“Britain must find a way of legalising supplies. Only then can smuggling and racketeering be suppressed...But the prohibitionist softies must first be outgunned. They are the true enemies of drug control. This market will never go away. The only tough policy is to regulate it. ”

Simon Jenkins
The Times, 26 November 2006
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2088-2472142,00.html

Contents

1. What Transform Has Been Up To

• Happy 2007
• We are looking for a new treasurer

2. UK News

• Suffolk murders triggers discussion about illegal drugs and prostitution
• Radioactive polonium in cigarettes
• Links

3. International News

• Vermont, USA, State's Attorney calls for decriminalisation
• Pot is biggest cash crop in USA
• Links

4. What You Can Do

• Donate to Transform
• Online Activism
• Media

1. What Transform Has Been Up To

Happy 2007!

Because we have been out of the office for a couple of weeks eating mince pies (along with everyone else) this newsletter will be shorter than some of the titanic efforts from last year. We go into the New Year full of optimism, the Transform team expanding, our finances looking more stable than ever before (not that we wouldn’t appreciate donations), and the political landscape also changing in a range of positive ways.

2007 will see Transform leading a new alliance of organisations campaigning for a new approach in UK drug policy when the failing 1998 10-year drug strategy comes up for review and re-evaluation. Whilst we can’t expect the new strategy to adopt legalisation and regulation of drugs as policy there is a realistic hope that policy will shift substantially away from its criminal justice focus towards a more pragmatic emphasis on public health and harm reduction – potentially including the moving of the drugs brief out of the Home Office into the more appropriate health agencies. With this shift we can expect more science and less of the ideology and law and order populism that has cast a grim shadow over policy thinking for the last decade. If policy is truly evidence based, change can only lead ion one direction.

On the home front we have a range of new web and print resources ready to be launched and others in their final stages of development. The long promised debating guide and a substantial new report on how drug regulation will operate in practice are the two major projects for 2007 but there will be a raft of other briefings and practical information published on a monthly basis. The media blog continues to go from strength to strength with 10,000 plus hits since it was launched in August. Please check it out and contribute to the discussions.

We also continue to build up our network of home and office based volunteers; if you have something to contribute, your time or expertise, please get in touch. We are particularly looking for a new treasurer to join our board of trustees (see below)

We are looking for a new Treasurer!

Would you like to join us at the cutting edge of policy reform? We are in a strong financial position, expanding our staff team and excited at the prospects for advancing our mission further in the coming year.

We are looking for a new Treasurer to join our Board of Trustees, someone with experience of financial monitoring and reporting in the commercial or voluntary sector. The position is unpaid (reasonable travel expenses only).

Deadline for applications: 12th February 2007

For more information, please check:
http://www.tdpf.org.uk/AboutUs_JobVacancies.htm

2. UK News

Suffolk murders triggers discussion about illegal drugs and prostitution

The murder of five street prostitutes in Suffolk, all believed to have been supporting serious illegal drugs habits, has triggered a great deal of discussion about the need for change.
For more discussion and media links see:
http://transform-drugs.blogspot.com/

Radioactive polonium in cigarettes

Read about the scandal here:
http://transform-drugs.blogspot.com/2006/12/at-last-polonium-210-in-cigarettes_12.html

Links

Scottish Drugs Forum Annual Report published, including interesting introduction by the Chair, Anne Thompson

http://www.sdf.org.uk/sdf/files/SDF%20annual%20report%202005-2006.pdf

Nick Davies, award-winning journalist, writes in the Guardian blog about the need to provide heroin on prescription

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/nick_davies/2006/12/post_796.html

By way of counterpoint, John Harris argues that it is far less simple when it comes to crack

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/john_harris/2006/12/a_fatal_crack_in_the_argument.html

3. International News

Vermont, USA, State's Attorney calls for decriminalisation

http://www.rutlandherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061130/NEWS/611300390/1004

American report claims pot is the biggest cash crop in the USA

Ironic, really, given the billions spent on fighting the drug war in its spiritual home
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-pot18dec18,0,5264617.story?coll=la-home-headlines
http://www.drugscience.org/

Links

Absolutely, positively everything you could ever possibly need to know about methamphetamine.
448 pages of references to basically everything ever published in a journal on the methamphetamine around the world. Excellent bedtime reading
http://www.nyhealth.gov/diseases/aids/harm_reduction/crystalmeth/docs/meth_literature_index.pdf

4. What You Can Do

Donate

If you haven't done so already - please sign up online to make a regular donation, however small, to the organisation. It can really make a difference: if just half of our subscribers were regular small givers we would have enough money for two new staff. So don't assume organisations like ours can just run themselves, or that drug law reform is an easy thing to raise money for...
http://www.tdpf.org.uk/support_Transform.htm

Our secure online donation page administered by the Charities Aid Foundation: Donations can be one off or regular, large or small. Please give generously - we need your support. Transform relies solely on donations from individuals and charitable trusts to maintain its work. http://www.tdpf.org.uk/AboutUs_TdpfFunding.htm

We can also accept ‘Give as you earn' payroll donations: Please look into the possibility of getting Transform on the list of nominated/ suggested charities at your place of work. Visit your payroll office to pick up a donor instruction form and visit the CAF website, or give us a call and we can help sort it all out – or come and give a talk at your work place. Our registration number is: 000476760.

Online activism

The Internet gives you the opportunity to engage the drug law reform debate as never before. There are literally thousands of online forums, discussion groups, and media feedback opportunities where you can get involved and inject a little common sense into the debate.

**E-Petitions

mySociety (the people behind www.theyworkforyou.com) are working in partnership with No. 10 to enable us all to submit petitions to the Prime Minister with greater ease.
Transform has recently started a petition, calling for the review/consultation on the drug classification system – promised by the Home Secretary in January- to commence. Following a report from the Science and Technology Committee that condemned the classification system as ‘not fit for purpose' the Government then reneged on its promise of a review.
There will be potential for more such activity in the future. Although it may not force the Government to act it can be a useful way of drawing attention to an issue.

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Prohibition/

Media

Visit our extensive selection of hints and tips for engaging with the media: http://www.tdpf.org.uk/AboutUs_WhatYouCanDo.htm#medja

We have recently put online an archive of letters we have had published over the years. As well as being an entertaining read it provides a useful guide to what letters editors like to publish. Check it out here: http://www.tdpf.org.uk/MediaNews_PublishedLetters.htm

For more great ideas, please check http://www.tdpf.org.uk/AboutUs_WhatYouCanDo.htm