“The time has come to shout from every rooftop that the war on drugs hands billions of pounds on a plate to criminal syndicates and terrorist organisations every year’”

-- Misha Glenny - The Guardian

Contents

• Transform News
• Our New Strategy and Structure
• Our Blog
• UK News
• Former director of the UK Anti-Drug Coordination Unit in the Cabinet Office calls for legalisation
• UKDPC Report
• A Dangerous Fiction
• Ecstasy Club owner and DJ Jailed
• 95% of Clubs Tested Positive for Cocaine in Chelsea and Kensington
• International News
• Vienna NGO conference video
• Prohibition fuelling Mexican Drug Cartels
• Argentine President calls for Decriminalisation of Drug Use
• US vote to treat tobacco as a drug
• Drug Enforcement Agency Teaching Tactics to Vietnamese
• Italian Rastafarians allowed marijuana on religious grounds
• You tube Debate on the Legalisation of Drugs
• Latest Releases
• The Irish War on Drugs: The Seductive Folly of Prohibition
• New Series of the Wire on FX channel
• What you can do
• Volunteer Community

Transform News

Our New Strategy and Structure

Transform’s Board has recently carried out a comprehensive review of the organisation and the challenges we face over the next few years. It has become clear that attaining a rational drug policy cannot be achieved by an exclusive focus on the Home Office and relevant politicians. To accomplish change we need to engage with opinion formers and decision makers on a much wider basis. We need to achieve policy climate change. Transform’s Board has agreed to prioritise work over the next five years in three key areas.

Firstly we will be highlighting the international dimensions to drug policy. Drug policy in the UK and other states is underpinned by a number of international treaties that are based on the principles of prohibition. The harms caused by drug policy and the ‘war on drugs’ are international, with the trail of harm generated by prohibition stretching from producer countries, through transit nations to user countries. In all cases these harms are disproportionately experienced by the poorest and least powerful members of society. As well as highlighting these international consequences within Transform’s work we will be looking at developing a number of alliances, that will include both organisations based and operating in other countries and UK organisations who work internationally.

Secondly Transform will be focusing on promoting wellbeing as the key paradigm for drug policy. In partnership with a number of academics we are looking at developing methodologies that allow the wellbeing impact of both existing and proposed drug policy regimes to be evaluated. This work will underpin our continued campaigning for the transfer of drug policy responsibility away from criminal justice agencies to public health authorities. The law enforcement strategies central to current drug policy generate considerable additional harms and have clearly failed. A public health and wellbeing approach to drug policy would be much more effective. However, to achieve this we need to build a wide coalition within the heath and allied professions in support of such an approach.

A major aspect of this work will be supporting the development of the Drugs and Health Alliance (DHA). The DHA is a coalition of agencies campaigning for drug policy to move away from failed criminal justice approaches and instead adopt a public health approach. Transform provides the secretariat for the DHA and in that capacity has recently received funding from the Pilgrim Trust, which has enabled us to recruit Francesca Solmi as its co-ordinator. Francesca has a BA in International Relations from Sussex University and a Masters Degree in International Relations and Health Policy from SAIS – Johns Hopkins University. Before joining the DHA she worked with the World Health Organisation on Child Environmental Health issues. She has also interned for the Food and Agricultural Organisation in Rome, and for the United Nations Development Program’s liaison office in Washington DC. Francesca will be based in London and will be working for the Drugs and Health Alliance 2.5 days per week.

Thirdly we will be focusing on the economic impact of prohibition based drug policies. We will be carrying out or commissioning a number of studies to identify the cost of existing policies; both to public finances and to the wider economy. These will be supplemented by further work identifying the benefits of alternative policies based on legal regulation and control. This strand of our work will set out the strong economic case for adopting rational drug policies and further broaden the coalition supporting drug policy reform.

In addition to this refocusing of our research and campaigning work we have reviewed how we are organised and established a new organisational structure. This structure will see Transform’s staff organised into three teams, Research, Policy and Communications, and Operations. The Research team will be responsible for developing Transform’s ‘product’ both through directly produced work and by managing commissioned research projects. Steve Rolles, who has been the lead author of all our major publications would become the Head of Research and will work with Emily Crick our Research Associate. Steve is based in London and Emily in Bristol.

The Policy and Campaigns team will disseminate our material and will communicate the case for change. Danny Kushlick moves to a new post as Head of Policy and Communications to head up this team and will be working with Martin Powell, our new Communications Associate. Martin brings with him extensive experience of working in the charitable sector having spent over ten years at environmental and international development campaign groups including Friends of the Earth, the World Development Movement and as Co-Chair of the Jubilee Debt Campaign. Martin has a degree in applied chemistry and a postgraduate diploma in environmental science, policy and planning. Office based volunteers, student placements and interns will supplement these teams. Francesca Solmi the DHA’s co-ordinator will be based in this team.

The third team, Operations will focus on Transform’s funding and organisational management. A new post of ‘Director of Operations’ is being established with overall responsibility for management of the organisation. This post will work closely with Jane Slater, Operations Co-ordinator and they will both focus on human resources, funding, finances and project management. John Moore is currently filling this post on an interim basis.

The new strategy opens up a range of exciting possibilities for Transform and the restructuring utilises the strengths of our staff, enabling us to maximise Transform’s impact and influence.

Our Blog

Our blog is bigger and better than ever before (we now even have a mini blog too, for interesting links and comments) so if you’re interested in reading more on the latest drug stories as they break, please do take a look - please click on the link below:

http://transform-drugs.blogspot.com/

UK News

Former director of the UK Anti-Drug Coordination Unit in the Cabinet Office calls for legalisation

"I joined the unit more or less agnostic on drugs policy, being personally opposed to drug use, but open-minded about the best way to deal with the problem…However, during my time in the unit, as I saw more and more evidence of 'what works', to quote New Labour's mantra of the time, it became apparent to me that ... enforcement and supply-side interventions were largely pointless. They have no significant, lasting impact on the availability, affordability or use of drugs."

Julian Critchley, the former director of the UK Anti-drug coordination unit, (the Cabinet Office department in charge of drug policy) called for the legalisation of drugs last week on the BBC Home Affairs correspondent, Mark Easton's blog, 'The War on Drugs' . He described the present government policy of being tough on drugs as pointless, and stated that many colleagues and professionals that he has met share the same opinion, but are too fearful to speak out. Critchley, having retrained as a teacher, concludes with the following:

"I find that when presented with the facts, the students I teach are quite capable of considering issues such as this, and reaching rational conclusions even if they started with a blind Daily Mailesque approach. I find it a shame that no mainstream political party accords the electorate the same respect."

Critchley’s blog posts and more on the story can be read on our blog here, an article on the story by Duncan Campbell of the Guardian can be read here, and Julian Critchley can be heard on BBC Radio 4's Today Programme here.

UKDPC Report

"Despite significant drug and asset seizures and drug-related convictions in recent years, drug markets have proven to be extremely resilient. They are highly fluid and adapt effectively to government and law enforcement interventions."

UKDPC Report – Tackling Drug Markets and Distribution Networks in the UK

The UK Drug Policy Commission published a report this month entitled Tackling Drug Markets and Distribution Networks in the UK, which illustrates how the UK is failing to control the supply of illegal drugs through traditional supply-side enforcement measures. The report argues that the UK is awash with illegal drugs and that law enforcers, despite spending around a billion and a half pounds in their efforts, are only catching a small share of the market. The report goes on to argue that the market is resilient and where one dealer is caught another will emerge. The report therefore recommends that enforcement activity should focus on ameliorating drug harms.

Transform has however critiqued the report arguing that the analysis that underpins it is fatally flawed as it is based on the assumption that prohibition is a given rather than a policy option. The report completely fails to acknowledge that prohibition itself causes many of the harms associated with drug use including the fact that enforcement often exacerbates the problems. Failing to acknowledge the primary role prohibition has in creating the problems of illegal markets dooms the policy recommendations that follow. A full critique of the document can be read in full on our blog here.

Transform have received a range of media coverage around the report, Steve appeared on Radio 5 live and BBC Scotland and was quoted in the Independent and Guardian. More on the story can be found here, and here.

A Dangerous Fiction

“The time has come to shout from every rooftop that the war on drugs hands billions of pounds on a plate to criminal syndicates and terrorist organisations every year’”

Misha Glenny – The Guardian

Misha Glenny wrote an excellent piece in the Guardian this month, which is well worth a read entitled ‘A dangerous fiction; The war on drugs is a non sequitur – and is equally harmful to both producers and consumers’ in which he strongly critiques the US led war on drug. The article can be read here. His latest radio show, a four part series ‘How Crime Took on the World’ is being aired on Radio 4 and can be heard here.

Ecstasy Club owner and DJ Jailed

“In this case we see another drug, ecstasy, that due to a quirk of history is illegal, but that according to the government’s own appointed experts is less harmful than alcohol…not only is the law inconsistent and unfair, but it is spectacularly ineffectual.”

– Steve Rolles - Transform.

The owner of a Plymouth nightclub, Manoucehr Bahmanzadeh and DJ Tom Costelloe received nine and five years jail terms respectively, after being found guilty of allowing ‘rampant’ sales of ecstasy in their club. More on the story can be read here and here.

95% of Clubs Tested Positive for Cocaine in Chelsea and Kensington

Kensington and Chelsea council and police team have found that 95% of all pubs, bars and clubs in the borough tested positive for cocaine. Managers of the premises that tested positive, have now been given advice on how to reduce drug use and are expecting further testing, if found positive again they risk losing their licenses. Yet another example of how drugs affect all levels of society and a perfect illustration of just how spectacularly prohibition has failed at eliminating drug use. More on the story can be read here.

International News

Vienna NGO conference video

Following on from the Vienna NGO Committee UN event, which Danny attended last month, the Hungarian Civil Libertarians Union produced a number of videos summarising the event. Those attending the event included NGOs from a variety of background including supporters of blanket prohibition to those supporting legalisation and regulation. The goal of the meeting was to produce a consensus statement on behalf of global civil society to present to the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) in 2009. The videos are well worth a look and can be viewed here and here.

Other NGOs have also commented on the event in their blogs:

The American Civil Liberties Union, The International Harm Reduction Association and The US Harm Reduction Coalition

Prohibition fuelling Mexican Drug Cartels

Allan Wall, a contributor to Family Security Matters wrote an interesting article examining the Mexico drug war, following the news that as of July 18 th the drug-related body count in Mexico has exceeded 2,300. He argues that despite the tough war on drugs pursued by America, it is the Americans themselves that are fuelling the Mexican cartels due to their high demand for drugs. He therefore argues that it is time to question whether prohibition is the correct strategy. As he claims; “legalisation would take the big money out of the trade and addicts could then be treated as patients rather than criminals.”      

Argentine President calls for Decriminalisation of Drug Use

Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner repeated her call this week, to decriminalise personal use of drug use, and to crack down on traffickers and dealers. She is quoted as saying: "I don't like it when people easily condemn someone who has an addiction as if he were a criminal, as if he were a person who should be persecuted." More on the story can be read on our blog here.

US vote to treat tobacco as a drug

The US House of Representatives has voted to pass a new bill, which would mean that tobacco is treated as a drug and regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The bill would impose tighter restrictions on advertising, impose new penalties for selling to children and require all new products to be approved by the FDA. President Bush has however threatened to veto the bill, arguing that it would put a large burden on the FDA. However those in support of the bill argue that these stricter controls are essential in the fight against tobacco. More on the story can be read here.

Drug Enforcement Agency Teaching Tactics to Vietnamese

Agents from the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) are in Vietnam this month to train Vietnamese anti-drug officers on how to conduct American-style drug raids. Despite escalating rates of drug use within Vietnam in recent decades, the main thrust of the new initiative is to crackdown on the use of the country as a transit point in the international drug trade. However, it is likely that the new policy will have little impact on drug use within the country and if anything it is likely to exacerbate the problem, as Transform have frequently argued, stricter enforcement of prohibition often results in greater harms. Please follow this link for more on the story.

Italian Rastafarians allowed marijuana on religious grounds

The Italian criminal court has ruled that as Rastafarians’ consider marijuana to be a religious sacrament, this should be taken into consideration if they are tried on drug trafficking charges. In Italy smoking, or carrying small amounts of marijuana for personal use is not a crime, however if people are caught with quantities too large for personal use, they can be charged with drug trafficking. In a unique victory an Italian Rastafarian has had his conviction for drug trafficking overthrown as it was argued the amount he possessed was in line with the heavy use that comes with his religious beliefs. More on the story can be read here.

Youtube Debate on the Legalisation of Drugs

A live debate between David Borden, Executive Director of Stop the Drug War.org based in Washington, and Deirdre Boyd of the Addiction Recovery Foundation in London on the legalisation can be viewed here,

Latest Releases

The Irish War on Drugs: The Seductive Folly of Prohibition

"The future is much more dangerous than the present. Prohibition can't handle the present. It certainly won't be able to handle the future."

Dr Paul O’Mahony, has just published his latest book in which he argues for the ending of prohibition, as he states, it makes drug abuse and the harms associated with it worse that they would otherwise be. He recognises that we all have the basic human right to use drugs, and that we should adopt a policy which helps to reduce drug use and abuse through education and social programmes which are targeted at the most vulnerable. More about the book can be read here.

New Series of the Wire on FX channel

“‘I have no interest in good versus evil…(even the series’ socio-paths) have to be considered in human terms”

David Simon, Co-author of the Wire.

Season five, the final series of the cult hit television drama, The Wire is being shown on the FX channel this month. For those of you who haven’t seen it yet, you must! The show is set in Baltimore, Maryland and centres on the inner city drug scene. Written by David Simons and Ed Burns the show was first aired on HBO in the US in June 2002. Despite never achieving high viewing figures, the series has been critically acclaimed for its intelligent character driven plot lines, and its realistic portrayal of urban life. Each series focuses on a different facet of the city, including, the drug scene, the port, the city bureaucracy, the school system and the print media. It tackles issues such as the pointlessness of the war on drugs, the bureaucracy and corruption that infest both the police and the drug dealing gangs, the class war against the labour unions, the city’s dysfunctional public school system and the failure of the media to address the realities of the issues depicted over the series. Anyway it’s really brilliant, all of us here at Transform are hooked and we strongly recommend that you watch it.

What you can do

Volunteer Community

For those of you who haven’t heard yet our volunteer community is now up and running. All you need to do is log on from the comfort of your home and contribute to a number of projects that we’ve posted. Activity has been a little slow as of late, however we’re hoping to re-invigorate the site in the next couple of weeks and post a load of new projects up, so please do keep taking a look and don’t be shy to let us know what you think. If you haven’t already please click on the link below to register: http://www.transform-volunteers.org.uk/users.

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