Here’s another clue:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jun/15/drugspolicy.somalia

It may be a gross over simplification of a complex issue but as I watched the last few episodes of The Wire (series 1), I came to the conclusion that current drugs policy is an expensive failure with no positive element.

For those who haven’t seen the series, the basic premise is that the Baltimore police department spend a great deal of time and money, wire-tapping and investigating a gang of drug dealers who are selling heroin from – amongst other places – an orange sofa outside of some tower blocks.

Eventually they arrest a large number of dealers as well as their boss and there is a fantastic shot of the orange sofa, now empty where once there was a hive of illegal activity. Success?

No. The very next episode the orange sofa was back in business, same gang different people. So a few dealers went to jail, and business carried on. A complete waste of time and money.

If this ‘War On Drugs’ was a real war, we would be begging the UN to send in some troops to protect us.

To my mind, there are only 2 answers.

1 – Legalise the drugs trade. The tax revenues must surely run into billions, more than enough to deal with any increase in addiction I would think.

2 – The Peter Hitchens solution which is to overwhelmingly enforce – with what I would call draconian sentences – complete prohibition of illegal drugs. As he rightly says, this has never been trialled.

As neither of these is likely, a good first step would be to base current drug policy on harm related to substance and not these stupid Class A / B / C categories. How can anyone take a government seriously when it tells them that Ecstacy is as harmful as heroin.

To finish where I started, with another over simplification, nobody died in Human Traffic. They did in Trainspotting.

I’m glad we’re basing policy on TV shows…!

But I agree…and I hold out little hope for a sane approach from the boy-king, despite the research he did as a student!

@cjcjc ‘I’m glad we’re basing policy on TV shows…!’

In fairness, the writer of The Wire – David Simon – was a Baltimore crime reporter for 12 years and much of the series is lifted directly from his experiences during that time.

It’s not like I was basing my thoughts on Hollyoaks.

Last week the BBC reported that successes in seizing cocaine intended for the UK had just made it more dangerous to take the drug because it was cut even more with cockroach poison, etc. A great ‘success’ all round, then. Time for a change of tack?

Here’s the article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8044275.stm

@Tim – how very William Burroughs!

Has anyone pointed out to the Tories the success of drug policy in Portugal, where drugs are not criminalised?

@6 doesn’t matter. it’s empirically entirely clear that the only sane option for drugs is decriminalisation; any hypothetical ‘evidence-based party’ would opt for this immediately. But because the ignorant peasantry think Drugs Are Evil, no amount of actual evidence is going to get in the way of being Tough On The Drugs Scourge.

The Wire is ace though, c’mon!

I’ll have to rent it, along with all the other things I have never seen…Mad Men, Heroes, Sopranos.

Best start building even more prisons then because that particular population is going to rocket if they bring in a zero tolerance policy.
I do wonder how beefing up border patrols will stop weed production when the majority of it is now home grown?! I presume all music/films/tv/print that shows any sort of drug use or reference to drugs will be banned too – or at least censored.
Really can’t see any sane government bringing this in ……………………….although thinking about how long the current ‘war on drugs’ has been going on………………ok yeah this could happen!

Just think – if they’d never prohibited recreational drugs we wouldn’t have a show like The Wire.

I presume all music/films/tv/print that shows any sort of drug use or reference to drugs will be banned too – or at least censored.

The Wire banned – oh noes! That will get them out on the streets protesting. Or rather a million Internet men banging away furiously at their keyboards.

I don’t think I need to advise those already watching The Wire to stick with it but Season 3 (I think) explores a limited form of decriminalisation with the police effectively turning a blind eye to the drugs trade in one area.

You’ll also find out why alcoholics ‘traditionally’ drink from bottles wrapped in brown paper.

@Fellow Traveller

As ever, it is the unintended consequences of policy that are the most damaging.

A choice between The Wire and the chaos of a half-arsed drugs policy. Tricky one that

David Simon (writer of The Wire for those not paying attention) in The Guardian –

“I do not believe that we have the stomach for serious change,” he said. “The war on drugs is as disastrous as any government policy has been over the past 50 years, but I do not believe Obama and his people will use their political capital to end it … If a policy failed this unequivocally in any other part of US life you would cashier the generals. But the drug problem oppresses the poor. If rich kids were wandering the streets stealing car radios we would not be so complacent. But it is easier to brutalise the poor and discard them. We are not a manufacturing economy any more and we don’t need our least educated people, so we marginalise them. The cynicism of Reagan and Thatcher still applies.”

How realistic is it to apply the Swedish approach here?

Even if it does work I still think drugs should be legalised.

I have to agree with Simon Leonard on this.

Decriminalising drugs is most certainly not the answer; de criminalisation is what created Al Capone. Alcohol was not illegal, just the sale of it was. Opening up the demand and attemoting to cut off the supply is the worst of all worlds.

Wasting even more money on a drugs war that almost all night clubbers laugh at is not the solution. Especially when this Coutry is facing in cash terms Reagan sized budget deficits. Do we need more victimless criminals in jail?

The reality is that drugs need to be legalised. Quality is controlled. Prices are set according to real supply and demand influences, not how likely people are going to be in prison for. Taxes to pay for the social consequences (as with cigarettes and alcohol) can be added.

Would a British Government do this? Unlikely.

All I can do is echo the call for legalisation. I find it a shame that amongst even liberal think-tanks on the right, there is either a prohibitionist stance on drugs or deathly silence. Course, worth noting that our drug trade isn’t associated with as many social ills as in the US, precisely because we’ve been a little lax on enforcement. The drug trade isn’t anywhere near as militarised as a consequence. I still think it might be a single simplest policy change with the greatest potential benefit.

some more critique of the report here;

http://transform-drugs.blogspot.com/2009/05/prohibition-doesnt-work-so-lets-have.html

“Prohibition doesn’t work, so lets have more prohibition!”

The worrying thing is that this report, or something very similar, is very likely to be what UK drug policy looks like sometime next year unless the progressives in the Tory party, like Cameron and Duncan, start to weigh in – which is hardly likely.

the Lib Dems have great policy, but sadly dont seem to have the courage, or good sense, to campaign behind it. Their loss really, as someone else will take the plaudits when the drug war house of cards comes crashing down.