Pubdate: Tue, 28 May 2002 Source: Helsingin Sanomat International Edition (Finland) Copyright: 2002 2000 Helsingin Sanomat Contact: http://www.helsinki-hs.net/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1158 Author: Ari Lahdenmaki DRUG POLICY FAILURES Many experts see drugs seen as a convenient scapegoat to hide political shortcomings Have those people in London gone crazy? In May more than 20,000 marched in London calling for the legalisation of cannabis. Several similar demonstrations have been held in Britain in recent years. A powerful popular movement has arisen in the country, calling for a more liberal drug policy. The quality newspaper, The Independent on Sunday, backs the legalisation of cannabis, and has organised demonstrations itself. The respected economic journal The Economist would allow the use and sale of all drugs. And what must the Portuguese been thinking a year ago when they radically changed their drug legislation? The law continues to forbid the use of drugs, but there are no punishments. So aren't drugs society's worst enemy after all? Aren't they a threat that must be fought using any means possible? Drugs are behind many difficult social problems, but according to a group of international experts who wrote to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 1998, these problems are more the result of today's drug policies than the drugs themselves. In their opinion today's war against drugs only makes the problem worse. For nearly 100 years, drug policy in the West has been based on prohibitions and control. The goal has been a drug-free society, which has been pursued by meting out punishments. In 1966 Finland became the first Nordic Country to pass a law banning the possession and use of psychoactive drugs. The decision was preceded by intense debate. On the one hand, drug users were seen primarily as victims. The reason for making the use of drugs illegal was to underscore the negative view taken by society. Like other Western countries, Finland punishes dealers more severely than users. In about 20 years the use of drugs has increased in Europe so much that police usually turn a blind eye to use, while concentrating on fighting smuggling and trade. Last year Finnish police and customs officials confiscated 589 kilos of cannabis and 139 kilos of amphetamine. According to international estimates, authorities seize only about five to ten percent of the illegal drugs on the market. The United States spends more than any other country in the world in the fight against drugs - 40 billion dollars a year. The USA has also tried to reduce the supply of illegal drugs by destroying drug crops in Mexico, Peru, Bolivia, and Colombia. Nobel Prize winner, economist Milton Friedman has wondered what sense there is in dumping huge amounts of money on a policy that has proven to be ineffective. The United States - a country with five percent of the population of the world, and a quarter of its prisoners - spends great amounts of money on prison construction, for instance. Over the years the drug police in Finland have been given more money and authority. The police can now wiretap telephones, pose as drug buyers, and soon they will be allowed to bug the homes of suspected dealers. Drug crime has increased in spite of more efficient policing. Dealers are not deterred even by harsh punishments, because the profits are simply too great. The increase in drug crime can be seen in prisons. In Sweden nearly one in every three prisoners incarcerated in 2000 said that they had suffered from a drug problem when they were put behind bars. More than half of all prisoners said that they had used illegal drugs at least two times a week at some time in their lives. Finnish prisons are also crowded. Increasing numbers of prisoners have been sentenced for a drug crime, or for property crime motivated by a need to buy drugs. Britain's former Minister of Northern Ireland affairs, Mo Mowlam, said in a recent interview with The Independent, that the best way to reduce the harm caused by drugs would be to legalise them all, including the hard drugs. Supporters of legalisation would impose a tax on drugs, and use the revenues to offset some of the costs of treatment. The UN has calculated that the drug trade is worth 404 billion euros a year, which is equivalent to about eight percent of all world trade. All of this is tax-free income for organised crime. According to British estimates the legalisation of drugs would lower their price to about five percent of the present level and would lead to a 70% decline in theft. Supporters of legalisation also cite humanitarian considerations: in the view of The Economist, punishing drug users hurts those who are the worst off. In the United States, police often interfere with street sales conducted by members of racial minorities, while those who are well off sniff their cocaine at home, out of sight of the police. In Finland, the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health fears that habitual drug users are repeatedly given fines instead of treatment. Being arrested for drug use tends to lead to further marginalisation. In the United States convicted drug users can find it difficult to gett a driving licence, and even a study loan. Present-day drug policy has its origins in efforts to regulate the opium trade. Religious groups in 19th century Britain promoted international treaties which would end Britain's opium trade with China. Later the League of Nations and the United Nations drafted drug treaties which defined which substances should be banned. Nearly all intoxicants that were not in common use in Europe and North America were put on the list. The banned substances were chosen in quite an arbitrary manner. United States took the drugs favoured by Chinese and Mexican immigrants: opium and marijuana. The white upper class did not ban its own drugs of choice - alcohol, tobacco, and coffee. But why is Europe's drug policy changing only now, even though the critics have been pointing out its shortcomings for years? Critical voices have generally been silenced, both in politics and in the media. Australian researcher Desmond Manderson has explained the one-sided opinions on drugs in terms of cultural history. According to this explanation, Western societies are very systematic and rational. Even the slightest threat to a society based on reason is met with furious resistance. Taking the hard line on drugs also provides politicians with an easy scapegoat for the failures of society. Two Nordic experts, Norwegian criminologist Professor Nils Christie and the late Finnish alcohol researcher Kettil Bruun wrote in their classic book on drug policy that illegal drugs are a "good enemy" for society, and that the most dangerous type of drug abuse is the political abuse of drugs. Although drugs may be a good enemy for those who oppose them, prohibition does not seem to reduce the use of drugs. No matter what legislators do, there will always be some people who use drugs, although only a small percentage of experimenters or occasional users ever develop any real problems with them. Many European countries have moved toward a drug policy aimed primarily at minimising the harm caused by drugs. in this approach, users are not punished, while efforts are made to improve the treatment system and drug education. For instance, in Spain the use of cannabis, cocaine, and ecstasy is so common that the police would not have the time to go after people for the possession of small amounts for personal use. Even those who advocate the legalisation of drugs do not want to give people unrestricted access to them. In The Netherlands cannabis is available only in special coffee shops, and in Switzerland heroin has been distributed to hard-core addicts from special service points. Drugs do cause serious health problems. According to Dr. Tapani Sarvanti, an official at the Finnish Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, drug abuse treatment needs to be improved. For instance, the treatment of heroin addiction with other drugs has helped addicts improve their quality of life, while deaths by overdose and HIV infections have declined. Sarvanti also believes in the effectiveness of drug education, as long as it is based on fact. "Previously educators have lied and painted images of horror that do not correspond to the experiences of the young people themselves. The credibility of drug educators has suffered quite a blow", Sarvanti says. The relaxing of controls has not led to uncontrolled growth in the use of drugs. In The Netherlands cannabis is used less frequently than in Britain, where simple use can theoretically still lead to rather severe punishment. The World Health Organisation and the European Union financed a study on the results of new legislation in The Czech Republic imposing tougher punishments for users. The study showed that punishing users was actually harmful, and the policy was later changed. British Home Secretary David Blunkett has proposed that cannabis be classified in the same category as medicines which affect the central nervous system. He bases his views on studies according to which cannabis does not cause any more damage than the legal drugs tobacco and alcohol. It is likely that the legalisation of drugs would lead to an increase in their use, and of serious cases of addiction. How much is anyone's guess, as there are no experiences to go on. Olavi Kaukonen, a civil servant at the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, has said that although illegal drugs may be easier to acquire in Central Europe than in Finland, experimentation with drugs is about as frequent everywhere. On the other hand, he says that the intoxication-seeking drinking culture that prevails in Finland could mean that drugs would also be used in a similar manner, and in combination with alcohol. But even in more liberal countries it is possible to tighten drug policy. In The Netherlands the maximum amount of cannabis that the coffee shops are allowed to sell a customer at one time was reduced a few years back. Wim Buisman, the head of the Jellineck Foundation, which organises treatment for drug abusers, says that he does not expect that the country's drug policy would change much in the coming years. However, the new right-of-centre Government wants to reduce crime in areas with large immigrant populations. Buisman says that it could mean that immigrants would increasingly get their drug treatment in prison. Tapani Sarvanti believes that Finland will follow the rest of Europe in drug policy questions. "This will happen no matter how excessively optimistic some try to be here." It will take time. "Experts cannot mould the world to their liking. We need to live according to the dictates of fears and prejudices." - --- MAP posted-by: Alex