PM hears case for Impact Assessment of drug laws
(UK)
Prime Minister Gordon Brown has held an important meeting with drugs policy
campaigning group Transform, and Lembit Öpik, Liberal Democrat MP for
Montgomeryshire to hear the case for an impact assessment of drug laws.
Danny Kushlick, Head of Policy and Communications at Transform Drug Policy
Foundation said after the meeting:
"Impact assessment is a standard tool in Government for scrutinising policy
and exploring alternative options that could achieve better outcomes. Our
drug laws have not been assessed effectively since their enactment nearly
forty years ago and the world is a very different place now."
"I am confident that over the coming months and years, the drug laws will
receive the level of parliamentary scrutiny currently reserved for the
introduction of new legislation. Impact assessment offers us all a major
opportunity to reframe the drug policy debate in a less emotive and more
productive manner."
"We are extremely grateful to the Prime Minister for considering our
request. Mr. Brown was interested to hear about the 2003 No.10 Strategy Unit
Report which he had not seen, which shows that supply side enforcement
cannot work in the long term, and actually creates huge collateral damage."
Commenting after the meeting, Lembit Öpik said:
"While the Prime Minister didn't commit to implementing our request there
and then, I am satisfied that he truly did listen. The impact assessment
won't happen tomorrow, but this meeting is a start of a serious dialogue. We
don't want to bully anyone into going along with this research - nor could
we! But I'm confident that in the months ahead we will persuade the
government that this is in everyone's interests, and I'm extremely grateful
to the Prime Minister for holding this meeting to hear our case."
Lembit Öpik added: "Overall, the Prime Minister had a useful discussion with
the delegation. No commitment has at this stage been made, but he clearly
takes seriously any proposals which have the potential to help us address
the misuse of drugs, and all the associated social and health costs which go
with it."
Professor Richard Wilkinson, co-author of "The Spirit Level", said;
"I support the Transform Drug Policy Foundation initiative and urge the
government to undertake an impact assessment of the Misuse of Drugs Act."
ENDS
Notes to editors
1. An analysis of the 2003 No10 Strategy Unit Report can be read here
2. Richard Wilkinson is Emeritus Professor of Social Epidemiology at
Nottingham University, author of 'Unequal societies; the afflictions of
inequality', and co-author, with Kate Pickett, of 'The Spirit Level: Why
More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better'
3. Government guidelines on Impact Assessments are available here
Here is the briefing note that Transform gave to Mr Brown:
Towards Effective Drug Policy: Time for an Impact Assessment
Transform Drug Policy Foundation
Transform is a think-tank that campaigns for sustainable well being,
promoting the replacement of prohibition with effective and humane systems
to regulate drugs.
Recommendation
The UK Government should lead the world by carrying out an Impact Assessment
(IA) of domestic drugs prohibition, starting with the Misuse of Drugs Act
1971 and related legislation. An IA should model all the alternatives
including stepping up prohibition, Portuguese-style decriminalisation, and
legal regulation. The EC and UN should undertake a similar exercise
internationally to incorporate impacts on producer and transit countries,
and ensure drug policy no longer undermines human development, human
security and human rights.
Basis for recommendation
Despite the billions spent each year, evidence from around the globe,
(including the PM's Strategy Unit Drugs Report of 2003 ) shows the
prohibitionist approach to drugs has consistently delivered the opposite of
its stated goals, with the poor and marginalised hit hardest.
The Director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime also admits the
international drug control system has massive 'unintended consequences'
including: creating a huge criminal market; displacing policy from health to
enforcement; and geographical displacement (the 'balloon effect').
At a time of economic stricture, it is crucial that drugs expenditure is
cost-effective, with all potential alternatives meaningfully explored.
Transform's cost-benefit analysis (based on Government data) shows a move to
legal regulation and control could:
o Save the UK billions of pounds to spend on other priorities
o Halve property crime and the prison population
o Remove a huge obstacle to development and security in Afghanistan and
beyond
Using Impact Assessment as a guiding tool would help end the emotive and
polarised debate around drug policy reform, and enable politicians to
genuinely engage with the search for better alternatives.
Appendix
Introduction
We all share the common goal of a drug policy that maximises environmental,
physical, psychological and social wellbeing worldwide. Yet, whether viewed
internationally or domestically, the prohibitionist approach has seen drug
supply and availability increasing; use of drugs that cause the most harm
increasing; health harms increasing; and massive levels of crime leading to
a crisis in our criminal justice systems. Illicit drug profits are enriching
criminals, fuelling conflict and undermining security and development in
producer and transit countries from Mexico and Guinea Bissau, to Afghanistan
and Colombia, with the gravest impacts falling upon the poor and
marginalised.
Whilst the UNODC acknowledges the high costs of prohibition, it has so far
neglected to count them, or model alternatives. Similarly, the Home Office
acknowledges that legal regulation of drug markets would have benefits , but
claims they would be outweighed by the costs. Yet no such cost-benefit
analysis has ever been carried out in the UK, or anywhere else. Value for
money studies commissioned in 2007 remain unpublished.
The UK could take the lead by carrying out an objective, independent,
national assessment, comparing current policy with the alternatives;
encourage other consumer, producer and transit countries to follow suit; and
call for international assessments by the EC and UN.
A UK Impact Assessment
In the UK, drug legislation has changed little since the 1971 Misuse of
Drugs Act (MDA) which has for many years been colliding with dramatically
changed circumstances, including a massive increase in the use of illegal
drugs, and a correspondingly huge illegal market, compounded by
globalisation. As a result, a root and branch review is long overdue, and an
Impact Assessment of the MDA should form the first step in genuinely
assessing the UK's approach to drugs.
Through allowing the outcomes of any government intervention to be assessed
against the goals it is supposed to meet, along with modelling alternatives,
IA is a sophisticated tool to strengthen evidence-based policy-making,
improve accountability and transparency, and enable more informed public and
parliamentary debate. Typically IAs now consider the potential or actual
impacts (positive and negative) of a policy in terms of the three pillars of
sustainable development - economic, social and environmental.
An IA aimed at helping to deliver evidence-based policy - behind which all
stakeholders can unite - would put all options on the table, without
committing any stakeholder to a specific position: from stepping up
prohibition, through decriminalisation, to legal regulation and control. In
addition to current mechanisms for regulating the supply of legal drugs and
intoxicants, there are a variety of existing approaches to dealing with
illicit drugs. These include Portugal's decriminalisation of possession of
drugs since 2001 (widely hailed as a success, including by the UNODC), the
long-term large-scale maintenance prescription of heroin in Switzerland, and
the Netherlands 'coffee-shop' system for cannabis.
The application of IA for ex post evaluation of this kind has been less
common than its use in ex ante assessment of proposed new measures. However,
there is now recognition of the need for more evaluation work of this kind,
for example in the European Commission work on IA.
When an entire UK Act is subject to Impact Assessment it is often broken
down into smaller sections each of which has a separate IA. For example the
Police and Crime Bill currently before Parliament has twenty separate IAs
addressing different aspects.
The UNODC currently send out a biannual survey to member countries as part
of its information gathering for the World Drug Report. Transform would like
to see this include a template with questions for a country level IA, which
could be collated as the basis for a global IA.
An Impact Assessment is Overdue
An IA of drug policy would be in line with Government guidelines. For
example, the Treasury Green Book states that: "...no policy, programme or
project is adopted without first having the answer to these questions: (1)
Are there better ways to achieve this objective? (2) Are there better uses
for these resources?"
More specifically, BERR IA guidelines say that all new legislation and
policy changes with a cost or benefit to the public, private or third
sectors greater than £5 million require the relevant government department
to conduct an IA. This threshold has been crossed by many individual drug
related interventions, and a number of other triggers have been pulled
including: "When review leads to the identification of new policy challenges
(perhaps arising from unintended consequences of the intervention itself),
the [IA] process begins again."
Similarly, the National Audit Office 2001 guide 'Modern Policymaking:
Ensuring policies deliver value for money' states: "Departments.need to
review policies, for example to determine when the time is right to modify a
policy in response to changing circumstances so that it remains relevant and
cost effective; and departments may need to terminate policies if they are
no longer cost effective or they are not delivering the policy outcomes
intended."
As previously noted there are huge unintended consequences of the current
drug control system, and evidence shows the MDA is not delivering what it
was supposed to - for example a twenty-fold increase in heroin use.
There is a UK precedent for using IA to compare prohibition with
decriminalisation or legal regulation of drugs. The 2005 Drugs Act had an
Impact Assessment of the proposal to make Magic Mushrooms a Class A drug,
including the option of allowing licensed sales.
For too long the debate around drugs policy reform has been paralysed and
polarised. An Impact Assessment offers an objective, independent and neutral
tool for enabling key stakeholders to work together to create a drug policy
fit for the 21st Century.
See also from the Transform blog:
MP calls for Impact Assessment of drugs policy in prime ministers questions
Transform publishes cost benefit analysis study of prohibition / regulation
http://transform-drugs.blogspot.com/2009/07/pm-hears-case-for-impact-assessment-on.html
date: Sat, 18 Jul 2009 20:06:43 GMT
author: Harry McCulla
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