Policy > Published Articles > Would Legalising Drugs Reduce Homelessness

The following article/debate appeared in Roof magazine ROOF a monthly magazine covering all aspects of housing policy. For more information see http://www.roofmag.org.uk/

Would legalising drugs reduce homelessness?

Danny Kushlick
Director of Transform

YES:
Transform believes that drugs prohibition is one of the great social policy disasters of the last 100 years. It causes and exacerbates social exclusion, especially in regard to vulnerable groups. The legalisation, regulation and control of illegal drugs would reduce homelessness by removing many of the problems experienced by homeless people who are dependent upon prohibited drugs.

My experience of working as a drug counsellor with street homeless people and offenders led me to the conclusion that drug misuse is invariably a symptom of underlying causes; the major one being poverty. It strikes me as bizarre that anyone would think criminalising this group of people does anything other than make their problems far worse. These are some of the most socially excluded people in the UK and need our help and support, not the blunt instrument of the criminal justice system.

Prohibition creates a situation where drugs are very dirty and very expensive. Because there is no regulation, street heroin users risk contracting Hepatitis C from dirty needles or dying from contaminated, or badly cut drugs. While alcohol is a dangerous drug and has all the attendant problems of misuse, users know exactly what strength they are drinking and virtually nobody is in prison from fundraising to support a habit. Street heroin, on the other hand, has no quality control and an average habit costs about £50 a day.
The high price of feeding a habit means users frequently turn to crime or dealing. Police in London are currently engaged in a crackdown on homeless drug users who are involved in criminal activity. It involves a heavy police presence on a stolen goods run in south London. The police are there to deal with crimes and not the underlying social and emotional problems of the offender that lead to drug dependence and then to crime. Often drug users lose their tenancy as a result of serving a prison sentence or simply cannot pay the rent because they are spending money on their habit.

It would seem that the health profession and social services locally and nationally have abrogated their responsibility for this issue entirely. The consequences of this abrogation are that police officers and the courts are dealing with a problem that should never have been placed within their remit. It is time that health professionals and policy makers in the social field demanded the remit back.
Prohibition creates a huge smokescreen. It is a distraction from the poverty and abuse that lies behind drug misuse. Chaos is the path of least resistance for vulnerable groups, especially homeless people, and prohibition does nothing other than grease the downward spiral. Stability can only be created in an environment where an individual's use of drugs does not automatically bring them into contact with the criminal justice system and where there are sufficient services to offer treatment to all.

It comes down to this. There are five ways of distributing drugs: over the counter sales, licensed sales, pharmacy sales, prescriptions or an unregulated criminal market. If drug users were no longer classed as criminals they could dispense with the 'junkie' tag and begin to reintegrate themselves into their communities, relieving them of the need to offend. They would be able to get a job and pay their rent, bringing stability back into their lives.
Legalisation is not a cure-all but it would solve almost all of the problems that exacerbate the difficulties faced by homeless drug users: the health problems, begging, prostitution, finding a place to live or a job when branded a 'junkie criminal'. Prohibition is a very crude social policy hammer that only reduces homelessness by contributing to the early deaths of homeless people. The time has come for policy makers to give up their addiction to prohibition, withdraw from their moralising fantasies and face up to the reality that the drug laws cause homelessness.

Dr Adrian Bonner
Head of the National Addiction Service, Salvation Army

NO:
In our experience it is conceivable that legalising drugs would increase homelessness. The Salvation Army works with approximately 60,000 clients annually, providing support ranging from generic social help to specialist addiction rehabilitation services. Of those clients who are homeless the great majority have a significant alcohol-related problem and a lesser number a drug-related problem.

The causes of homelessness are complex, particularly where addictions are a factor. Legalisation will increase both access and use of drugs generally, so we must consider the effect of this on the most vulnerable, and consider society's responsibility to protect them. Homeless people are exposed to drugs whether they are sleeping rough or in temporary accommodation. So are those at risk of homelessness, people in financial difficulty, suffering family breakdown or who are unable to cope with daily life.
In the UK there is an increasing number of people with mental illness compounded with an alcohol or drug addiction. Mental health professionals understand that drug and alcohol addictions can increase the incidence of mental illness. For people with a predisposition to neurotic illness (such as depression-related illnesses), greater drug availability would increase self-medication and reliance on pharmacological support, at the expense of dealing with the underlying issues. For people with a predisposition to psychotic illness, evidence indicates that they become unsafe when taking alcohol and other drugs, both when on medication, due to drug interactions, or not. People become marginalised and excluded, and daily life, relationships, employment and finance become less important than their addictions, all of which contribute to the spiral leading to homelessness. We see that increased access leads to increased addiction.

The Salvation Army's report The Paradox of Prosperity indicates that over the next ten years 'as life-pressures...continue to exert their influence, it is likely that stress levels will rise along with drug and alcohol dependency'. Approximately 4.7 per cent of adults are classified as alcohol dependant and 2.2 per cent as dependant on drugs (Social Exclusion Unit figures) without access to drugs being made easier.

The principal argument for legalising drugs, that it would stop black market sales of unregulated, potentially toxic compounds and the reduced financial and social incarceration of vulnerable people who are addicts themselves, is flawed. The illegal drug industry is highly sophisticated, operating like a global commercial trader, and those involved are unlikely to want to give up their large incomes. Legalising drugs will not stop them. It might be easier with legalisation to regulate the quality of drugs available on the street, but unlikely to release vulnerable people used by drug pushers.

At this stage it is unclear how drugs would be dispensed if they were legalised: by prescription, via the pharmacist, or more easily, as alcohol and cigarettes are presently sold. A black market in methadone prescriptions already exists - a greater black market in prescriptions could grow from people wanting either greater quantities or stronger drugs than they would be legally prescribed. What measures would ensure such systems were not abused? Homeless people have reduced access to health care facilities, so any monitoring or administering of drugs even in a 'safe and controlled' manner would still be hard to facilitate.

Mechanisms of social control have been important in minimising the harm caused to individuals. In the UK in 2001 traditional mechanisms such as the family, the church and civil authorities are under threat and there is increasing evidence of social disintegration (The Paradox of Prosperity). If this trend continues, what mechanism could monitor control of the over-consumption of increasing amounts of potentially addictive substances? This is not to promote a nanny state controlling access to sources of pleasure, but to ensure harm is minimised to the most vulnerable.

We should also not forget the particular relationship between alcohol misuse and homelessness. However, when dealing with highly complex issues of pharmacology, more research needs to be done into the interactions of drugs (legal and presently illegal) and mental health. In view of the changing structure of society and its predicted destabilisation there is much indication that legalising drugs could increase homelessness, not reduce it.

copywrite ROOF September/October 2001
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