Banning Mephedrone would be a mistake.
This morning the Council for the Misuse of Drugs was once again thrown into disarray when one of it’s members Dr Polly Taylor resigned. It appears that her resignation means that the Council cannot be properly consulted as required by the Misuse of Drugs Act; meaning that the banning of Mephedrone will seemingly have to be put off.
Effectively Dr Taylor resigned over the issue of how the government propose to treat their Scientific advisers. To simplify and distil the issues effectively what the government want the relationship to be about is what they call “mutual trust”.
Almost certainly to any sensible independent person this can read that the science is unimportant, but telling ministers what they want to hear is. For me it fundamentally undermines the principle of evidence based legislation, and does so in favour of a craven acceptance of pandering to the worst tendencies of the gutter press.
That complicated, and detailed, public policy on these sort of questions should be principally decided on how such policies will play to the fevered imagination of the Daily Mail is not just unpalatable, it is dangerous. It is dangerous because these sort of decisions need to be made on the basis of reducing harm to the people, not on the basis of party political point scoring designed to gain a partisan short term political advantage.
The simple reality is that banning Mephedrone is unlikely to reduce it’s usage, will probably help glamorise it, will help make money for criminal gangs operating in the black market. But most importantly rather than making people safer, it is likely to make the use of Mephedrone more risky as its illegality will drive it underground. Who knows what the post banning Meow-Meow will contain…
If the “War on Drugs” had been a conventional war then we would have sued for peace ages ago. It would have been an unconditional surrender, as the war has been an unmitigated failure. None of the objectives have been reached and the collateral damage in terms of destroyed lives, burgeoning prison populations, international organised crime, devastated urban communities, and massive petty crime is plain to see.
The media coverage of Drugs was excellently satirised by Chris Morris in the seminal TV Show “Brass Eye”. To the extent I even wondered if the Mephedrone thing was a wind up (the nick name “Meow-Meow” is reminiscent of one of his made up drugs “Clarky Cats”). But the narrative of drugs policy being driven by crazy tabloid hysteria still prevails.
What is needed is sensible evidence based policy making, predicated on the principle of harm reduction. It would take courageous politicians to grasp the nettle, and try something radically different that we know would benefit society.
Once upon a time politicians tried to be inspirational, they wanted to change the word and make it a better place. By changing our failed drugs policy, starting with Mephedrone they could do that. A politician whom did this would inspire me that is for sure.
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You can listen to my CWU Youth podcast with Transform Drugs Policy Foundation here:-
CWU Youth Podcast: Drugs Policy
