A message to the President

Barak Obama will come into office on 20th January with a hefty in-tray, not least a global financial crisis and a war on two fronts in Afghanistan and Iraq. It is unlikely that international drug policy will figure highly in the pile, but here is a reason why it should.

Less than two months after President Obama takes up his post, the UN will be reviewing its ten year drug strategy. The political rhetoric of 1998 was a 'drug-free world we can do it', specifically a commitment to rid the world of coca, opium and cannabis. Not surprisingly, it has proved an 'aspirational' target; the $6n US investment to clamp down on coca production in Colombia, for example, has seen a 15% rise in cultivation according to a report requested by the incoming Vice-President Joe Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Since around 2004, the language of international drug policy has been shifting; phrases such as 'proportionality' in relation to drug offences and 'the unintended consequences of international drug policy' have been creeping into UN official documents and public statements. The European Union has been increasing its contribution (and therefore its influence) to the UN drug control budget while at the same time offering a less fundamentalist approach than traditionally associated with the United States who have dominated the discourse since the first international drug conference a hundred years ago next year.

It is that history that President Obama should revisit because as many historians have pointed out, racism lay at the root of much of what became universally accepted laws against the use of drugs. Simply put, drug laws were crafted at least in part as a way of controlling minority communities. The laws against opium use targeted the Chinese community brought over to build the US rail network. Southern sheriffs demanded larger calibre guns to mow down 'cocaine-crazed' black men, the same cocaine given to slaves working the plantations and the docks to make them toil longer and eat less. And (again) 'drug crazed' Mexican migrants were cited as a primary reason for controlling cannabis use in the USA when most of the population had hardly heard of it, much less use it.

This is not a plea for wholesale and instant drug law reform; as unrealistic an aspiration as 'a drug free world' etc etc. But at least, the genesis of drug laws in America, a narrative of demonisation and stigma exported round the world, should give the President some food for thought. With the UN poised to review its drug policy, much of it actually at odds with the UN's own policy on human rights, he could use his considerable influence both as US President and as a declared champion of inclusion to shift the balance of drug policy away from a century of law enforcement and towards public health and human rights.

Who is driving Tory drug policy?

"With a few brave exceptions...drugs policy is an area where British politicians have feared to tread."
Home Affairs Select Committee, 2002

"I feel extremely strongly about this subject and desperately want to see a reduction in drug abuse and better paths to enable people to get out of it. If one takes a slightly progressive - or, as I like to think of it, thoughtful - view, one can sometimes be accused of being soft. I reject that utterly."
David Cameron MP, 2002

The phrase 'a week is a long time in politics' is a truism. Given the fast moving, uncertain and increasingly surreal times we live in, 'at the time of writing' is a helpful proviso for any prediction of the outcome of the next general election. Despite a recent boost in approval ratings for the Prime Minister, the Conservative Party maintains a healthy lead in the opinion polls - so what might drug policy look like under a Conservative government with David Cameron as Prime Minister?

Within weeks of becoming an MP in June 2001, Cameron joined the influential Home Affairs Select Committee. A month later, the committee announced an inquiry into the effectiveness of drug policy and the government's ten-year drug strategy.

Published in 2002, the committee's report concluded that drugs policy should primarily deal with problematic heroin and crack users, 'rather than towards the large numbers whose drug use poses no serious threat either to their own well being or to that of others'.

The committee's recommendations included support for the reclassification of cannabis from Class B to Class C, ecstasy from Class A to a Class B drug and a review of Section 9A of the Misuse of Drugs Act ('with a view to repealing it, to allow for the provision of drug paraphernalia which reduces the harm caused by drugs'). On drug treatment the report declared that 'all treatments and therapies should have abstinence as their goal', but also called for a substantial increase in spending, an expansion of methadone so that it became universally available and stated that 'there is still an urgent need for harm reduction actions...both a treatment strategy and harm reduction strategy are necessary...' The report concluded by recommending that the government discuss with the United Nation's Commission on Narcotic Drugs alternative ways of tackling drugs globally 'including the possibility of legalisation and regulation'

Cameron did not vote against any of the recommendations in the report - indeed, he voted against several amendments proposed by another Conservative Party member. In a parliamentary debate on drugs policy in December 2002, he spoke specifically in support of heroin prescribing and the use of safe injecting rooms. His comments on drug treatment are particularly pertinent in light of the recent polarisation of the debate between 'harm reduction' and 'abstinence': "I understand that there is no single method of treatment that always works. we need to have a variety of methods....Although residential places are not the only answer...I support the proposal to increase the number, while retaining all the existing treatment options."

In October 2004 the then shadow home secretary, David Davis MP, announced to his annual party conference that a Conservative government would make the fight against drugs a 'top priority'. Accusing the Labour Government of presiding over an 'epidemic' of drug use and of 'standing aside' from the problem he said: "Some people say we have lost the war on drugs, I say we have not begun to fight it." The Conservatives pledged to "accelerate" random drug testing in schools, increase drug rehabilitation places ten-fold (from 2,000 to 20,000) and reclassify cannabis from Class C to Class B. The speech alarmed advisers in Downing Street.

It was probably no co-incidence that a few weeks later - with an eye to the general election expected the following year - Tony Blair announced new measures to 'crack down' on those who "peddle the misery of drugs". What became the Drugs Act 2005 was born. To many, the 'tougher than thou' stances on drugs underlined the crude politics of the issue.

Has Cameron kept faith with his progressive and open approach since becoming party leader in December 2005? One of his first acts as leader was to commission a number of policy reviews. A Social Justice Policy Group was established, chaired by Iain Duncan Smith MP. It established a separate 'addictions working group', chaired by Kathy Gyngell, to look specifically at drug and alcohol policy.

In light of Cameron's publicly stated support for a more 'progressive' approach to drugs policy there was the possibility that the policy review would nudge party policy closer to the views of the party leader. Cameron's response to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation report on drug consumption rooms, published in May 2006, echoed his previous stance. While the Government barely blinked before saying no to consumption room pilots, Cameron did not rule them out: "...because anything that helps get users off the streets and in touch with agencies that can provide treatment is worth looking at." The issue was to be looked at as part of the party's policy review.

The addictions working group report was published in July 2007 - and delivered a damning verdict on the Government's drug policy: 'Under ten years of Labour's drug strategy, policy itself has become an intrinsic part of the problem. It has been a costly investment in failure.' Both barrels were fired: "Spending is often wasteful, unwise and misdirected...bureaucracy has grown dramatically...has further entrenched addiction...[Treatment is a] misguided system of social control [with] counterproductive targets...Enforcement appears weak...drug education in schools...could be doing more harm than good." And so on. Although the report accepted that methadone has a "useful and positive role in the treatment of addiction", methadone prescribing was branded as a "harm reduction" measure and harm reduction approaches were attacked. A criticism was that the rapid expansion of methadone prescribing has been politically and target driven rather than need driven, and that abstinence-oriented treatment had been intentionally marginalised. What could have been a measured call for an expansion in residential rehabilitation and a greater focus on abstinence got caught up in the polarised and 'either/or' tone of the report and its presentation.

The addictions working group report has not been formally adopted as party policy, but by filling a vacuum its headline theme of 'abstinence-versus-harm reduction' has continued to gain traction. It has set the mood music for the Conservative Party's responses to critical media reports on the drug treatment system over the past 12 months, notably by the BBC's Home Affairs editor Mark Easton, on the relatively small proportion of people leaving treatment 'drug free'. In October 2007 David Davis wrote as shadow home secretary to the chair of the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee asking for an investigation into drug treatment, describing the investment as “massive failed expenditure" - "This is an absolutely shocking revelation which speaks volumes about the Government’s incompetence and distorted priorities. It is yet more evidence why we should focus spending on getting addicts off drugs, and not just spend money managing their addiction.” In response to more recent drug treatment figures (October 2008) shadow home secretary, Dominic Grieve, said: "the Government's entire approach of simply trying to manage addiction is wrong...these figures show that despite a significant increase in investment there has been a paltry increase in the number of addicts going clean. This failing approach is compounded by Labour's mixed and confused messages on the dangers posed by cannabis and ecstasy."

The latest official Conservative Party statement on drugs policy can be found in Repair - Plan for social reform published in October 2008. It accuses Labour of an approach of "maintenance and management, which has failed" and promises to introduce an abstinence-based Drug Rehabilitation Order and "residential-abstinence orientated programs" including day-care programs. There is no further detail.

As to what the commitment to increase abstinence based treatment may cost, the Scottish Conservative Party pledged in its manifesto for the 2007 Scottish Parliamentary Election that it would spend an additional £100 million a year on drug rehabilitation (saving, it claimed, £1 billion a year on policing, prisons and healthcare services). If the commitment were replicated in England - assuming an additional spend rather than a reallocation within existing budgets and matched on a population basis - the drug treatment budget would have to increase by up to £1 billion a year.That is, of course, extremely unlikely.

To date, the only recommendation in the Select Committee report Cameron has stepped away from is on the classification of cannabis, justified on the grounds that the drug "is so much more powerful than it use to be." The government's decision to go against the advice of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs and reclassify cannabis back to B has neutralised Conservative Party attacks on the issue.

When Cameron talks about "compassionate Conservatism" and the need to fix "broken Britain", he usually refers to the problems caused by drug and alcohol misuse - but stops short of specific pronouncements on drug policy. In a recently published book, Cameron on Cameron, when challenged on cannabis classification he said: "...I think the whole classification system is in need of a major overhaul because it seems to me that the ABC method does not really get it right...These evaluations are all based on the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act, and a lot has changed since then. And I think without in anyway weakening the illegality of drugs that the classification system needs a major overhaul." An interesting return perhaps to the backbencher who supported "thoughtful" drug policy reform.

There are both punitive and progressive strands within Conservative Party drug policy, to some extent embodied, respectively, by successive Conservative shadow home secretaries on the one hand, and the party leader, David Cameron, on the other. Just as 'only Nixon could go to China', a right-of-centre government may adopt a progressive approach to drugs policy, but to date there are few signs of Conservative drug policy moving closer to the views of its leader. It will be interesting to see how this contradiction plays out over the coming months. Unless Cameron changes his views, he could be leading a government with a drug policy he does not believe in.

Author: Martin Barnes, chief executive of DrugScope

This is an extended version of an article published in the November/December edition of DrugScope's Druglink magazine.