Transform News


Transform News – July 2009	Briefings	Support	Donate	Media Blog
“ Impact assessment is a standard tool in Government for scrutinising policy and exploring alternative options that could achieve better outcomes. Our drug laws have not been assessed effectively since their enactment nearly forty years ago and the world is a very different place now. ” -- Transform meet the PM to discuss Impact Assessments Contents Transform News Transform meets Prime Minister to discuss Impact Assessments Transform Submission to Sentencing Advisory Panel’s Consultation on Sentencing for Drug Offences Narco Wars: Can the war been won? Video discussion at the Frontline club Transform on Twitter Donate UK News Rise in Class A drug use in UK Richard Brunstrom Retires Misha Glenny calls for legalisation and regulation again George Monbiot on drug policy New book - The Candy Machine: How cocaine took over the world International News Death Penalty for Drug offences should be abolished Bolivia – Amendment against coca chewing Mark Easton in Portugal and Transform volunteer Dominic reviews the Portuguese experiment Amusing stories of the month Undercover police buys drugs from undercover police! Opium Haul just hill of beans admits MOD Transform News Transform meets Prime Minister to discuss Impact Assessments Prime Minister Gordon Brown held an important meeting this month with Transform and Lembit Öpik, Liberal Democrat MP for Montgomeryshire. Transform put forward the case for an impact assessment of drug laws. Transform recommended to the PM that the UK Government take the lead in carrying out an Impact Assessment (IA) of domestic drugs prohibition, starting with the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 and related legislation. An IA should model all the alternatives including stepping up prohibition, Portuguese-style decriminalisation, and legal regulation. Transform have called on the EC and UN to undertake a similar exercise internationally with particular focus on producer and transit countries, in order to ensure that drug policy no longer undermines human development, human security and human rights. More on the story can be read on our blog here. Transform Submission to Sentencing Advisory Panel’s Consultation on Sentencing for Drug Offences Transform has submitted a response to the Sentencing Advisory Panel's Consultation on Sentencing For Drug Offences. It asks some fundamental questions about the premises on which the recommendations for change are based. Read the full Transform submission here. For useful companion documents see the detailed legal dissection and discussions, see Release's submission here and the UKDPC submission here. Narco Wars: Can the war been won? Video discussion at the Frontline club Transforms Danny Kushlick, Mike Trace and David Raynes debated at the Frontline club exploring the question, ‘Can the drug war be won?’. A film of the event can be viewed here: http://frontlineclub.com/events/2009/07/new-narco-wars-can-the-war-be-won.html Transform on Twitter Transform has joined twitter you can view our profile here: twitter.com/TransformDrugs. Please follow us and tell your friends. Donate Transform relies on our supporters to maintain and develop our unique program of work. Please support us by signing up for a small regular donation at our secure CAF giving page here. For other ways to make a donation please email info@tdpf.org.uk UK News Rise in Class A drug use in UK Latest figures from the Home Office British Crime Survey (which can be read in full here) on drug use suggest that cocaine use in Britain has risen by 25% in the last year, whilst cannabis use is gradually declining. This news comes despite Soca’s (Serious Organised Crime Agency’s) report, published in May this year, which claimed they were winning the war on cocaine. Soca cites rising prices and plummeting purity resulting from record seizures as major successes. (Please see our blog post critiquing the Soca Report here.) More on the story can be read here and here and here. Mark Easton has written a short quiz based on the findings of the British Crime Survey asking all the right questions. It can be read here. Richard Brunstrom Retires Richard Brunstrom head of North Wales Police is retiring this month. Richard has been a longstanding supporter of drug law reform and is the only senior police officer to publicly express his views whilst in office. We’ve featured a number of stories on Richard Brunstrom over the past couple of years, some of the highlights can be read here: http://transform-drugs.blogspot.com/search?q=brunstrom Misha Glenny calls for legalisation and regulation again Misha Glenny, author of McMafia, calls for legalisation in an article for the Guardian entitled The fall of the Berlin Wall and the rise of organised crime. George Monbiot on drug policy “So Costa's office has produced a study comparing the global costs of prohibition with the global costs of legalisation, allowing us to see whether the current policy (murder, corruption, war, adulteration) causes less misery than the alternative (widespread addiction in poorer nations)? The hell it has. Even to raise the possibility of such research would be to invite the testerics in Congress to shut off the UN's funding.” George Monbiot George Monbiot cites Transform’s call for an Impact Assessment in an article in the Guardian. New book - The Candy Machine: how cocaine took over the world A new book which supports legalisation, The Candy Machine: How Cocaine Took Over the World by Tom Feiling is published by Penguin on August 6 at £9.99 (it's cheaper on Amazon). We'll review the book in the newsletter next month. More on the book can be read here. International News Death Penalty for drug offences should be abolished ‘The death penalty for those convicted of drug trafficking and other drug-related offences should be abolished as it is both ineffective as a policy measure and a violation of human rights’ The August addition of Addiction journal includes an article which argues that the death penalty is not an effective deterrent for drug offences and is an inappropriate response to drug offences. There is no credible evidence that the death penalty deters serious crime in general more effectively than other punishments. The editorial calls for addiction specialists to speak out against the use of the death penalty for drug trafficking, and the authors have circulated a copy to the editors of 45 other academic journals in the addiction field. More on the story can be found here. Bolivia – Amendment against coca chewing In March 2009, Evo Morales sent his formal request to the Secretary General Ban Ki Moon to delete articles 49(c) and 49(e) of the 1961 UN Single Convention that explicitly mention that "coca leaf chewing must be abolished with twenty-five years from the coming into force of this Convention" (which happened in December 1964). The request will be discussed on Thursday, 30 July, at the annual meeting of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). More can be read here. Mark Easton in Portugal Mark Easton (BBC Home Affairs Editor) visited Portugal this month, to report on their decriminalisation ‘experiment’ which has now been in effect for 8 years. In Portugal the purchase, possession and use of any previously illegal substance is no longer considered to be a criminal offence, rather it is viewed as a health problem. Mark’s overall findings were that the policy has been an overwhelming success (similar to the findings of the CATO Institute) and that scare stories which suggested that Portugal would become a drug haven have been unfounded. He noted that drug deaths, and HIV infection rates amongst drug users have fallen and that overall drug consumption appears to be stable or down (the Governments statistics suggest a fall of 10%). More on the story can be read here and the video is well worth a view. Transform Volunteer Dominic Bond has written a review of the changes that have taken place in Portugal which can be read here. Amusing stories of the month Undercover police buys drugs from undercover police! Yes this really did happen. Read more here. Opium haul just hill of beans admits MOD Major opium haul turns out to be a hill of mung beans the article can be read here.
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