Pubdate: Thu, 14 Dec 2006
Source: Times, The (UK)
Copyright: 2006 Times Newspapers Ltd
Contact:  http://www.the-times.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/454
Author: Mary Ann Sieghart

DRUGS: WHY WE SHOULD MEDICALISE, NOT CRIMINALISE

If you are a desperate drug addict and you are neither a trust fund 
babe nor a doctor with a prescription pad, you really have only three 
ways to pay for your habit: you steal, you deal or you sell your 
body. For those poor young women who have too many scruples to steal 
or deal, prostitution is often the only answer. Some 95 per cent of 
prostitutes, according to a Home Office study, are what they call 
"problematic drug users".

And now five prostitutes in Suffolk have been murdered and the rest 
fear for their lives. One of the victims, Gemma Adams, an 
intelligent, piano-playing, pony-riding, middle-class girl, had 
turned to prostitution, like many other such women, after becoming 
addicted to heroin and crack. This week her parents issued photos of 
her in happier days, to help people understand that she was a person, 
not just a prostitute.

Yet even the law degrades prostitutes, valuing their lives at less 
than that of a middle-class, piano-playing girl. When Dianne Parry's 
daughter, Hanane (another heroin addict turned prostitute), was 
murdered and dismembered in 2003, the Criminal Injuries Compensation 
Authority offered Mrs Parry only half the money that a parent of a 
non-prostitute would receive. It wasn't the UKP 5,000 that Mrs Parry 
cared about, but the devaluing of her daughter's life.

And it is not just the law on compensation that should be changed. It 
is the law on drugs themselves. Drug addiction is a medical 
condition; it should not be treated as a criminal offence. The crime 
that results from drug addiction is a direct result of the drugs' 
illegality. The organised criminal gangs, with their violence, 
corruption and money laundering; the street gangs, with their gun 
crime, stabbings and intimidation; the muggers, burglars, car thieves 
and shoplifters, who steal to fund their habit; the dealers who try 
to create new addicts; and finally, the prostitutes who put their 
health and lives at risk; all this crime and suffering could be wiped 
out if the drugs were available, free, on prescription. Some 50 to 80 
per cent of prisoners are in jail for crimes related to raising money 
to buy drugs. Nearly half of women prisoners are there specifically 
for drug offences and nearly three-quarters have had a drug problem. 
The cost to the criminal justice system is huge. The cost to the 
individuals, their families and wider society is greater still.

In European cities, where heroin is available on prescription, 
property crimes by drug-users have dropped by as much as a half. And 
think of the effect that widespread prescribing would have on turf 
wars, gang violence, gun crime, street dealing and prostitution. An 
excellent report from the Transform drug policy foundation* also 
points out: "The largest single profit opportunity for organised 
crime would evaporate, and with it the largest single source of 
police corruption."

Transform estimates that the prison population would fall by between 
a third and a half, ending overcrowding and the need to build more 
jails. Billions of pounds spent enforcing prohibition and coping with 
its consequences would be saved. Hundreds of thousands could be 
treated as patients rather than criminals. The number of drug-related 
deaths would fall dramatically. And desperate young women could be 
rescued from pimps, potential rapists and murderers.

At the same time, unstable countries such as Afghanistan and 
Colombia, which have become almost ungovernable thanks to the 
distorting and corrupting effects of the drugs trade, could sell 
their products legally to Western governments for medical use.

Of course we should try to get drug addicts off their drugs. It is 
good that waiting times are now shorter for rehabilitation. But 
treatment doesn't work unless users really, really want to give up. 
And even then, they often relapse because the cravings are so strong. 
So it is not surprising that enforced treatment and rehabilitation is 
so unsuccessful. A National Audit Office report on the Government's 
Drug Treatment and Testing Order, a court-administered mandatory 
programme for addicts, found that 80 per cent of offenders were 
reconvicted within two years.

It is much more sensible to prescribe a maintenance dose for addicts, 
which they must take under supervision so they cannot sell it on, 
until they are ready to try to give up. That way, they can attempt to 
lead a normal life, to refrain from crime, to stay off the streets, 
even to hold down a job, until they can wean themselves off the drugs.

This isn't just the whim of a crazy columnist. The former head of 
Interpol, Raymond Kendall, has called for drugs to be "medicalised" 
instead of criminalised. He spent his life trying to control the 
supply of drugs, only to see how pointless the effort was. Drugs are 
now available on virtually every street corner, ready to destroy lives.

So let's save lives instead. Let's take the profits out of the 
pockets of criminal gangs and dealers. Let's make our streets safer. 
And let's give these poor young girls the opportunity of a better 
life, with dignity, security and scant chance of ending up murdered 
and dumped in a ditch.

*After the War on Drugs: Options for Control www.tdpf.org.uk

Let's give credit where credit's due

It's funny what people choose to believe. I have written before about 
the gap between voters' personal (good) experience of the NHS and 
their (poor) perception of the national picture. Now it is the 
Conservatives who are suffering from people's wilful disbelief of the facts.

Asked in our poll yesterday whether David Cameron had made real 
progress in changing "the scandalous under-representation of women in 
the Conservative Party" (his words), only 26 per cent said he had 
made progress, while 56 per cent said he hadn't.

Actually, there has been a serious improvement. Some 38 per cent of 
the 96 candidates selected since he became leader are female, a big 
change since before the last election. And what's more, they are at 
last being given winnable seats. Only last weekend, six 
constituencies selected candidates, and five of them chose women.

This is a fact, not an opinion. It is not open to bias, challenge or 
partisan interpretation.

If I were Cameron, I would be shouting it as loud as I could, and 
repeating it often enough for voters to take it in. For it is too 
depressing to be doing the right thing, achieving the right results 
and still winning no credit for them.

Modesty prevents

My daughter's school has just run a competition for the best slogan 
for Science Week. The winning entry is so clever that I thought I 
should share it with you: "Physics rules, chemistry rocks, biology 
grows on you."

To spare her blushes, I am not going to print the name of the author, 
but if she doesn't end up as an advertising copywriter, I'll be amazed.
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MAP posted-by: Elaine