- A Policy of a Disaster - Eurad

Neil McKeganey, Professor of Drug Misuse Research at the University of Glasgow, wrote the following in London Times published 15.07.2011:

" Judging by the flood of articles calling for the decriminalisation or legalisation of illegal drugs in the media over recent months one could be forgiven for assuming that the liberal intelligentsia have only a single position on this issue. It is striking though that those who are the most vociferous in support of legalisation are also those who live at greatest distance from the reality of the drugs problem they are commenting upon. I have rarely come across loud calls for decriminalisation from those who are living cheek by jowl with the reality of the UK drug problem. Living next door to a dealer is hardly the rosy road to drug liberalisation.

For those who support legalisation the case is largely made up of the claim that:
a) our drug laws have failed
b) the some level of drug use will always be with us,
c) that it is the right of individuals to choose to use whatever drugs they wish 
d) that it is quite wrong of the state to seek to intervene in this area of personal freedom.

In almost every respect those reasons are misplaced. Heroin use within the UK involves around one percent of the adult population. Compare that to the consumption of our legal drugs alcohol and tobacco and you see that the illegality of heroin is likely to have played an important part in its use remaining relatively low.

Some forms of drug use may indeed be an inevitable facet of human existence but that does not mean that we should open the flood gates of legalisation or decriminalisation. Bear in mind too that if we agreed to legalise heroin within the UK it would make no sense to not extend this to every other currently illegal drug. Bear in mind that this would also mean legalising any future drugs that may be developed by eager entrepreneurial chemists.

Whilst it may be conceded that drug use in at least some respects is a realm of free will we would also have to recognise that addiction undermines that element of free will more forcefully than anything else. And as for the claim that drug use should be a state free zone one might also wonder whether those who argue for that view would eschew their access to free, state provided addictions treatment when they fall from the precarious perch of recreational drug use into the dark realm of drug addiction.

The real worry around legalisation though is the possibility that levels of drug use might increase in the event that the policy were implemented. Within the UK the leading drug legalisation lobby group Transform recognise that there could be a 100% increase in the number of drug users in the event of legalisation. In the case of heroin this would represent an increase from one per-cent to two per-cent of the adult population.

The reality though could be much worse and we might see an increase in heroin use from one per-cent to say ten or fifteen per-cent or even higher. Such an increase might not be very likely in the short term but the policy of legalisation needs to be considered over many years. Seen in these terms it is a risky strategy and it must surely lie with the legalisers to say why in their view a marked increase in drug usage would not follow on from a policy of decriminalisation or legalisation."

Neil McKeganey is also the author of Controversies in Drugs Policy and Practice. Palgrave Macmillan.