POLICY
A CHANGE OF
When a ‘general in the war of drugs’
calls the campaign a complete
failure, it’s time to listen. DDN
reports from the GPs’ conference
‘F
or the last 40 years we have been
fighting a war on drugs. I’ve been
a general. We sought to deal with
it through the hammer blow of
the criminal justice system and
I am sorry for having supported
this war. It has been an utter failure.’
Lord Charles Falconer was addressing an
audience of GPs at the recent RCGP/SMMGP
conference on managing drug and alcohol
problems in primary care. The former minister
under Tony Blair’s government, whose roles had
included justice secretary, said: ‘It’s time for us
to acknowledge our failure and examine the
evidence-based alternatives.’
‘Addiction knows no class barriers – everybody
knows somebody who is affected,’ he said. Post-
EU (and the conference was held on Britain’s
withdrawal day), ‘the connection between
those who know what they’re talking about and
politicians has to be restored.’
One of the most obvious ways of ‘protecting the
public from the cruel consequences of an obviously
wrong policy’ would be to legalise and regulate
drugs, taking them out of the hands of criminals.
He referred to the 1961 Single Convention on
Narcotic Drugs, ‘whose base was xenophobia’, and
the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act, a ‘pernicious policy’
which the UK has continued to support ‘even
though it has brought death to thousands’.
‘You only need to look at overdose deaths
compared to those countries who have moved
away from punishment, such as Portugal, to see
this approach is catastrophic,’ he said. Politicians
were terrified of moving away from this approach
because they were ‘worried about being
characterised as flip-flop wearing liberals’.
‘We have produced some terrible soundbites
– tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime’,
he said, and the reliance on prohibition as the
12 • DRINK AND DRUGS NEWS • MARCH 2020
main tool had ‘gifted
profit to criminals’.
The main casualties
had been the poorest,
with not enough
treatment and
‘terrifying numbers’
dying – most of these
deaths preventable.
Furthermore, we were
trapped in a drug
policy war: ‘Every
pound we spend on
prohibition, the more
Lord Charles Falconer
Dr Ed Day
we spend on clearing
it up.’
So what could
be the way forward? There was a clear need for
‘People are no longer interested in high blown
evidence-based policy, he said, and we had to take rhetoric, they want solutions,’ he said. ‘If people
a harm reduction approach that was ‘holistic and
don’t like the way drugs affect their families and
non-judgemental’, giving access to services.
community, change will come.’
‘The government has to direct significant
investment in drug services as a matter of
TEN YEAR ROLLERCOASTER
urgency,’ he said, with funding made available
Six months into his role as national recovery
to ensure heroin-assisted treatment, needle
champion, Dr Ed Day reflected on the run-up to
exchanges, naloxone, and consumption rooms
his appointment and the progress he had been
(on a pilot basis, with evaluation), as well as
able to make so far. He was realistic about the
testing at festivals.
capacity of his part-time unpaid role (alongside
‘The first priority must be to strengthen drug
his other jobs), but also optimistic that his
treatment services and develop harm reduction,’
experience as a consultant addiction psychiatrist
he said, ‘and also improve the life chances of
and knowledge of the sector contributed to
people who are recovering’. At the same time,
evidence-based practice.
we should review commissioning of services
He talked of the ‘rollercoaster’ of the last ten
and look at improvements to the local model.
years – first, the halcyon years of the Tony Blair
He suggested setting up a central body for drug
decade, when there was a massive expansion of
policy, reinstating a drug czar and considering a
services around criminal justice and the advent
national agency to overview commissioning. The
of the NTA, ‘which drove a real interest in the
other vital call to action was to address the ‘crisis
evidence base’. GPs were able to drive up the
in the drug treatment workforce’, which included
quality of prescribing.
the drastic reduction in psychiatrist numbers.
Then came the ‘crash’ of 2008, followed
‘The main casualties
are the poorest,
with not enough
treatment and
terrifying numbers
dying – most of
these preventable.’
‘The development
of peer-led recovery
communities has
stalled. We need
to find a way to
kickstart self-
sustaining systems.’
WWW.DRINKANDDRUGSNEWS.COM