01 - Introduction

We have to accept by now that the 'war on drugs' - started by Nixon over 50 years ago - has catastrophically failed. Primarily because you can never win a war that has no territory to capture, but mainly because you cannot control the demand for something by trying to limit the supply. You can only change the price and the risks people are willing to take to feed the demand by controlling the supply side.

It is time that we collectively - the people of the world who have been living in unjust and draconian drugs policies for the last 50 years - have an adult conversation about what drugs are, why people want them and how we can reduce the harm caused by them, both to the individual and to society at large.

I was thinking of writing up a long summary of how the war has failed, but those wonderful people over at Wikipedia have done a far better and thorough job of it than I have. I have nothing to add and I would only be paraphrasing their work. If you think that we are winning this war, please go and read this article before continuing;

It is also astounding how many ex-politicians and ex-chiefs of police who also say that the drug war has failed and it is time to have a grown-up conversation about the matter. The key part here is the 'ex'. None of them say it when they are in their jobs, as their jobs depend on them propagating the lie. Only when they are free to speak their minds without financial repercussions do they admit what hypocrites they have been all these past years. It works in reverse too. Before the 2008 UK election I distinctly remember both David Cameron and Nick Clegg saying that if they got into power they would legalise cannabis. I think Clegg said it first and Cameron copied him, trying to look cool as Clegg was polling well. Then, the very second that they got into power and the vile Theresa May was installed in the Home Office they promptly forgot that they ever said it.

We have also had two US presidents. Bill "I tried it once but didn't inhale" (bullshit) Clinton and Barack "I did inhale, I thought that was the point" Obama. Two presidents, one of which has openly admitted using drugs, but both kept it fully illegal on their watch. But hey, it's not like any US president did mountains of cocaine, right? Right?

Then we have the traces of cocaine found in the Palace of Westminster. I remember the news articles about it being found in the toilets, but nothing since. Was there even a search done? Do the police patrol Parliament with dogs in the same way that they take great enjoyment in patrolling music festivals? I don't know, because it all went quiet.

If politicians want to tell us that 'drugs are bad, mmkay' then they should be out front leading us. Not talking about linking benefit payments to drug testing, but voluntarily submitting themselves for testing and publishing the results. Any politician that does not do this is a hypocrite.

They are also very quick to forget the histories of their own countries. The two countries with the most rabid anti-drug politicians ... *checks notes* ... the UK and the US have a solid history when it comes to drugs. The CIA ran drugs ... is alleged to have ran drugs in order to fund its black operations. And the UK. Well, the UK steals the cherry from the top of the cake of shit. The UK went to war with China ... *checks notes* ... twice, in order to force them to buy our opium. They didn't even want our drugs and we went to war to force them to buy it. Just stealing their money outright would have been more ethical. As in; not at all ethical, but slightly better than forcing addictive drugs on them.

Then we get on to the perverse way that the current policies drive the creation and supply of drugs. Don't believe me? Let me take you on a journey dear reader, back to what I would describe as the "happy time".

First there was the illegal rave scene in the late 80's and early 90's. These things were a menace, but not because of the drugs. The tangential harms were greater. Since the events were naturally illegal the organisers didn't have to care about silly things like safety, crowd control, fire risks or even things like basic sanitation or having water and medical personnel on site. I'm sure that many of the organisers did their best - deaths at your rave is bad for business - but the dangers were there. Then there was the harm to the local environment. 5,000 people descending on a field in the middle of nowhere causes havoc for the local residents and completely destroys the field. Surrounding livestock wouldn't be too happy either. The police also hated these events because they would be called by concerned locals, have to kit up a team big enough to disperse the crowd as well as have enough medical and other support around to cater for anyone having a bad time as well as the injuries sustained by the police themselves. Overall they were bad news but they were borne of the desire to have a good time, and there was nowhere legal to do this.

This situation was intolerable for the police. Not only did they have to deal with their 'normal' Friday and Saturday nights - drunks fighting in the town centres at kicking-out time, then the drunk drivers straight afterwards - but they now had to kit 100, 150, 200 officers and transport them to Bumfark, Idaho at the drop of a hat.

I don't know if there was any policy shift here or just market forces but in the mid 90's, clubbing went mainstream. City centre clubs opened and pulled big name DJs to play to packed houses. They were legit, so they had insurance and were up to code on things like fire exits. The toilets are best not mentioned, but eh. I've seen worse in a student union bar at the end of a beer festival. The drugs - MDMA and amphetamine were the ones of choice - were of high quality and rarely dangerous. If anyone was in trouble they were taken to the back room and cared for. The club elders and the staff knew when to call the ambulance and knew to tell the truth to the medics. During this time, the number of times I saw a police officer waiting at the club entrance to search and arrest the drug users? Zero. Not even once. Every baby officer in the city knew where these clubs were. Charities and health providers even set up drug testing stations to check that people weren't going to take anything bad. That would be a prime spot to make arrests. But the truce held. At least it wasn't PCP. The police were satisfied that we weren't dying in massive numbers and we weren't causing harm to the surrounding society, leaving them to get on with their real work - the drunks.

Then nearing the end of the 00's - coinciding with the rise of e-commerce - the government decided that everyone was having way too much of a good time and decided to spoil it. OK, I'm over dramatising here. How it really went down[*]. The UN had got governments to ban sassafras oil - a precursor ingredient for MDMA - in 1993 but there was little impact on supply until a huge seizure in 2008. The MDMA supply retracted, so the cooks looked around for something new to make and sell. Combined with easy anonymous ordering from web sites and postal delivery, the range and variety of drugs exploded. We saw Mephedrone (meow-meow, m-cat) get big and the range of strong synthetic cannabinoids available grew faster than the government could ban them. Worse, with the postal delivery a new generation of drug user was born. One that wasn't introduced to drugs gently by their elders, but who could have something of unknown strength and purity just drop into their letterbox. They weren't taught to drink water, they were never told not to mix hard drugs and alcohol. They weren't safe.

Maybe this boom would have happened anyway. Maybe it was just the right time for it. But the shrink in the supply of good, high quality MDMA didn't help.

To conclude the introduction I want to make one last point about the current state of drugs education. Sure, there is Frank and they do give bloody good advice. But it's something you have to know about and seek out. The level of drugs education in schools and from the visiting police is 'drugs are bad, mmkay'. I can't remember if it was South Park or one of my more intelligent friends who introduced me to this concept, but that education is as good as abstinence-only sex-ed; counterproductive. When you are bombarded with this 'gonna have a bad time' and 'not even once' stuff as a kid, then you go into the wide world and try a spliff because the cool kid just handed it to you and you don't have a bad time, and it made you feel a little bit happy and giddy really ... that's when you think back to all the advice and think "if they lied to me about weed, what else did they lie to me about?" A better tool would be a completely open and honest talk about what drugs do, what the good bit are and what the dangers are. Much like Stan's dad did. I know that one was South Park.

While having some of my friends proofread this, one provided some interesting feedback. They are younger than me and went through the education system later than I did. They report that when they were in college there was a 'drugs talk' from someone with the advice of "you shouldn't do drugs, but if you do make sure you do this ...". That's the sensible sort of practical advice that young people need in order to make the correct decisions. They can't remember who it was that gave the talk, but they said it might have been Frank and I'm inclined to agree. It sounds like Frank.

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