Why are drugs illegal?

‘To enable Harry Anslinger to keep his army of drug enforcers [the Untouchables], he created a new drug threat, cannabis, which he called marijuana to make it sound more Mexican.’ Photograph: Tomas Rodriguez/Corbis

 David Nutt in The Guardian


This is, of course, a flawed question but one that illustrates a major paradox in the UK and international laws on drugs. Some drugs – such as alcohol, caffeine and nicotine – are legal, whereas others – such as cannabis, cocaine and opium – are not. This has not always been the case.

In the 19th century extracts of these three now-illegal drugs were legal in the UK, and were sold in pharmacies and even corner shops. Queen Victoria’s physician was a great proponent of the value of tincture of cannabis and the monarch is reputed to have used it to counteract the pain of menstrual periods and childbirth. Now it is denied to people with severe enduring spasticity and pain from neurological disorders and cancer. Why?

Activists to get high together in protest against psychoactive substances ban



The truth is unpalatable and goes back to the period of alcohol prohibition in the US in the 1920s. This was introduced as a harm-reduction measure because alcohol was seen (correctly) as a drug that seriously damaged families and children. But public demand for alcohol in the US did not abate and this fuelled a massive rise in bootleg alcohol and underground bars (known as speakeasys) that encouraged the rise of the mafia and other crime syndicates.

To combat this, the US government set up a special army of enforcers, under the command of Harry Anslinger, which became known as “the untouchables”. This army of enforcers was widely celebrated by the newspapers and the acclaim propelled Anslinger to national prominence. However, when public disquiet at the crime and social damage caused by alcohol prohibition led to its repeal, Anslinger saw his position as being in danger.

To enable him to keep his army of drug enforcers, he created a new drug threat: cannabis, which he called marijuana to make it sound more Mexican. Working with a newspaper magnate, William Randolph Hearst, he created hysteria around the impact of cannabis on American youth and proclaimed an invasion of marijuana-smoking Mexican men assaulting white women. The ensuing public anxiety led to the drug being banned. The US then imposed its anti-cannabis stance on other western countries and this was finally imposed on the rest of the world through the first UN convention on narcotic drugs in 1961.

 

Mexican soldiers burning marijuana, cocaine, heroin and other drugs in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua. Photograph: AFP/Getty

This process of vilifying drugs by engendering a fear of the “other people” who use them became a recurring theme in drug policy. Black Americans were stigmatised on account of heroin use in the 1950s. In the 1960s hippies and psychedelics were targeted because they opposed the Vietnam war. In the 1970s it was again inner-city black Americans who used crack cocaine who received the brunt of opprobrium, so much so that the penalties for crack possession were 100 times higher than those for powder cocaine, despite almost equivalent pharmacology. Then came “crystal” (methamphetamine) and the targeting of “poor whites”.

The UK has followed US trends over cannabis, heroin and psychedelics, and led the world in the vilification of MDMA (ecstasy). In the UK a hate campaign against young people behaving differently was instigated by the rightwing press. As with past campaigns, they hid their prejudice under the smokescreen of false health concerns. It was very effective and resulted in both MDMA and raves being banned. This occurred despite the police being largely comfortable with MDMA users since they were friendly – a stark contrast to those at alcohol-fuelled events.


Since the demise of ecstasy we have seen the rise and fall of several alternative legal highs, most notably mephedrone. This was banned following a relentless media campaign, despite no evidence of deaths and with little attempt to properly estimate its harm. Subsequently we have discovered that it saved more lives than it took because so many people switched from cocaine and amphetamine to mephedrone that deaths from these more toxic stimulants decreased by up to 40%. Since mephedrone was banned in 2010, cocaine deaths have risen again and are now above their pre-mephedrone levels.

As young people seek to find legal ways to enjoy altered consciousness without exposing themselves to the addictiveness and toxicity of alcohol or the danger of getting a criminal record, so the newspapers seek to get these ways banned too. Politicians collude as they are subservient to those newspapers that hate youth and they know that the drug-using population is much less likely to vote than the drug-fearing elderly. We have moved to a surreal new world in which the government, through the new psychoactive substances bill, has decided to put an end to the sale of any drug with psychoactive properties, known or yet to be discovered.

This ban is predicated on more media hysteria about legal highs such as nitrous oxide and the “head shops” that sell them. Lies about the number of legal high deaths abound, with Mike Penning, minister for policing and justice, quoting 129 last year in the bill’s second reading. The true figure is about five, as the “head shops” generally now sell safe mild stimulants because they don’t want their regular customers to die.

‘Queen Victoria’s physician was a great proponent of the value of tincture of cannabis, and she is reputed to have used it to counteract the pain of menstrual periods and childbirth.’ Photograph: Alamy

The attack on nitrous oxide is even more peculiar as this gas has been used for pain control for women in childbirth and surgical pain treatments for more than 100 years with minimal evidence of harm. But when a couple of premiership footballers are filmed inhaling a nitrous oxide balloon, then it becomes a public health hazard. In typical fashion the press renamed it “hippy crack” to scare people – what could me more frightening to elderly readers than an invasion of hippies on crack? In truth, the effect of nitrous oxide is nothing like crack and no self-respecting hippy would ever use it. Still, it seems likely it will be banned along with every other mind-altering substance that is not exempted.

The psychoactive substances bill is the most oppressive law in terms of controlling moral behaviour since the Act of Supremacy in 1558 that banned the practice of the Catholic faith. Both are based on a moral superiority that specifies the state will decide on acceptable actions and beliefs even if they don’t affect other people. Worse, it won’t work – evidence from other countries such as Poland and Ireland that have tried such blanket bans shows an increase in deaths as people go back to older illegal drugs such as cocaine and heroin.

Moreover, it may seriously impede research in brain disorders, one of the few scientific areas in which the UK is still world-leading. But hey, who cares about the consequences of laws, so long as the police and the press are appeased?

So the short answer to the question “why are (some) drugs illegal?” is simple. It’s because the editors of powerful newspapers want it that way. They see getting drugs banned as a tangible measure of success, a badge of honour. And behind them the alcohol industry continues secretly to express its opposition to anything that might challenge its monopoly of recreational drug sales. But that’s another story.

The economic case for legalising cannabis

The public wants it and it would be good for the economy. Why has the law not been changed?

Paul Birch in The Telegraph

Channel 4’s Drugs Live programme promises to examine what cannabis does to the brain. Many of us have already seen the clips of Jon Snow struggling after a massive dose of high strength marijuana (the equivalent of forcing a teetotaller to down a bottle of vodka and then asking him how he feels).

But beyond the effects of cannabis on the brain, isn’t it time for a wider discussion on the potential effects of safe, regulated cannabis consumption on society?

How much is cannabis worth these days? According to the Institute for Economic and Research, up to £900m could be raised annually through taxation of regulated cannabis market.

Meanwhile £361 million is currently spent every year on policing and treating users of illegally traded and consumed cannabis.

It seems a lot to spend on punishing people for an activity most of us barely believe should be a crime any more. And that’s even before one factors in the potential benefit legalisation and regulation of cannabis could have for the UK exchequer.

Then, there is the job creation potential. In Colorado, which legalised marijuana at the beginning of 2014, 10,000 now work in the marijuana industry: growing and harvesting crops, working in dispensaries, and making and selling equipment. Crime has fallen: in the first three months after legalisation in Denver, the city experienced a 14.6 per cent drop in crime and specifically violent crime is down 2.4 per cent. Assaults were down by 3.7 per cent.

This reduction led to further savings and allowing stretched police forces to concentrate on more serious issues. Meanwhile, cannabis use by young people actually decreased, an uncomfortable fact for prohibitionists who argue that legalisation would simply encourage more teens to take up cannabis.

In an age when every penny of government spending is fought for, the demonstrated potential savings and revenues at very least deserve serious investigation. Revenue raised from a regulated cannabis trade could be directed towards education on safe use of cannabis.

That’s why the next government – regardless of who it is led by, should set up a Royal Commission into drug legislation.

Why a Royal Commission? Because I firmly believe this is a way forward for our fractured politics. A non-partisan commission can help politicians take hold of an issue and look at the evidence beyond the fears of being blindsided by attacks from the other side. Parties can agree to participate, evidence can be heard, everyday people can submit and read facts, opinions and analysis: it’s a real opportunity to create the “evidence-based policy” to which every party claims they aspire.

Major party leaders are reluctant to grasp the nettle of drug legislation. It’s understandable, given the current association of drugs with criminality. Half of people in the UK think cannabis contributes to street crime. But this association is inevitable as long as cannabis itself is illegal. Only a dispassionate discussion on the merits of cannabis legalisation and regulation can break that link.

Cista is standing for election on this issue because we believe the practical evidence has reached tipping point. Legalisation and regulation of cannabis can benefit the economy, lift the burden on the criminal justice system, encourage education about healthy, informed choices, and help recreational and medicinal cannabis users to enjoy a clean, safe product without being forced to engage with the underworld. Cannabis in itself is not the problem: our current law is. And we’re all paying the price.

Heroic Uruguay deserves a Nobel peace prize for legalising cannabis

The war on the war on drugs is the only war that matters. Uruguay's stance puts the UN and the US to shame

• 
• • Simon Jenkins
  • The Guardian, Thursday 12 December 2013 20.35 GMT

'Uruguay will legalise not only cannabis consumption but, crucially, its production and sale.' Illustration by Satoshi Kambayashi

I used to think the United Nations was a harmless talking shop, with tax-free jobs for otherwise unemployed bureaucrats. I now realise it is a force for evil. Its response to a truly significant attempt to combat a global menace – Uruguay's new drug regime – has been to declare that it "violates international law".

To see the tide turn on drugs is like trying to detect a glacier move. But moving it is. Wednesday's statute was introduced by the Uruguayan president, José Mujica, "to free future generations from this plague". The plague was not drugs as such but the "war" on them, which leaves the world's youth at the mercy of criminal traffickers and random imprisonment. Mujica declares himself a reluctant legaliser but one determined "to take users away from clandestine business. We don't defend marijuana or any other addiction, but worse than any drug is trafficking."

Uruguay will legalise not only cannabis consumption but, crucially, its production and sale. Users must be over 18 and registered Uruguayans. While small quantities can be grown privately, firms will produce cannabis under state licence and prices will be set to undercut traffickers. The country does not have a problem on the scale of Colombia or Mexico – just 10% of adults admit to using cannabis – and stresses that the measure is experimental.

This measured approach is still way in advance even of American states such as Colorado and Washington, which have legalised recreational as well as medical cannabis consumption, but not production. While the Uruguayan law does not cover other drugs, by depriving traffickers of an estimated 90% of their market, the hope is both to undermine the bulk of the criminal market and to diminish the gateway effect of traffickers pushing harder drugs.

Mujica's courage should not be underrated. His is a gently old-fashioned country, and two-thirds of those polled oppose the move, though this is up from 3% a decade ago. In addition some pro-legalisation lobbies object to his de facto nationalisation. An open question is whether a state cartel will be as effective as a regulated free market. But the drugs chief, Julio Calzada, is blunt: "For 50 years, we have tried to tackle the drug problem with only one tool – penalisation – and that has failed. As a result, we now have more consumers, bigger criminal organisations, money laundering, arms trafficking and collateral damage."

The response of the UN's International Narcotics Control Board has been to incant futile bromides. The move, says its chief Raymond Yans, would "endanger young people and contribute to the earlier onset of addiction". It would also be in breach of a "universally agreed and internationally endorsed treaty". Yet the UN admits that half a century of attempted suppression has led to 162m cannabis users worldwide, or 4% of the total adult population .

The 78-year-old Mujica notes the irony that many of his South American contemporaries agree with him, but only after leaving office. They include Brazil's Fernando Cardoso, Mexico's Ernesto Zedillo and Colombia's César Gaviria, all of whom have now called for the decriminalisation of the drug market so that they can begin to regulate a trade whose feuding operators are killing thousands of people each year. Thevalue of the drugs trade is second only to the trade in arms. Yet the US resists decriminalisation so it can continue to fight cocaine and opium production in Latin America and Afghanistan, to avoid confronting the real enemy: a domestic consumption that is out of control.

For all this, the futility of suppression is leading to laws crumbling across the west.Twenty US states have legalised medical cannabis. California this year narrowly rejected taxing consumption (turning down an estimated $1.3bn in annual revenue) and may yet relent. Drug use is accepted across most of Latin America and, de facto, Europe. Even in Britain, where possession can be punished by five years in prison, just 0.2% of cases prosecuted result in such a sentence. The most intensive drug users are said to be in the state's own jails. The law has effectively collapsed.

The difficulty now is to resolve the inconsistency of enforcers "turning a blind eye" to consumption while leaving supply (and thus marketing) untaxed and unregulated in the hands of drug traffickers. This is little short of a state subsidy to organised crime. Indulgence may save the police and the courts from the cost of enforcement, but it leaves every high street open to massive cross-jeopardy, from cannabis to hard drug use.

Ending this inconsistency requires action from legislators. Yet they remain seized by a lethal mix of taboo, tribalism and fear of the media. British policy on all intoxicants and narcotics (from booze to benzodiazepines) is chaotic and dangerous. The government on Thursday admitted its inability to control "legal highs", new ones being invented every week. It is running round back-street laboratories waving bans and arrest warrants like the Keystone Cops.

The catastrophe of death and anarchy that failed drug suppression has brought to Mexico and to other narco-states makes the west's obsessive war on terror seem like a footling sideshow. The road out of this darkness is now being charted not in the old world but in the new, whose heroic legislators deserve to be awarded a Nobel peace prize. It is they who have taken on the challenge of fighting the one world war that really matters – the war on the war on drugs. It is significant that the bravest countries are also the smallest. Thank heavens for small states.

How I bought drugs from 'dark net' – it's just like Amazon run by cartels

Last week the FBI arrested Dread Pirate Roberts, founder of Silk Road, a site on the 'dark net' where visitors could buy drugs at the click of a mouse. Though Dread – aka Ross Ulbricht – earned millions, was he really driven by America's anti-state libertarian philosophy?

• 
• • Carole Cadwalladr
  • The Observer, Sunday 6 October 2013

The FBI alleges Ross Ulbricht ran the vast underground drug marketplace Silk Road for more than two years. Photograph: theguardian.com

Dear FBI agents, my name is Carole Cadwalladr and in February this year I was asked to investigate the so-called "dark net" for a feature in this newspaper. I downloaded Tor on to my computer, the anonymous browser developed by the US navy, Googled "Silk Roaddrugs" and then cut and pasted this link http://silkroadvb5piz3r.onion/ into the address field.

And bingo! There it was: Silk Road, the site, which until the FBI closed it down on Thursday and arrested a 29-year-old American in San Francisco, was the web's most notorious marketplace.

The "dark net" or the "deep web", the hidden part of the internet invisible to Google, might sound like a murky, inaccessible underworld but the reality is that it's right there, a click away, at the end of your mouse. It took me about 10 minutes of Googling and downloading to find and access the site on that February morning, and yet arriving at the home page of Silk Road was like stumbling into a parallel universe, a universe where eBay had been taken over by international drug cartels and Amazon offers a choice of books, DVDS and hallucinogens.

Drugs are just another market, and on Silk Road it was a market laid bare, differentiated by price, quality, point of origin, supposed effects and lavish user reviews. There were categories for "cannabis", "dissociatives", "ecstasy", "opioids", "prescription", "psychedelics", "stimulants" and, my favourite, "precursors". (If you've watched Breaking Bad, you'll know that's the stuff you need to make certain drugs and which Walt has to hold up trains and rob factories to find. Or, had he known about Silk Road, clicked a link on his browser.)

And, just like eBay, there were star ratings for sellers, detailed feedback, customer service assurances, an escrow system and a busy forum in which users posted helpful tips. I looked on the UK cannabis forum, which had 30,000 postings, and a vendor called JesusOfRave was recommended. He had 100% feedback, promised "stealth" packaging and boasted excellent customer reviews: "The level of customer care you go to often makes me forget that this is an illegal drug market," said one.

JesusOfRave boasted on his profile: "Working with UK distributors, importers and producers to source quality, we run a tight ship and aim to get your order out same or next day. This tight ship also refers to our attitude to your and our privacy. We have been doing this for a long time … been playing with encryption since 0BC and rebelling against the State for just as long."

And so, federal agents, though I'm sure you know this already, not least because the Guardian revealed on Friday that the National Security Agency (NSA) and GCHQ have successfully cracked Tor on occasion, I ordered "1g of Manali Charras [cannabis] (free UK delivery)", costing 1.16 bitcoins (the cryptocurrency then worth around £15). I used a false name with my own address, and two days later an envelope arrived at my door with an address in Bethnal Green Road, east London, on the return label and a small vacuum-packed package inside: a small lump of dope.

It's still sitting in its original envelope in the drawer of my desk. I got a bit stumped with my dark net story, put it on hold and became more interested in the wonderful world of cryptocurrencies as the value of bitcoins soared over the next few months (the 1.5 bitcoins I'd bought for £20 were worth £300 at one point this spring).

Just under a month ago I was intrigued to see that Forbes magazine had managed to get an interview with "Dread Pirate Roberts", the site's administrator. And then, last week, came the news that Dread Pirate Roberts was 29-year-old Ross Ulbricht, a University of Texas physics graduate who, according to the FBI's documents, had not just run the site – which it alleges earned him $80m in commission – but had hired a contract killer for $80,000 to rub out an employee who had tried to blackmail him.

If that sounds far-fetched, papers filed last Thursday show that he tried to take a contract on a second person. The documents showed that the FBI had access to Silk Road's servers from July, and that the contract killer Ulbricht had thought he'd hired was a federal agent. It's an astonishing, preposterous end to what was an astonishing, preposterous site, though the papers show that while the crime might have been hi-tech, cracking it was a matter of old-fashioned, painstaking detective work.

Except, of course, that it's not the end of it. There are two other similar websites already up and running – Sheep and Black Market Reloaded – which have both seen a dramatic uplift in users in the last few days, and others will surely follow. Because what Silk Road did for drugs was what eBay did for secondhand goods, and Airbnb has done for accommodation: it created a viable trust system that benefited both buyers and sellers.

Nicholas Christin, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, who conducted six months of research into the site, said that what surprised him most was how "normal" it was. "To me, the most surprising thing was how normal, when you set aside the goods being sold, the whole market appears to be," he said. And, while many people would be alarmed at the prospect of their teenagers buying drugs online, Silk Road was a whole lot more professional, regulated and controlled than buying drugs offline.

What's apparent from Dread Pirate Roberts's interview with Forbes and comments he made on the site's forum is that the motivation behind the site does not seem to have been making money (though clearly it did: an estimated $1.2bn), or a belief that drugs hold the key to some sort of mystical self-fulfillment, but that the state has no right to interfere in the lives of individuals. One of the details that enabled the FBI to track Ulbricht was the fact that he "favourited" several clips from the Ludwig von Mises Institute, a libertarian Alabama-based thinktank devoted to furthering what is known as the Austrian school of economics. Years later, Dread Pirate Roberts would cite the same theory on Silk Road's forum.

"What we're doing isn't about scoring drugs or 'sticking it to the man'," said Dread Pirate Roberts in the Forbes interview. "It's about standing up for our rights as human beings and refusing to submit when we've done no wrong."

And it's this that is possibly the most interesting aspect of the story. Because, while Edward Snowden's and the Guardian's revelations about the NSA have shown how all-encompassing the state's surveillance has become, a counterculture movement of digital activists espousing the importance of freedom, individualism and the right to a private life beyond the state's control is also rapidly gaining traction.

It's the philosophy behind innovations as diverse as the 3D printed gun and sites as mainstream as PayPal, and its proponents are young, computer-savvy idealists with the digital skills to invent new ways of circumventing the encroaching power of the state.

Ulbricht certainly doesn't seem to have been living the life you imagine of a criminal overlord. He lived in a shared apartment. If he had millions stashed away somewhere, he certainly doesn't seem to have been spending it on high-performance cars and penthouses.

His LinkedIn page, while possibly not the best arena for self-expression for a man being hunted by the FBI, demonstrates that his beliefs are grounded in libertarian ideology: "I want to use economic theory as a means to abolish the use of coercion and aggression amongst mankind," he wrote. "The most widespread and systemic use of force is amongst institutions and governments … the best way to change a government is to change the minds of the governed … to that end, I am creating an economic simulation to give people a firsthand experience of what it would be like to live in a world without the systemic use of force."

Silk Road, it turns out, might have been that world. Anybody who has seen All the President's Men knows that, when it comes to criminality, the answer has always been to "follow the money". But in the age of bitcoin, that's of a different order of difficulty. Silk Road is just one website; bitcoin is potentially the foundation for a whole new economic order.

Uruguay - the first country to create a legal market for drugs

Uruguay has taken a momentous step towards becoming the first country in the world to create a legal, national market for cannabis after the lower chamber of its Congress voted in favour of the groundbreaking plan.

The Bill would allow consumers to either grow up to six plants at home or buy up to 40g per month of the soft drug – produced by the government – from licensed chemists for recreational or medical use. Previously, although possession of small amounts for personal consumption was not criminalised in the small South American nation, growing and selling it was against the law.

The Bill passed by 50 votes to 46 shortly before midnight on Wednesday after a 14-hour debate as pro-legalisation activists crowded the balconies above the legislature floor. 

Uruguay’s Senate, where the ruling left-wing coalition has a larger majority, is now expected to approve the measure. President José Mujica, an octogenarian former armed rebel – who has previously overseen the passing of measures to allow abortion and gay marriage – backs the move.

Proponents of the Bill argue marijuana use is already prevalent in Uruguay and that by bringing consumers out of the shadows the government will be better able to regulate their behaviour, drive a wedge between them and peddlers of harder, more dangerous drugs, and tax cannabis sales.

They also believe that it closes the loophole that outlaws growing or buying cannabis while turning a legal blind eye to its consumption. Currently, judges in Uruguay have discretion to decide whether an undefined small quantity of the drug is for personal use or not.

Campaigners for an end to prohibition were quick to claim the vote as a landmark in the international push for drug policy reform. “Sometimes small countries do great things,” said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the New York-based Drug Policy Alliance, whose board includes entrepreneur Richard Branson, but also the late President Ronald Reagan’s former Secretary of State, George Shultz.

“Uruguay’s bold move does more than follow in the footsteps of Colorado and Washington,” added Mr Nadelmann, referring to the two Western US states that recently also permitted recreational cannabis use. “It provides a model for legally regulating marijuana that other countries, and US states, will want to consider.”

Hannah Hetzer, the Drug Policy Alliance’s Americas coordinator, who is based in Montevideo, added: “At the heart of the Uruguayan marijuana regulation Bill is a focus on improving public health and public safety. Instead of closing their eyes to the problem of drug abuse and drug trafficking, Uruguay is taking an important step towards responsible regulation of an existing reality.”

Nevertheless, the measure has divided Uruguay and in the run-up to the vote few dared predict its outcome, with the 99-member house almost split down the middle. All 49 opposition deputies had agreed to vote against the measure en bloc, while the 50 members of President Mujica’s ruling coalition were due to back it.

One of the government deputies, Darío Pérez, a doctor by training, had warned that cannabis is a gateway drug to harder substances and feared that fully legalising it would trigger a mushrooming of Uruguay’s already serious problems with crack and other cheaper, highly addictive cocaine derivatives.

In the most keenly awaited speech of the debate, Mr Pérez attacked the Bill but said he would vote in line with the coalition whip, although he could not have made his displeasure clearer. “Marijuana is manure,” he told the chamber. “With or without this law, it is the enemy of the student and of the worker.”

Mr Pérez was also unhappy with what he saw as a broken promise by Mr Mujica not to foist the law on a society that was not yet ready for it, citing a recent survey by pollsters Cifra that found 63 per cent of Uruguayans opposed cannabis legalisation while 23 per cent backed it.

Last December, the president had temporarily placed the measure on the back burner to give advocates a chance to rally public opinion. “The majority has to come in the streets,” he said then. “The people need to understand that with bullets and baton blows, putting people in jail, the only thing we are doing is gifting a market to the narco-traffickers.”

But those arguments failed to convince Gerardo Amarilla, a deputy for the conservative opposition National Party, who told the chamber: “We are playing with fire. Maybe we think that this is a way to change reality. Unfortunately, we are discovering a worse reality.”

Official studies from Uruguay’s National Drugs Board have found that of the country’s population of 3.4 million, around 184,000 people have smoked cannabis in the last year. Of that number, 18,400 are daily consumers. But independent researchers believe that may be a serious underestimate. The Association of Cannabis Studies has claimed there are 200,000 regular users in Uruguay.

One thing that no one disputes is that Uruguay has a serious and growing problem with harder drugs, principally cocaine and its highly addictive derivatives flooding into the Southern Cone and Brazil, mainly from Peru and Bolivia. That, in turn, has fuelled a crime wave as addicts seek to fund their cravings. Breaking the link between them and cannabis users is one of the government’s principal justifications for marijuana legalisation.

Under the measure, registered users will be able to buy cannabis from the nation’s chemists, cultivate plants at home and form cannabis clubs of 15 to 45 members to collectively grow up to 99 plants. Although the high would depend on the strength of the cannabis, which can vary significantly, the 40g per month limit would allow a user to potentially smoke several joints every day. To prevent cannabis tourism, such as that which has developed in Amsterdam, only Uruguayan nationals will be able to register as cannabis purchasers or growers.

Uruguay’s move comes as pressure grows across Latin America for a new approach to Washington’s “war on drugs”, which has ravaged the region, seeing hundreds of thousands die in drug-fuelled conflicts from Brazil’s favelas to Mexico’s troubled border cities.

Colombia President Juan Manuel Santos has called for a discussion of the alternatives while his Guatemalan counterpart Otto Pérez Molina has openly advocated legalisation. Meanwhile, Felipe Calderón, President of Mexico from 2006 to 2012, has also called for a look at “market” solutions to the drug trade.

Crucially, all three are conservatives with impeccable records as tough opponents of the drug trade. Mr Pérez Molina is a former army general with a no-nonsense reputation, while Mr Santos served as Defence Minister for his predecessor, the hard-right President Álvaro Uribe. Meanwhile, Mr Calderón was widely criticised during his time in power for the bloodbath unleashed by his full-frontal assault on the drug cartels, a conflict which cost an estimated 60,000 lives during his presidency.

Drugs are taken for pleasure – realise this and we can start to reduce harm

 

The web-based Net Pleasure Index is an attempt to gather information about a much-ignored element of drug-taking

• David Nutt
• guardian.co.uk, Monday 3 December 2012 12.36 GMT

'The fact that there are so many users of illicit drugs means that the pleasures must often be seen to outweigh the pain, just as they do for alcohol and tobacco.' Photograph: Scott Houston/Sygma

 

The mainstream penalty-driven approach to drugs control is both morally and intellectually flawed. Morally, it ignores the use and, in some cases, promotion of drugs such as alcohol and tobacco that are much more harmful than most "illicit" drugs. Intellectually, it ignores the reasons people choose to take drugs, and why they value them. One of the most important motivations for taking drugs, which cannot easily be acknowledged by the authorities, is personal pleasure.

The UK government position seems predicated on the view that all drug users are addicts, enslaved to their drug of choice by virtue of a lack of moral fibre. In fact, we know that even for the most addictive drugs – heroin, crack cocaine and crystal methamphetamine – most users do not become addicted. And of course at the initiation of use people are not addicted, with almost everyone who tries out a drug doing so through personal choice rather than being made to by dealers; so there is clearly a lot of choice in the use of drugs.

There are several reasons for people choosing to try drugs. For "legal" drugs particularly alcohol and tobacco, that most people find unpleasant to start with, the choice to use is largely driven by fashion, manifesting through peer pressure. With alcohol, the drinks industry has marketed less aversive mixtures (alcopops) to help people overcome the taste of alcohol. It also engages in massive sexually orientated advertising to induce use, much of this illegally targeted at underage drinkers via social media sites.

In the UK last year half of all 15- to 16-year-olds were intoxicated on alcohol at least once a month, despite the drinking age being 18. This behaviour is de facto "illegal" though the government turns a blind eye, which means that many are addicted to alcohol before they are able to legally purchase it. For "illicit" drugs the choice to use is more complex, as the risk of being caught and getting a criminal record needs to be taken into consideration. Yet up to 50% of young people break the law to use these at some stage in their lives. To better deal with the consequences of this use – for example up to 5% of regular cannabis users may be dependent — we need better information about the reasons for use.

In some cases illicit drug-taking is about challenging authority, but in most cases it's about psychological exploration, often driven by positive comments and encouragement from friends. Then, once the hurdle of "breaking the law" has been overcome, the value of the drug in terms of personal pleasure and positive social engagement can be weighed against the risks of being caught. For a sizeable minority of users "illicit" drugs are taken to reduce pain and suffering (eg cannabis for multiple sclerosis, psilocybin for cluster headaches). Similarly, alcohol is often used to reduce anxiety and deaden sadness.

The fact that there are so many users of "illicit" drugs such as cannabis, MDMA and ketamine means that the pleasures must often be seen to outweigh the pain, just as they do for alcohol and tobacco. Until we properly understand the personal value of all drugs (including alcohol and tobacco), harm- and use-reduction policies are bound to fail.

In some countries even admitting that there might be a value in drug use is effectively barred from public discourse. In order to start an honest dialogue with people who use drugs we need to balance the focus on drugs-related harms by exploring pleasure, which is what motivates most people who use drugs, including alcohol.

The new web-based Net Pleasure Index, part of the 2013 Global Drug Survey is an attempt to gather this information for a wide range of drugs. It is aimed at the recreational rather than addicted user of alcohol and other drugs (tobacco users rarely admit to any pleasure, as they are mostly dependent).
Along with questions on drug policy and prescription drug use, the data it generates will help decision-making by government and individual users about the relative likelihood of new "legal highs" becoming a problem and help us better understand what motivates the use of different drugs. It will also guide advice on websites such as the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs (ISCD) and aid harm-sation educational approaches such as the Global Drug Survey drugs meter.

If you are one the 90% of the UK population who use some sort of drug then please take the time to join the 13,000 people who have already taken part in this year's Global Drug Survey and give us your insights.

Nationalisation: Uruguay's solution to its drug problem

Law allowing state to sell cannabis could be adopted across Latin America in defiance of US

Simeon Tegel in the Independent
Friday, 22 June 2012

Uruguay – in a bid to curb a narcotics-fuelled violent crimewave across the country – has
unveiled plans to nationalise its cannabis market and become the first government in the
world to sell the soft drug to consumers.

The measure is aimed at both reducing the rising power of drug gangs and the growing
number of users of crack and freebase cocaine in what has traditionally been one of Latin
America's most peaceful nations.

"We want to fight two different things: one is the consumption of drugs and the other is the
trafficking of drugs," said the Defence Minister Eleuterio Fernández Huidobro.

"We believe that the prohibition of certain drugs is creating more problems in society than the
drug itself. Homicides have risen as a result of the settling of accounts [between rival drug
gangs] and this is a clear symptom of the appearance of certain phenomena that did not
exist previously in Uruguay." Under the plans, the government would initially grow cannabis
and sell it to registered users. But once the scheme is up and running, it hopes to cash in
and allow private companies to take over the production of the drug.

Possession of small amounts and consumption of marijuana is currently not illegal in Uruguay
but growing and selling it is. The new bill would seek to put the drug dealers out of business
by making it easier, safer and possibly cheaper for users to buy marijuana from official
dispensaries.

President José Mujica, a former leftwing guerrilla, has now sent a bill to the Uruguayan
congress which is widely expected to approve it. The legislation is part of a larger packet of
measures to tackle law and order issues.

Last night, even opposition lawmakers were tweeting in qualified support. One, Luis Lacalle
Pau, of the centre-right National Party, wrote: "I don't believe it would be a good thing to
continue associating marijuana with money." The measure represents a rejection of the
"stepping stone" argument that cannabis is a gateway drug to more damaging substances. Mr
Fernández Huidobro highlighted the government's expectation that it would actually result in
a fall in the use of harder drugs.

It also marks the latest chapter in the region's gathering rebellion against Washington's "war
on drugs", launched in the 1970s by President Nixon. Many Latin Americans resent being
blamed for producing coca – cocaine's key raw ingredient – when impoverished peasant
farmers are largely responding to demand from the US and Europe.

The costs of prohibition to the region have been huge, with Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador
and Guatemala in particular, seeing tens of thousands die as the drug cartels confront law enforcement and battle each other for control of the main cocaine corridor from the Andes
into the US market.

"An erroneous decision by Nixon has been what has caused all these disasters, declaring a
war that has been won by the narco-traffickers," Mr Fernández Huidobro told the Montevideo
newspaper El País.

In the last 12 months , the Mexican President, Felipe Calderon, has called for "market"
alternatives to prohibition to be considered while Colombia's President, Juan Manuel Santos,
has said he would welcome an international debate about legalisation.
Worryingly for Washington, both presidents come from the right of the political spectrum and
have been staunch supporters of the war on drugs.
Uruguay is thought to have around 150,000 regular consumers of cannabis, roughly 5 per
cent of the population, representing an annual market worth around £50m.

The case for the legalisation of drugs

• By Alexander Wickham
• Opinion
• Thursday, 2 February 2012 at 4:15 pm

Sir Richard Branson is a fascinating figure. His politics are surprisingly convoluted for a billionaire businessman; at times he has resembled a Thatcherite neo-classical and at others he has been a Labour-supporting proponent of humanitarian issues and environmentalism. Last week the Virgin Group boss addressed the home affairs select committee on another issue he has championed down the years, calling on the government to implement a liberalisation of drugs policy. Interestingly, what he had to say made a lot of sense.

Branson began, naturally, with cannabis. He insisted that the decriminalisation, regulation and taxation of the drug libertarians have traditionally seen as a start-point for reform would reap widespread rewards for society as a whole. Responsibility for drugs policy should shift from the Home Office to the Department of Health, he argued, quite compellingly enquiring of his inquisitors whether, upon finding out that their own son or daughter had a drug problem, would they rather seek medical help or be having to deal with the police? Tellingly, they offered no answer. In Portugal, where even heroin addicts are hospitalised rather than arrested, drug use has fallen by 50% as a result of legalisation. Each year some 75,000 young Britons have their futures ruined by receiving criminal records for minor drugs offences. Treating drug users as patients rather than criminals would be an important first step to a more effective drugs policy.

Following decriminalisation, Branson admitted that regulation would inevitably be required. I have previously argued that carefully regulating the legal sale of drugs would do more than anything else to save lives. Last November two young men died after taking a fatally potent form of ecstasy (MDMA) at a London music venue. Due to the covert nature of acquiring drugs they had no way of knowing what they were buying; drug dealers are not thoughtful enough to label their products with an ingredients sticker. At present drug users are clueless about whether they are actually taking what they think they are, the extent to which it has been cut with other noxious substances, or even if they have been given a new and untested form of drug. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out why people are dying. Legalisation and regulation would require sellers – licensed by the state – to only offer a genuine product with clear guidelines for safe usage. It may have saved the lives of the two young men last November, and would save countless more in the future.

If the practical case for a more liberal drugs policy is fairly straightforward, the economic argument is somewhat more complex. Branson convincingly articulated the basics last week. Home Office figures show that £535 million of taxpayers’ money is spent each year on the enforcement of laws relating to the possession or supplying of drugs. Conversely, only 3% of total expenditure on drugs is through health service use, and just 1% on social care. A staggering 20% of all police time is devoted to arresting drug users and sellers. The balance between policing and treatment clearly seems skewed, but in this age of austerity these figures are especially unforgivable. At a time when the Coalition is controversially cutting welfare, why do we accept huge spending on a law and order policy that has failed to reduce the prevalence of drugs in society? As Branson succinctly puts it, the money saved through decriminalisation and taxation would surely be better spent elsewhere: ‘it’s win-win all round’.

Now on to the more technical side of things. While the supply-side economist Milton Friedman is of course celebrated for his writings on neo-liberalism, his less well-known contribution to the debate on drugs was also quite brilliant. Friedman argued that the danger of arrest has incentivised drug producers to grow more potent forms of their products. The creation of crack cocaine and stronger forms of cannabis (and evidently MDMA as shown above) is, he claims, the direct result of criminalisation encouraging producers to strive for a more attractive risk-reward ratio. Moreover, drug prohibition directly causes poverty and violent crime. Supply is suppressed by interdiction and prosecution therefore prices rise. Users are forced by their addictions to pay the going rate, then turn to crime to fund their habit as they are plunged into poverty. Finally, and perversely, the government effectively provides protection for major drug cartels. Producing and selling drugs is a risky and expensive business so only serious organised crime gangs can afford to stay in the game. All the money goes to the top. It is, as Friedman notes, ‘a monopolist’s dream’.

The deleterious and unforeseen economic consequences of criminalisation are, one you get your head round them, pretty persuasive. There is, however, one last point worth considering: the moral perspective. You may hate the idea of drugs, most people do. Yet what right does the state have to tell someone what they can and cannot do in the privacy of their own home? John Stuart Mill, the great liberal philosopher, famously declared that ‘the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant’. The act of taking drugs is an entirely personal choice that affects no one but the individual himself. Can the state therefore justify impinging upon his personal liberty? Mill would say no. This is a question that deserves serious thought.

Sir Richard Branson is a maverick. A week ago most people would have been against a liberalisation of drugs policy. After listening to what Branson had to say many will have changed their minds.