“The new strategy restates a series of highly misleading claims for the success of the previous one, based on misrepresented and cherry-picked statistics, or process successes that have no bearing on policy outcomes ”

-- Steve Rolles, Transform Drug Policy Foundation

Contents

Introduction

Transform News

• UK Drug Consultation released
• Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs review cannabis
• Tools for the Debate
• The Big Questions
• Upcoming events

UK News

• Home Office guide ' How to Deal with Transform!'
• £3 billion per year for enforcement
• Radio 1 DJ jailed for cannabis possession

International

• Human Rights Campaigners starting to address barbaric drug laws
• Asia -Thai ‘war on drugs’ will kill thousands
• Americas - North America - women behind bars
• South America – Award-winning Brazilian film director calls for legalisation to stop violence

What you can do

• Volunteer community
• Donate

Introduction

This month has been a strange one – lots of high level activity for Transform but none of it very positive. We have seen the long awaited release of the Government’s disappointing new ten-year drug strategy (summary; same as the last one) and the ACMD addressing the issue of cannabis re-classification yet again. So the Home Office are still trying their up-most to distract attention away from manifest failings of the current policy. However, Transform has been at the front and centre with each of these developments, providing a logical counter argument to Home Office spin and media hype, and in doing so we’ve received unprecedented media coverage, large volumes of support, and the confidence that we are getting our message out where it counts.

Transform News

UK Drug Consultation Released

“The new drug strategy arrives after ten years of disastrous policy failure, yet during last year’s sham consultation and review process the Home Office utterly failed to acknowledge failure or meaningfully engage in a debate on policy alternatives. Instead, success has been claimed with a shameful parade of cherry picked statistics and Home Office spin.” – Steve Rolles, Transform.

The Governments new 10 year drug strategy, and three-year action plan, was released on the 27th February. Transform were quick to speak out about our disappointment with this document. We highlighted how the government has completely failed to learn from its past mistakes or consider any policy alternatives. Tragically, the consultation, as documented at length in the Transform blog, was essentially a sham, and the new strategy is set to continue to replicate past failures all over again. Engagement with evidence of what works and what does not, let alone any significant policy alternatives has been entirely lacking.

Our press release can be viewed here

Transform received a wide range of media coverage around the release, including appearing on Channel 4 news (a the discussion between Pat McCarthy, Steve Rolles and Howard Roberts), BBC breakfast TV, Five Live Breakfast, IRN News, Talk Sport Radio, an article in the Guardian and quotes in the Telegraph, Mirror and Reuters.

Advisory Council on the Missue of Drugs Review Cannabis

Transform information officer Steve Rolles, attended the ACMD review of cannabis classification on the 5th February. His thoughts and analysis of the day can be read on our blog. He concludes that the ACMD seem likely to recommend that cannabis should remain class C in the classification system, and questions how the government might respond to this news.

The ACMD are due to formally announce their decision in April.

Tools for the Debate

Alex Coolman from Drug Law blog interviewed Steve this month on our latest publication ‘After the War on Drugs: Tools for the Debate’. The interview lasts around eight minutes and can be downloaded and listened to here.

The Big Questions

Danny, our Patron Sue Blackmore and supporter Clive Frogatt appeared on the Big Questions on BBC one on February 24th in the debate, ‘Do we need to get tougher on drugs?’ The programme can be viewed here. It was rather disappointingly adversarial – which suits the TV producers but may not always be helpful in taking the debate forward. More heat than light I suspect.

Debates relating to the programme can be viewed on the message board.

Upcoming Events

We’ve got a busy month ahead: Danny has a meeting at the European Parliament in Brussels and will be attending the Scottish Futures Forum in Edinburgh where they will be looking at how Scotland can reduce the damage to its population through alcohol and drugs by half by the year 2025. Steve is representing transform in Vienna at the annual meeting of the United Nations’ Commission on Narcotic Drugs . Transform’s recently granted ECOSOC special consultative status means Steve will be able to attend and contribute to the CND meetings themselves as well as participating in a range of satellite NGO events and receptions.

UK News

Home Office Guide ' How to Deal with Transform!'

Alongside the release of the Governments 10 year drug Strategy, a comprehensive briefing was circulated to key civil servants and various centrally funded individuals and groups involved in the drugs field, on how to answer likely questions from the media around the new drug strategy. Within this document was a guide to tricky questions on the debate around 'prohibition vs legalisation and regulation' (or in otherwords a 'how to deal with Transform' guide). As this document found its way to Transform's inbox, Steve wrote a blog including both the Home Office line and our responses to them - all rather amusing and well worth a read.

£3 Billion per year for enforcement

"Spending 3 billion a year to create a further 16 billion in crime costs just doesn't seem like great value for money" Steve Rolles, Transform.

According to the Government’s own figures they are spending between £1 and 3 billion (depending upon how it is measured) on drug enforcement efforts, with the express intention of increasing drug prices as a way of deterring use. In 1998 the Government announced its ten-year goal was to decrease use by 50%, with a particular focus on two of the most problematic drugs, heroin and cocaine.

In a parliamentary question earlier this month the Secretary of State for the Home Department was asked about the drug prices of both heroin and cocaine. Vernon Coaker responded with the following information:

So… it would seem that prices for both heroin and cocaine have nearly halved – despite the enormous budget the government has set aside with the express intention of increasing prices (following the logic that an increase in price leads to a decrease in use). All seems somewhat surprising given the Governments latest drug strategy, which hails the past ten years of drug policy as an overwhelming success. This story is reported in more detail on our blog here.

Radio 1 DJ Jailed for Cannabis possession

This month an article in the Times reported that Radio One DJ Grooverider was sentenced to four years' imprisonment for possessing 2.16 grams of cannabis when he arrived at Dubai airport in November. His lawyers argued this was a tiny amount for personal use, which he had simply forgotten he had in his pocket. Even by drug war standards – this seems absurdly harsh. DJs in the UK are planning an indefinite boycott of all Dubai events.

International

Human Rights Campaigners starting to address barbaric drug laws

“Almost half of the 64 countries worldwide that retain the death penalty impose it for drug related offences” David Gilliver – Drink and Drug News.

Drink and Drug news featured an article this month examining how human rights campaigners are finally coming together to look at the massive discrepancies in drug policies across the world. They argue that very little research has been carried out into this area, with organisations such as Amnesty International carrying out a lot of work on execution but little research specifically on the issue of the death penalty and drugs. The article argues in favour of some kind of system-wide coherence to encourage UN agencies involved in drug law enforcement to consider human rights issues as well.

The article can be read here.

The International Harm Reduction Association have also written a report on this subject entitled:

'The Death Penalty for Drug Offences. A Violation of International Human Rights Law.'

Asia

Thai War on Drugs will kill Thousands

The Thai Prime Minister claimed last week that he is planning to renew Thailand’s rigorous ‘war on drugs,’ which is likely to lead to the arrest and killing of thousands of people. Human rights groups have fiercely opposed this idea claiming that under former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra almost 3,000 people were killed in a single three month period during the governments 2003 War on Drugs. Many of these people were considered to be innocent and to have no connection to drug dealings.

Please follow this link to a related article

Two other interesting articles on this subject include, 'Not Enough Graves: The War on Drugs, HIV/AIDS, and violations of human rights in Thailand' written by Human Rights Watch, and the Beckley Foundations recent report entitled Recalibrating the Regime, The need for a human rights based approach to International drug policy.

This issue is going to be raised by various human rights agencies, independent and UN based, at the CND (Commission of Narcotic Drugs) meeting in Vienna next week (which Steve is attending). We will report back on this next month.

Americas

Women Behind Bars

Silja Talvi published a book in November 2007, Women Behind Bars. The book examines the reasons behind the rising number of women caught up in the U.S. prison system (up 775% since 1977) many of whom are facing the prospect of years, even lifetimes behind bars. The book attributes this shocking increase to the acceleration of the drug war, with many imprisoned for low level drug offences.

South America

Award Winning Brazilian Film director calls for legalisation to stop violence

Jose Padilha, director of the new film "The Elite Squad" which won the top prize at the Berlin film festival, has come out in support of legalisation. He is quoted on Reuters as saying that legalising drugs is the only way to break the cycle of violence that is associated with the illegal drugs trade. For a fuller report please take a look at our blog.

What you can do

Volunteer Community

Our new volunteer community is now up-and-running. Once again you can log on to the website at http://transform-volunteers.org.uk/user/register and register as a member. We’re hoping to put a number of new projects onto the site this month, so please keep logging on, make some contributions and let us know what you think.

Donate

As Transform relies solely on funding from charitable trusts and donations from individuals we are always looking for people to support our work. You can make donations through our website at: http://www.tdpf.org.uk/AboutUs_TdpfFunding.htm or please email, or give us a call and request a form – many thanks!