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Non Government Organisations and statutory sector Notes: The organisations quoted here support a range of policy positions on different questions within the drugs debate. Inclusion here does not imply support for the Transform Drugs Policy Foundation or Transform's position on any given question (unless stated). Many of the quotes below are from submissions made to the Home Affairs Select Committee inquiry 'The Government's Drug Policy: is it Working?'. (Find out more about this inquiry - including submissions from organisations with opposing views - here). We encourage you to read the full submissions from the organisations below using the links provided. click on the links below to read quotes: ADFAM for families affected by drugs and alcohol Statutory sector Camden Borough Council Coming soon... USA and Canada "ADFAM's concern is that, whilst it broadly welcomes the debate on decriminalisation, this debate will serve to overshadow and detract from the need for coherent and successful policy development that reduces the harm caused by drug use in society—be they legal or illegal drugs. Current policy criminalises not only the user but those who are supporting the user and acting as agents for the reduction of harm being done by the use of drugs. Whilst the families we work for and with are not a homogenous group the work which we do with the families of imprisoned drug users demonstrates that the impact of imprisonment can have many more far-reaching consequences both for the drug user and the family than the drug use that may have led to imprisonment in the first instance. " Source: written evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee Drugs inquiry 2001
ASH Action on Smoking and Health 'We would legalise cannabis in its non-smokable forms, such as in cakes, tea or droplets. There's irrationality and inconsistency in the policy on tobacco, soft and hard drugs. Even if you legalised cannabis in its smokeable forms you couldn't come close to the harm done by cigarettes, because no one smokes 20 joints a day.' Source: Ash Director Clive Bates
Break the Chains Deborah Small Executive Director and founder "How can you question anything that gets people out of the living death of prison? We have to engage with what is actually happening in the criminal justice system and coerced treatment is an alternative to incarceration. Drug users are today's Jews, just as Schindler saved the Jews from the Holocaust by getting them into forced labor camps, we hope to save drug offenders from prison by getting them into treatment. Certainly forced labor was better than death in the gas chamber, and just as certainly coerced treatment is better than being in prison under horrific conditions." Source: nationalfamilies.org, 22.06.01 Drug Education Forum (DEF) "Recommendation: Source: from written submission to the Home Affairs Select Committee inquiry 'The Government's Drug Policy: is it Working?' 2001
"Criminal procedures should no longer be initiated for the possession of small amounts of any scheduled drug nor for the cultivation of small amounts of cannabis. Source: from written submission to the Home Affairs Select Committee inquiry 'The Government's Drug Policy: is it Working?' 2001 International AIDs Society Craig McClure, Executive Director "Fear drives the global war on drugs. Otherwise how could such clear evidence of the failure of the past ten years’ international drug policy be so blatantly denied? How could billions of dollars be wasted on a global anti-drugs programme that fuels violence, harms individuals, families and communities, strengthens organized crime and punishes sick people with prison sentences rather than providing them with the treatment, care and dignity that they need?" Source: transform-drugs.blogspot.com/2009/04/fear-drives-global-war-on-drugs-aids.html 29.04.09 "This AGM upholds the right of access of every adult to the lawful supply of psychoactive substances for personal consumption save where expressly constrained by or under the law for the purpose of protecting minors, countering crime, treating addiction, or some other legitimate public purpose and calls on the government to reform the laws accordingly" Source: Liberty Annual General Meeting (25.6.00) "Liberty considers that the current policy of criminalisation of possession, use and supply of drugs represents serious infringements into civil liberties that are unjustified. Liberty therefore calls for the general decriminalisation of possession, use and supply and supply of all drugs, for the regime for control of drugs to be replaced by a civil mechanism of control, and for there to be right of access to the lawful supply of drugs. Source: from written submission to the Home Affairs Select Committee inquiry 'The Government's Drug Policy: is it Working?' 2001
National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders (NACRO) "As a society we must strongly discourage the misuse of all drugs, both hard and soft. However, it makes no sense to throw the full weight of the penal system at cannabis users. It is a misuse of scarce resources which could be put to much better use in the fight against drug abuse. Source: NACRO press release 28.03.00
National Association of Probabtion Officers (NAPO) "In 1979, Napo called for the abolition of the possession of cannabis as a criminal offence. This was based on the view that there was no evidence to suggest that the social use of cannabis was dangerous or linked to criminal activity. At that time Napo took no view on the desirability of decriminalisation for the possession of other illicit substances. " Napo has formed the view that treating substance abuse as a fundamental criminal act is deeply flawed." "Napo believes therefore that criminal proceedings should not be initiated for possession of small amounts of any drug for personal consumption, nor for the growing of small amounts of cannabis. Napo base this belief on the fact that there is no evidence that punishment or imprisonment reduces drug misuse, but on the contrary that access to treatment reduces criminal behaviour. " "There is in Napo view a clear need for investment in effective systems of treatment, regulation and control. Transform the campaign for effective drugs policy "have argued for . . ." an independent agency to oversee production supply and use of drugs. Napo understands that they argue that state manufacture and control would eliminate the criminal market. Source: from written submission to the Home Affairs Select Committee inquiry 'The Government's Drug Policy: is it Working?' 2001
"2. SUBSTANCE USE IS A PUBLIC HEALTH ISSUE NCB believes that any drugs policy must look at both legal and illegal drug use among young people. Risk-taking behaviours among the young are multi-faceted, and need to be jointly considered in the context of their lives within the family and community1,2. A more holistic approach to policy development round drug use is necessary to deal with elements ranging from prevention and education, to health promotion, to treatment—to deal with substance use as a public health rather than just a criminal justice issue. We know that current criminal justice measures do not act as a deterrent to drug use among the young and that these need to be re-evaluated as a matter of urgency. But the current steer from Government—implicit in the transfer of the Anti-Drugs Unit from the Cabinet Office to the Home Office—indicates that drug use is to be considered within the framework of law and order. We believe this is short-sighted. Recreational drug use among the young is common3 so needs to be reviewed within the context of their lives and tackled across Government" Source: from written submission to the Home Affairs Select Committee inquiry 'The Government's Drug Policy: is it Working?' 2001
National Schizophrenia Fellowship (now Rethink) "We believe that there needs to be a real debate on the decriminalisation of cannabis and other illegal substances. This needs to take account of evidence-based research on the effects of taking drugs on mental illness." Source: from written submission to the Home Affairs Select Committee inquiry 'The Government's Drug Policy: is it Working?' 2001 "We believe that in the long term the use and supply of all drugs be controlled and regulated within the law, using different and appropriate supply models for different drugs. This is the only way to assure effective drugs education and harm minimisation across the board and also the only way to eliminate the involvement of criminal gangs and terrorist networks in the supply of drugs. Source: from written submission to the Home Affairs Select Committee inquiry 'The Government's Drug Policy: is it Working?' 2001
"The one population where [Aids] mortality has been untouched - and in fact has worsened - has been IV [intravenous] drug users. It's amazing, because what we call harm reduction, such as exchanging needles, has been scientifically proven as the most effective." "In many countries, serious human rights infringements are committed in the name of fighting drugs,These include the use of the death penalty for drug offences, compulsory treatment regimes that include methods (such as physical beatings) that are akin to torture, and, for example in the USA, depriving convicted drug law offenders of the right to vote." Source: The Observer, 19.04.09 "Turning Point believes that criminal procedures should no longer be initiated for the possession of small amounts of any scheduled drug but recommends that there should be a review of all drug classifications, based on a realistic assessment of the harm caused, in order to establish a credible and comprehensive drugs strategy" Source: from written submission to the Home Affairs Select Committee inquiry 'The Government's Drug Policy: is it Working?' 2001
Statutory Sector "It is clear that, in Camden, we are at the "sharp end" of the country's drug problem, and we submit our views to the Committee from a position of experience in dealing with the problem over many years. ... "The protection of vulnerable young people is more likely to be achieved through preventing social exclusion, than through the continuation of policies around recreational drugs that are largely ignored and almost impossible to enforce. We support the National Drug Strategy's focus on the drugs that do most harm, and targeted police activity in Camden is almost exclusively aimed at the heroin and crack markets. We recommend that drug policy is brought in line with what is, in practice, the "decriminalisation" of recreational drug use. A regulated legal market in these drugs would eliminate criminal profits in these areas and reduce the risk of injury or death from badly formulated or wrongly self-administered ecstasy, although easier availability could increase usage, and the Committee should consider carefully the balance of advantage." Source: from written submission to the Home Affairs Select Committee inquiry 'The Government's Drug Policy: is it Working?' 2001
Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council "Prohibition of drugs, as previously stated in this paper, puts the drug market in the hands of the criminal. If heroin were prescribed to users and the heroin problem was treated in a medical context, then the bottom would fall out of the illicit drug market and there would be a significant decrease in levels of acquisitive crime. Source: from written submission to the Home Affairs Select Committee inquiry 'The Government's Drug Policy: is it Working?' 2001
USA King County Bar Association "The King County Bar Association has concluded, in consideration of the findings enumerated below, that the establishment of a new legal framework of state-level regulatory control over psychoactive substances, intended to render the illegal markets for such substances unprofitable, to restrict access to psychoactive substances by young persons and to provide prompt health care and essential services to persons suffering from chemical dependency and addiction, will better serve the objectives of reducing crime, improving public order, enhancing public health, protecting children and wisely using scarce public resources, than current drug policies.
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