high, does not make cannabis a causative factor.
They probably also tried talking to people, which also, apparently, does not affect an immediate cure.
-mu
- Mu, Scotland
The replies for Cannabis use given would be laughable if the situation wasn't so bad. The disregard and ignorance of Cannabis being a sedative when smoked by the Pro-Cannabis element of Drug use highlights how misinformed and manipulated they are by the Internet.
A Sedative, as Cannabis is, doesn't aid pain relief - it merely puts your body to sleep and slows you down, therefore creating an addiction to being numb and removing your experience of life to something as little to none.
The properties in Cannabis/Marijuana that are useful are only useful once extracted from the plant - not the drug, the plant. The plant is what is beneficial, not the drug used for sedation that has led to Mental Health problems all over the world, especially in Portugal, The US and Holland where law are used to tax Health Care of those grossly affected by this drug. The only thing that keeps Psychosis in our realm today and keeps records stable is Cannabis in society.
As for the old "I am a hippy" argument that espouse, it's a null argument. The Hippies are a group of people against sex/drugs/arms traficking so how can you say you are a hippy if you support a drug that is used for this purpose? Hippies don't smoke Cannabis all the time - it was something they did before they got real jobs, as stats show, most people stop smoking Cannabis in their early 20s at the latest. Those who continue, do so due to life problems, statistically - but lets hide that from kids just for an identity!
- Carl, London, UK
Now let's burst the 'cannabis psychosis' bubble.
I'd like to drift a little before I begin, by pointing out that the prohibitionists are using the, unprovable, suggestion, that cannabis may be one of a myriad of things that, might possibly, act as a trigger for a latent mental illness in those already predisposed to that illness, as justification for the prohibition of cannabis. Whilst tobacco and alcohol are still killing over one hundred thousand UK citizens every year. And they say there is no hypocrisy in the Misuse of Drugs Act.
Governments who supported the prohibition of cannabis have been searching, without success, over the last seventy years, for supportable evidence that what they did was right. The field of psychiatry is such that nothing can ever be proven conclusively, and so has become an ideal prohibitionist spawning ground.
I could quote some of the reports being used in evidence of these mythical dangers. Such as Dr. Ferguson stating that he would 'have had the same results testing for milk abuse', or Prof. Van Os stating that his findings would 'effect such a small number of cannabis users that they could never be used to determine legislation'
But all I really have to refer to, to destroy the cannabis psychosis myth, is the international rate of schizophrenia,
Whilst the use of cannabis has increased dramatically, the international rates of schizophrenia has stayed the same from the point where records began, some even say its in decline.
Jane.
- Jane, London
We currently have two complete myths being reported by the media as facts.
Firstly, that the strength of cannabis has risen, and, secondly, that cannabis causes serious mental illness. Both invented by the prohibitionists, and both utterly groundless.
Let's start by noting that there are as many strains of cannabis as there are types of roses. When talking about the strength, one cannot say 'cannabis is' anything, just as one cannot describe all roses as being of any one colour.
The hemp that is grown in our (uk) fields, under license from the Home Office, is less than 1% THC, yet it is no less a cannabis plant than those being grown in closets and lofts throughout the country. It has always been this way, the strength varies from strain to strain, and cannot be given a generalised figure.
The truth behind this myth is that the average strength of herbal cannabis, tested by the police, has risen from 8% THC, roughly a decade ago, to 12% THC more recently. This has happened because the herbal cannabis supplied to street dealers has changed from imported strains, common in Afghanistan, Morocco, or Jamaica, to strains grown here, which originated, mainly, in the Netherlands and USA.
Using selective breeding, not genetic engineering as some tabloids might have you believe, modern breeders are producing the strains being demanded by the market, but none are stronger than strains which already existed..
- Jane, London
If you are going to tackle the issue of drug abuse rather than use then you need to tackle the fundamental reasons people take them and then start to abuse them. THat is social deprivation, poverty of housing and employment lack of education etc. Until you do that the unwinnable war against drugs will grind on.
The current state of Prohibition actually makes things far worse and costs us all not only financially but socially.
There is no such thing as a drug related crime they are all prohibition related crimes. It is the drugs illegality that causes the crime not the drugs themselves.
Also the current hypocrisy of allowing adults to kill themselves with alcohol and tobacco at the same time demonising , discriminating and criminalising adult users of safer alternatives to the 2 state sanctioned drugs is obscene. Both Cannabis and ecstasy in peer reviewed studies for the Lancet showed that by all demonstrable parameters that cannabis and ecstasy are safer than alcohol and tobacco.Criminalsing cannabis and ecstasy users for example is a fundamental attack on the human rights of an individual for fair and equal rights before the law.
I would have much more sympathy with these morally bullying politicians if they had some consistancy by prohbiting all drugs including alcohol and tobacco. Until they do so or end prohibition then they have no credibility at all.
- John, Sheffield
My god, the level of intelligence and facts is remarkable in this 'story' and sadly, also the replies.
The enforced prohibition of drugs in countries that have had it forcefully thrust upon them across the world has failed miserably. Its been an outstanding failure, prohibition has never worked ever, all evidence shows this as real time proof.
All prohibition does is drive drugs and the people using them underground, giving complete and utter control to criminals with no morels as to the purity of the drug and who its sold to. If anyone thinks this is a good idea their level of intelligence is such, that they should never be aloud to talk about drug policys.
Lets look at the facts, lets take 2 countries that have very different drug policies..
USA Vs The Netherlands:
Dutch rates of drug use are and have been consistently lower than U.S. rates in every category.
The Netherlands follows a strong public health approach to drug use.The Dutch do not normally arrest people for possession or distribution of small amounts of drugs, and even allow the sale of cannabis from special coffee shops. In addition the Netherlands rate of incarceration is about 11% of the United States as a result of these policies. Around 980,000 people were arrested in america for cannabis alone, 88% of those arrests were for possession only.
rates of use
CANNABIS usa 32.9 Netherlands 15.6
HEROIN usa 0.9 Netherlands 0.3
There you have it. thats all you need to know right there.
- Penny, Oxford
For somebody supposedly working closely with youths and drugs you have learnt nothing but the propaganda issued by the Government. You fail to understand that the majority of the people you work with, ie the criminal fraternity, simply use drug use as an excuse to excuse their criminal behaviour. You and your ilk are the main cause of the lawlessness we face now. The war on drugs had been going on now for 50 years and has failed miserably. Taking drugs does not make you commit crime! Just exactly which part of that do you and you type not understand. Committing crime is caused by people unwilling to work for what they want! PLAIN AND SIMPLE!
Until there is a sensible debate on legalising ALL drugs we will persist in blaming the taking of drugs as the cause of crime instead of the person committing the crime! Its time to stop the apologist judicial system we have which tries to find ever more reasons not to jail people and return to making people responsible for their actions again!
- Duncan Walker, Ex Peckham now Thailand
MK is it necesary to view the world only through the distorting prism of your own experience? You can take a balanced view. For example: Cannabis is a very helpful drug for relieving suffering for people such as myself. Cannabis can be a very dangerous drug when misused particularly by young people whose brains aren't fully developed. I have to correct you about sensimillia (without seeds). Skunk and sensimillia aren't the same. Skunk is an artificially grown hybrid usually by hydroponic methods. It does induce paranoia and psychosis and is a world away from your bit of home grown.
- Penny Subbotin, Twickenham
The Dutch have abandoned the harm reduction approach and have stricter drug policies than the UK? My good man what have you been smoking...
- Levent Akbulut, Leeds, United Kingdom
When will the lies end...?
The simple fact is, the rate of schizophrenia has been either stable or falling for a number or years.
100,000 a year die from cigarette smoking, 60,000 from alcohol abuse & yet no amount of cannabis will kill you, FACT!
Police/politicians are using this 'skunk' word like it's a poisonous plant, the fact is, it's exactly the same as any other form of cannabis, it's just 'unfertilised' by a male plant, the correct terminology is 'sensemillia'.
Cannabis grown in the home has saved my life as i am a person who is ravaged by arthritis of the spine as well as having MS. My allergic reaction to all opiate medicines makes pain relief impossible without cannabis, a fact my doctors seem to agree with as i am now prescribed Sativex by my pain management specialist.
Cannabis helps people! For god's sake man, this country needs politicians who'll tell the truth not tell more lies! I see you all on tv today saying how you'll all change & yet i still read rubbish like this...
- Richard, MK, UK
THE WAR ON DRUG REALLY SUCKS !!!
I'M A 55 YEAR OLD HIPPIE, AND I'M HAPPY TO HEAR THAT THEY ARE GOING TO END THIS HORRIBLE WAR !!!
"PEACE & LOVE" !!!
GREGORI MICHAEL HARPER
- Greg Harper, MOJAVE, CA (U.S.A)
