The Science and Technology Committee has been conducting an inquiry into scientific advice to government. The inquiry focused upon the mechanisms in place for the use of scientific advice (including the social sciences) and the way in which the guidelines governing the use of such advice is being applied in practice across Government. It tested the extent to which policies are “evidence-based”.
One of the issues being addressed is the classification of illegal drugs, and Transform gave evidence to them on the current drug classification system (see below). For more information on the enquiry itself click here.
The committee published the report on the drug classification system on Monday 31st July 2006 entitled "Drug classification: making a hash of it?" A pdf of which is available here. The report is a detailed and withering critique of the scientific anomalies within classification system, and the Government agencies that support them. Not only is the scientific basis for ranking certain drugs criticised, but the more fundamental lack of an evidence base for the hierachy of penalties attacked for being based on false assumptions, unevaluated, and producing the opposite outcomes to those it seeks.
Transform gave written and oral evidence (here and here) and were quoted eight times in the report, as well as having some of our recommendations adopted.
The report received excellent media coverage - view a selection here. Transform submission to the Science and Technology Select Committee inquiry: ‘SCIENTIFIC ADVICE, RISK AND EVIDENCE: HOW GOVERNMENT HANDLES THEM' for information on this inquiry click here "The inquiry will focus upon the mechanisms in place for the use of scientific advice (including the social sciences) and the way in which the guidelines governing the use of such advice is being applied in practice across Government. It will test the extent to which policies are “evidence-based”.
The Committee will carry out this inquiry by addressing the questions below in a series of case studies. The first three case studies to be addressed are:
Below is the full Submission to this inquiry from Transform Drug Policy Foundation (in reference to case study 2). January 2006
(note: there have been a few minor editorial changes and corrections to the submitted version)
Update: Transform information officer Steve Rolles gave Oral Evidence to the committee on 26th April.
Read the transcript here
Transform Drug Policy Foundation argue that the drug classification system:
Any consideration of the UK drug classification system must consider the broader political context of UK and international drug policy thinking over the last century that has informed its development and implementation.
The UK drug classification system is an integral part of drug prohibition, a legal system established in international law under the UN drug conventions which criminalises and prescribes penalties for the production, supply and possession of certain drugs (excluding alcohol and tobacco) nominally according to perceived harms associated with use.
Some 250 substances are listed in the Schedules annexed to the United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs (1961), the Convention on Psychotropic Substances (1971) and the Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (1988). As of February 1 2003 179 states are parties to the Single Convention 1961 with 174 and 166 signatories respectively to the 1971 and 1988 Conventions is respectively. The UK is a signatory to all three conventions, and as all 15 countries of the EU have signed the three drugs conventions, these conventions have been incorporated into what is known as the EU's acquis or legal foundations. This means that all acceding countries also are obliged to sign them. (1)
According to the EU European Legal Database on Drugs; “The purpose of this listing is to control and limit the use of these drugs according to a classification of their therapeutic value, risk of abuse and health dangers, and to minimize the diversion of precursor chemicals to illegal drug manufacturers.”(2) All EU member states classify drugs roughly according to the conventions, using the annexes from the 1961 convention on narcotic drugs (3) and the 1971 convention on psychotropic drugs (4) as the guide (although there are some notable differences between states). These annexes prescribe the level of legal controls required by signatories for each category of drug, with drugs categorised into one of 4 schedules according to harmfulness. The conventions, perversely, do not include the most harmful drugs in global public health terms; alcohol and tobacco.
The UK has therefore been locked into a prohibitionist system (for selected drugs), for more than 45 years, legally binding under international law (EU and UN), that requires the criminalisation of production, supply and possession of non-medical use of some psychoactive drugs, the penalties for which are determined by a classification system also broadly established under international law (5).The UK classification system, based as it is upon international prohibition, also excludes alcohol and tobacco.
At the time of the drafting of the conventions, and indeed the UK 's domestic policy response in the form of the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act, the concept of using prohibition to eliminate drug use was entirely without evidential foundation. In reality the only major experiment with prohibition had been US alcohol prohibition, a benchmark for poorly thought out drug policy led by moral imperatives rather than evidence of effectiveness. It should be noted that much of the 1961 convention was drafted in the 1940's in an era when patterns of drug use and drug related harm were entirely different to those we face today. However, the essential tenets of prohibition – using criminal law to enforce the moral view that all drug use is unacceptable - have remained unchanged since the Victorian temperance movement. Drug production and use have risen consistently since the Misuse of Drugs Act was commenced in 1971 – the precise opposite of its policy objective.
Transform argue that it has been political forces, international and domestic, rather than rational analysis of evidence that has have defined drug policy thinking in the UK . Domestically drug policy is an intensely emotive and politicised issue, intimately intertwined with the populist/partisan law and order debates. Political discourse has been dominated by tough-talking drug war rhetoric, and it is in this context that the unscientific un-evidenced and ineffective system of drug classifications/punishments has evolved, supported by ineffective institutions and entrenched unscientific practices described below. (This briefing will not go into detail about the numerous anomalies within the classification system – which will no doubt be highlighted by others.) Five reasons why the Classification system is fundamentally flawed
Before trying to establish if the classification system is effective we must ask what it is seeking to achieve. The Misuse of Drugs Act seeks to reduce the availability and misuse of prohibited drugs – its ultimate aim being a drug free society. However there appear to be no effective systems of policy evaluation and review in place, or even a set of meaningful indicators by which the effectiveness of reaching these policy objectives can be assessed – for the classification or the policy as a whole. Neither drug availability nor levels of misuse (or health harms related to use) are measured in a meaningful or consistent way (6) .
For example, in order for ACMD to make an informed decision about the recent reclassification of cannabis, they would need to know how changes in classification reduce or increase the mental health problems of users. The evidence for this did not, and does not exist. In his oral evidence to ACMD's recent cannabis review, Transform's director described the classification system as specious - prohibition and the classification system are both ‘deceptively attractive'. They purport to do something for which neither have an evidence base: prohibition purports to eradicate and eliminate the problem in the first instance and, having failed, classification purports to accurately describe the harms associated with use and demarcate appropriate penalties to reduce those harms. Both are palpable nonsense. Ministers, quite simply, have no idea whether the classification system is working or not.
At the heart of the classification system, and indeed the entire prohibitionist paradigm within which it operates, is the assumption that criminal sanctions are an effective deterrent to use, specifically that the heavier the sanctions the stronger the deterrence. However, Transform is aware of no piece of research ever undertaken by the Home Office to establish any evidential base, let alone prove this key assumption (7). There is also no evidence to show that key target groups understand or pay any attention to the classification system or related announcements from the home secretary when making drug taking decisions. It can only be assumed that no research is commissioned on these key topics as it would expose policy failings.
The little independent research that has been done in this area suggests that the law and enforcement are, at best, marginal factors in drug taking decisions - especially for the most excluded groups; young people, those with mental health problems and those from socially deprived communities – who are most vulnerable to problematic use. Studies in Australia and the US have compared levels of cannabis use between different states with different enforcement regimes for cannabis offences (from harsh penalties to effective decriminalisation) and found no causal link between penalties and incidence of use.
Criminal law is supposed to prevent crime, not ‘send out' public health messages. When this has been tried it has been spectacularly ineffective, as the unprecedented ballooning of drug use over the last 35 years demonstrates. Moreover it has been actively counterproductive, making drugs more dangerous not less, whilst simultaneously fostering distrust of police and public health messages amongst young people. Since 1971 the use of all of the major illegal drugs of concern has increased dramatically, with the increase in the most risky class A drugs being the most dramatic. For example the current ballooning in the use of cocaine and crack cocaine, the rapid expansion of ecstasy use in the late 1980's early 1990's, and the 3000% rise in heroin use since 1971.
It is this omission from the classification system that, perhaps more than any other, truly lays bare its fundamental lack of consistency, reasoning or evidence base. Any and all medical authorities will acknowledge that by far the greatest harm to public health from drugs stems from alcohol and tobacco use. In the UK they are estimated to be responsible for 30,000 and 100,000 premature deaths each year respectively, more than 300 a day. This figure is approximately 40 times the total number of deaths from all illegal drugs combined, and even if relative numbers of users are taken into account, if classified under any realistic assessment of toxicity, addictiveness and mortality rates both drugs would certainly be criminalised and prohibited under the current system (8). The reason they are absent from the classification system is that they are, for entirely political/ historical reasons, absent from the international prohibitionist legal system. This distinction is arbitrary, perverse and illogical.
‘Why not criminalise tobacco, place it within the Misuse of Drugs Act, put it into Class C and have two years for simple possession of this dangerous drug?…it is an awkward question in the debate that needs to be asked.'
Griffiths Edwards (former chair of the ACMD) ‘Matters of Substance' It should also be noted that the special place of alcohol and tobacco in drug policy extends beyond the absurd exemption from the UN and MDA classification system. Alcoholic beverages are the only food or beverage not required to list ingredients. Alcohol is also the only widely consumed dangerous drug not required to have standard pharmaceutical health warnings on the packaging. Tobacco products similarly are not required to list the many hundred of potentially harmful additives which can constitute up to 30% of their content. These policy anomalies further expose the bizarre a-scientific world in which UK and international drug policy is formulated.
“Millions of us enjoy drinking alcohol with few, if any, ill effects. Indeed moderate drinking can bring some health benefits.” “Ultimately, however, it is vital that individuals can make informed and responsible decisions about their own levels of alcohol consumption. Everyone needs to be able to balance their right to enjoy a drink with the potential risks to their own – and others' – health and wellbeing.”
Tony Blair (from the forward to the 2003 Alcohol Harm Reduction Strategy)
The key advisory body on drug classification is the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (AMCD). This body is established under the 1971 misuse of drugs act to advise ministers within its remit on “preventing the misuse of such drugs or dealing with social problems connected with their misuse” and “restricting the availability of such drugs or supervising arrangements for their supply”. Transform questions the utility of the ACMD and points out that the political backdrop of the Council's work mitigates against evidence based policy making and effective policy development in a number of key ways:
Whilst acknowledging that the Home Office undertakes and commissions much worthwhile and high quality published research in the drugs policy field, there is some evidence that research critical of current drug policy is less likely to be released. For example, a recent review of UK drug policy commissioned by the Prime Minister from the number 10 strategy unit was only published following requests made by Transform and others under the freedom of information act. Even then it was only published in part, the remaining suppressed sections (that were highly critical of policy failings) only entered the public domain when they were leaked to the Guardian newspaper (9). Transform notes that a page of information ranking drugs according to harm within this Number 10 report has glaring discrepancies from the rankings that underlie the classification system (10)
Transform Drug Policy Foundation recommends that the Science and Technology Select committee: