Relative harm caused by various legal and illegal drug abuse


Even if you don't accept my previous moral and ethical postulating on the issue of how society approaches drug use (I have to explicitly decree that by drugs I mean everything from caffeine to heroin) you should still sit up and take notice of some recent news from the UK.

So, even if you believe the state should have any role in what choices a private individual decides to take which impact on their personal circumstances, that is, criminalising a person who decides to carry out an act where only they themselves are also the victim of the crime (prostitution being the other main aberration of this sort in many western judicial systems), surely you should at least be rational about the form of the state intervention?

It's a stinging indictment of current western government policy regarding drug use that things are so far stacked in the irrational that a specialist UK government advisory body made up of medical professionals with front line experience of the issue and academics working in the domain can come to conclusions so extremely antipathetic to the policies of the legislators who constituted the advisory body in the first place. Votes really are more important than what's best for the voters. Viva McFreedom!

Last week an extensive and thorough report entitled Using harm to classify drugs was published (full report, free subscription required.) in The Lancet. The report was authored by among others, Professor Colin Blakemore, Chief Executive of the UK's Medical Research Council and Professor David Nutt, a member of the UK Advisory Council on Misuse of Drugs whose remit it is to advise government on drugs policy. The report is based on analysis of data gathered on questions asked of 29 expert consultant psychiatrists who specialise in addiction. This analysis was also marshalled by another 16 experts spanning several fields including chemistry, pharmacology, psychiatry, forensics, police and legal services.

On Friday, Professor Blakemore defended one of the most controversial sound bites the media cherry picked of the report, ecstasy's position much further down the harm scale than alcohol and tobacco.

From The Guardian last Friday:

"The policies we have had for the last 40 years ... clearly have not worked in terms of reducing drug use. So I think it does deserve a fresh look. The principal objective of this study was to bring a dispassionate approach to what is a very passionate issue."

Despite about a third of young people having tried the drug and around half a million users every weekend, it causes fewer than 10 deaths a year. One person a day is killed by acute alcohol poisoning and thousands more from chronic use. (My epmhasis).

So, in a debate that causes so much heat and so very little light maybe those on the prohibition side of the fence should check their passion at the door and sit down and have a listen to what the evidence says. Non-evidence based legislation is something that is exponentially magnifying the damage to society caused by abuse of all drugs, legal and illegal.

Abuse of drugs of all sorts causes harm to people, something which we in Ireland are becoming more and more exposed to be it in our own experience or that of our families and friends. Where are the politicians brave enough to tackle these problems in an honest and forthright manner based on evidence rather than irrational prejudices and greed for power?

I'm sure politicians in the UK and Ireland will praise political figures in Northern Ireland over the coming weeks for taking the "brave" and bold steps necessary to sit down at a table and talk to each other, despite being overwhelmingly mandated by the electorate to do just that. They might even go further and actually share power with each other before the summer! Excuse me if I ask the praising political types in the UK and Ireland to pass me the bucket. Those doling out such praise for bravery should have a look in the mirror at issues they are afraid to tackle which are causing uncountable harm to youth across the UK and Ireland.


tags: drugs

Published by Paul.