“ In my experience of 40-plus years …this was the single most wasteful, most ineffective program that I had ever seen…It wasn't just a waste of money…. This was actually a benefit to the enemy. We were recruiting Taliban with our tax dollars.”

--

Richard C. Holbrooke, (US Speical Envoy to Afghanistan)

Full story can be read here.

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Contents

Transform News

• Home Affairs Select Committee submission

• Suppressed Cocaine Report

• Transform launch Videos

• Volunteer Vacancies

UK News

• Release –Nice People Take Drugs

International News

• UN World Drug Report

• Germans pass law to allow prescription Heroin

• ‘Ten Things that you should know about drug prohibition’

• New Crime Bill to overhaul Criminal Justice System

• More encouraging news from the US

Donate

Transform News

Home Affairs Select Committee submission

Transform have submitted written evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee’s new Cocaine Trade Inquiry. Our submission can be read here.

Our evidence shows how many of the issues and problems the Committee is grappling with in their inquiry stem from the criminalisation of drugs, rather than drug use per se. We also explain that there is a collective denial within Government and beyond that protects the policy of prohibition from scrutiny, the starting point of which is an ongoing refusal to separate drug harms from harms caused by drug policy, and prohibition in particular.

Steve Rolles appeared on a radio one debate with the HASC chairman Keith Vaz discussing drug policy during which he was invited to give oral evidence (although this is now scheduled for after the summer recess).

You can see video of the previous evidence sessions online here.

Suppressed Cocaine Report

In mid June Transform published a blog detailing the largest ever study of cocaine use around the globe carried out in the early 90's by the UN World Health Organisation (WHO) and funded by the UN Inter-regional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI). Under pressure from the US its publication was suppressed when it became clear the report's findings were in direct conflict with the myths, stereotypes and propaganda that prop up the war on drugs. The leaked report has been on the TNI website for some time but this blog brought it to wider public attention for the first time (read the complete leaked report here).

Key findings from the report include:

"Health problem; from the use of legal substances, particularly alcohol and tobacco, are greater than health problems from cocaine use.”

Transform has passed this report onto the forthcoming Home Affairs Select Committee inquiry on cocaine in the hope that it might usefully be used to inform policy discussions, albeit only at the UK level for now, and some 13 years late.

The blog post has resulted in mainstream media coverage of this story in the Guardian: Cocaine study that got up the nose of the US (with which transform assisted), and now an editorial in the Vancouver Sun: Suppressed report raises questions about drug policy. It also appeared on the front page of Reddit attracting 500+ comments and pulling in 50,000 hits to the blog in 24 hours, and sparking online debate on forums and blogs across the world.

Transform launch new Videos

We have recently embarked on the production of videos in order to add a new dimension to Transform’s media output. Historically we have been very text heavy and video is a way to balance this with pictures and sounds and for new voices to come forward as ambassadors of reform. The first few teaser videos are available to watch on the Supporters of Reform page of our website.

Rod Morgan Former Chair of the Youth Justice Board describes how he came to believe that the drug laws need to be overhauled in the video that can be viewed below:

Prof. Rod Morgan on drug policy: overhaul the system from Transform on Vimeo.

Volunteer Vacancies

We currently have a number of volunteer vacancies:

Graphic Design and Web Maintenance Volunteer.

We are looking for a volunteer who is available at least one day per week to come into our office to assist with general web maintenance and basic graphic design tasks. Applicants will be familiar with Dreamweaver and ideally In-design and Photoshop (though basic training can be provided). If you are interested, please send your CV to info@tdpf.org.uk with a covering letter describing why you think that you would be suitable for the role. The closing date for applications is Tuesday 28 th July (Transform is able to pay volunteer full travel expenses and up to £5 for lunch).

Web-Savvy Volunteer

We are looking for a web-savvy volunteer to help us to increase our web presence. The ideal candidate will be familiar with using social networking sites, forums and writing blogs. Ideally the volunteer will be available at least one day per week to come into our office. However it may be possible that following induction some of the work can be carried out from home. As above, if you are interested, please send your CV to info@tdpf.org.uk with a covering letter describing why you think that you would be suitable for the role. The closing date for applications is Tuesday 28 th July (Transform is able to pay volunteer full travel expenses and up to £5 for lunch).

UK News

Release – Nice People Take Drugs

"The Nice People Take Drugs campaign is about getting people to think about drug use in our society and for politicians to stop being so frightened of having an open debate on how to more effectively deal with the current situation."

Sebastian Saville – Director Release.

Our colleagues over at Release - long time reform campaigners and defenders of those who fall foul of the UK's unjust, outdated and often plain ridiculous drug laws - have launched a new campaign as part of their wider project to drag the drug policy debate into the ‘real world’. The campaign kicked off with a bus advert with the slogan ‘Nice People Take Drugs’ The advert was subsequently pulled despite not actually receiving any complaints from the public, however it has attracted significant media attention to the campaign and they hope to have another bus advert up soon.

More about Release's campaign can be found here.

More on the story can be found here.

Release has also launched a deck of cards to mark World Drug Day on 26 June. The cards show an assortment of prominent politicians who have admitted to drug use – the cards can be viewed here. A number of cards are not yet filled and Release are inviting suggestions of which politicians should complete the pack.

International News

UN World Drug Report

“UNODC is officially at war with itself. The Executive Director has admitted repeatedly that the UNODC oversees the very system that gifts the vast illegal drug market to violent criminal profiteers, with disastrous consequences. The UNODC is effectively creating the problem it is claiming to eliminate.” Danny Kushlick, Transform

The World Drug Report 2009, the flagship annual publication of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), was launched in Washington DC on 24 June. Launched in the run up to World Drug Day on 26th June, the report provides detailed descriptions of trends in world drug markets.

This years report contains more of the same confused mix of misrepresentations, straw man arguments, and logical fallacies that we are used to hearing from the UNODC's drug warriors. What is strange about this report however, is that some of the analysis of the problem, the critique at least is actually fairly good – it’s where it leads that is so extraordinary.

Firstly, it is a reflection of the progress the reform movement has made that the legalisation/regulation issue takes up so much of the space in the preface, and that the UNODC feels the need to go on the defensive this prominently.

Second, the report fully acknowledge that prohibition, under the auspices of the UN drug agencies and international drug control infrastructure, has been a generational disaster on multiple fronts - and yet then call for more of the same, brushing off those who call for a debate on alternatives with the offensive and childish smear of being 'pro-drugs'.

“The most serious issue concerns organized crime. All market activity controlled by the authority generates parallel, illegal transactions, as stated above. Inevitably, drug controls have generated a criminal market of macro- economic dimensions that uses violence and corruption to mediate between demand and supply. Legalize drugs, and organized crime will lose its most profitable line of activity, critics therefore say. Not so fast. UNODC is well aware of the threats posed by international drug mafias. Having started this drugs/crime debate, and having pondered it extensively, we have concluded that these drug-related, organized crime arguments are valid. They must be addressed.”

So Costa acknowledges that some of our arguments are valid!

Third the report praises the success of decriminalisation in Portugal. It claims:

“Conditions keep drugs out of the hands of those who would avoid them under a system of full prohibition, while encouraging treatment, rather than incarceration, for users”

Finally, the text makes clear reference to the need to address wellbeing:

“The problem can only be solved by addressing the problem of slums and dereliction in our cities, through renewal of infrastructures and investment in people – especially by assisting the youth, who are vulnerable to drugs and crime, with education, jobs and sport.” (Transform’s emphasis)

More on the story can be read here:

Transform blog on the release of the report

An article in the Guardian by Duncan Campbell with Transform quote.

and coverage in the Times

Germans pass law to allow prescription Heroin.

An article in the Associated Press this month reported that German lawmakers have voted to allow the prescription of synthetic heroin to long-term addicts. Prescriptions are available to people aged over 23 years of age, who have been addicted for over five years and have failed at least twice at previous rehabilitation attempts. The scheme is similar to programmes in Switzerland that have been highly successful at reducing drug-related crime and have improved health amongst addicts. The full story can be read here.

‘Ten Things that you should know about drug prohibition’

Alex Wodak, President of the Australian Drug Law Foundation wrote an article for the punch entitled ‘Ten Things that you should know about drug prohibition’ which can be read here.

New Crime Bill to overhaul Criminal Justice System

The House of Representatives will be taking up a companion version of a popular Senate bill intended to overhaul the American criminal justice system. The Senate bill was introduced by Sen. Jim Webb and would create a commission of respected individuals in the field who would make recommendations on the reform of everything from sentencing to drug policy.

Delahunt, a senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee and prosecutor from Massachusetts commented: "I think it's really time to do an absolute overview of the issue of drugs and come at it with an open mind." More on the story can be read here in an article from the Huffington Post.

More encouraging news from the US

Yet more positive stories have been emerging from the US this month including an article in the New York Times by Nicholas D. Kristof entitled Is it time to legalize drugs? And an article in the Nation by Sasha Abramsky The War Against 'The War on Drugs'. All positive signs that climate change is happening.

If you want to keep up to date with all the latest developments please keep watching our miniblog. You can subscribe to the miniblog RSS feed by clicking here

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