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09/07/03 So, crack seizures are up according to the Association of Chief Police Officers. Transform Drug Policy Institute (Transform) suggests that levels of seizures tell us nothing about the effectiveness of enforcement initiatives. Danny Kushlick, Transform Director said: "This measure of success should be taken with a large spadeful of salt. Seizures are not a useful indicator of success on their own, unless you include street price and purity. If seizures rise and purity decreases and street prices rise then the enforcement is effective. If seizures rise and the street price remains constant or decreases and purity remains constant or increases, then the rise in seizure levels is only a sign of increasing volume of trade and/or a sign that the proportion of seizures is so low that it is not making a difference." Or as our former drugs czar Keith Hellawell put it, in his evidence to the Home Affairs Select committee (30 Oct 2001) stated: “I stood up there for three or four years as a chief constable with the Head of Customs and said, tongue in cheek quite frankly, that we were doing well because we had seized more drugs and arrested more people. Towards the end of that I felt less comfortable with that because I saw in the communities that the position was getting worse.” Danny Kushlick concluded: "The police are colluding with the Government in attempting to pull the wool over our eyes. You don't need an economics degree to know that seizures are a useless indicator of effectiveness. The Government and the police have yet to present any evidence as to the real benefits of enforcing the drug laws. It is time that they came clean and admitted this so that we can begin to explore more effective methods of controlling and regulating the drugs trade." Notes All the evidence from both NCIS and customs and excise (C&E) is that the proportion seized is such a small proportion of the total that it cannot influence street prices. Terry Byrne of C&E admitted that their activities do not influence street prices when he gave evidence to the Home Affairs Committee enquiry in 2002. “Prices are as low as they have ever been. There is no sign that the overall attack on the supply side is reducing availability or increasing the price.” However, he did counter this with this comment on how C&E affects prices at wholesale level: “The price of a kilo of cocaine in South America is £1,000. It should cost about £1,500 by the time it reaches the UK, but it actually costs £30,000.” Whilst they cannot directly influence the price at street level, they can indirectly hike the price by increasing the risk associated with trafficking. The profit margins are increased to a level where organised crime is attracted to the market and the price of heroin and cocaine are so high that dependent users have to steal to support a habit. In effect they lose either way. If they do not make an impression they are seen to be failing and if they do, they only succeed in increasing the profit margins for organised crime and increasing property crime. In fact the Government knew exactly what it was up to when it changed the targets in the national strategy: Target 4) Availability 1998 - reduce the availability of Class A drugs by 25% by 2005 (and by 50% by 2008). 2002 - reduce the availability of illegal drugs by increasing: the proportion of heroin and cocaine targeted on the UK which is taken out; the disruption/dismantling of those criminal groups responsible for supplying substantial quantities of Class A drugs to the UK market; and the recovery of drug-related criminal assets. No methodology
was ever established to satisfactorily measure the availability of class
A drugs. However falling price and rising purity clearly illustrate how
heroin and cocaine are more available than ever before. But rather than
using price and purity as indicators the revised measures use drug seizures,
arrests and asset forfeiture. Changes in these new measures can easily
be explained by either increased criminal activity (ie. more drugs entering
the country of which a fixed proportion is being intercepted) or increased
policing activity. There is no evidence that increased seizures and arrests
have any measurable impact on drug availability. However the change will
mean that the availability targets can now be met. |
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