Students for Sensible Drug Policy UK is a national grassroots network of students and youth campaigning for evidence-based, humane and compassionate drug policies.
This World Aids Day, SSDP is supporting the International Network of People who Use Drugs'campaign for harm reduction policies to be implemented in Russia.
Russia has about 1.7 million injecting drug users with only 70 needle exchanges. In 2008, UNAIDS estimated that just 7% of injecting drug users had access to these services. Learn more about the situation in Russia here.
We are asking SSDP activists to take the time around World Aids Day to write to the Russian embassy to call for change. There is a model letter below, but feel free to change it if you like. Maybe your chapter could run an Amnesty International style letter writing session? Let us know if you get any interesting replies, by emailing education[at]ssdp.org.uk
Dear Ambassador,
In most of the developed world, HIV/AIDS is successfully fought using a variety of harm-reduction and health-led approaches, as recommended by UNAIDS, the WHO and the UNODC. On average, countries adopting such approaches have HIV rates among 5% amongst injecting drug users.
However, over a third of Russia’s 1.7million injecting drug users are HIV positive, a number which continues to rise through the lack of access clean needles or opioid substitution therapy.
I request that Russia considers the implementation of the following measures:
· Increase the provision of life-saving programmes such as opiod substitution treatment and needle exchange programme
· Provide free access to antiviral therapy for all HIV positive people, including those who inject drugs.
· Cease persecuting Russian activists and organisations that are calling for the introduction of harm reduction programmes and for a drug policies based on scientific evidence and human rights.
· Recognise that people who use drugs must be at the forefront of designing drug policies and programmes.
· Cease criminalising the possession and use of drugs, which is a major barrier for people who inject drugs to access the harm reduction services available.
I trust that you will take action to reduce the harms associated with drug use in Russia.
Believe me, My Dear Ambassador,
Yours sincerely,
[NAME]
[SSDP Chapter or Area]
Send your letters to: His Excellency Alexander Vladimirovich Yakavenko, The Russian Ambassador, 6/7 Kensington Palace Gardens, London, W8 4QP. Call
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Nothing About Me Without Me from Matthew Southwell on Vimeo.
Extract taken from an interview with Tom Lloyd, former Chief Constable and lead of the International Drug Policy Consortium's law enforcement project. The interview was conducted by SSDP's Education Officer Jess Bradley at our 2011 conference.
I was a police officer mainly in London for over 30 years and I have experience of the implementation of the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act, from the start of my service in 1974 to the end in 2005, in both urban and rural areas. I came to the conclusion over that time that our implementation of the Misuse of Drugs Act has been ineffective, very costly and counterproductive.
Ineffective because in that time drug use has soared from a relatively low base in the very early 70s of 2000 heroin users to what is now estimated to be a quarter to a third of a million problematic drug users - some of them multiple drug users but certainly many of them addicted to heroin and crack cocaine. By any standards that has been a failure of a stated attempt and intention to reduce drug consumption.
It has been hugely costly and I have seen that cost at first hand in terms of the number of police officers and their equipment that have been used to enforce the drug laws. That amounts to at least £10 million a year spent by the criminal justice system enforcing the Misuse of Drugs Act.
And thirdly counterproductive, many people have unnecessary criminal convictions incurred as a result of their drug use. This does not help people deal with any problems that they may have with drug use, it hinders them. The fact that drugs are subject to law enforcement under the act means that people are actually discouraged from seeking help should they need it for their drug addiction.
What also happened is that a huge criminal enterprise has grown up on the back of the so called illegal drugs market. And it is estimated that criminals in the UK are profiting to the extent of £6 billion every year, internationally the figure is estimated to be US$320 billion, it is a huge criminal trade and the criminals can use that money to corrupt law enforcement officers and anybody else they need to in order to increase their profits and make sure that they evade prosecution.
I maintain the view that we should be enforcing the law in relation to serious and organised crime, even if drugs were controlled and regulated in the future and there was no profit in them there would still be serious and organised criminals active in them, in this country and elsewhere. We should be spending our money on pursuing them, not on pursuing users of the drugs that are currently prescribed.
We also have a problem of health being very badly affected by the fact that drugs are prohibited in this country and round the world. The state of the market which is uncontrolled, other than by criminals, is such that very little attention is paid to the purity or strength of a product. Which is why, in the UK alone, we have about a thousand deaths a year from accidental overdoses or from impurities. Recently there has been Anthrax contaminating heroin which has been on UK streets. Blood borne diseases such as HIV AIDS and hepatitis B and also transmitted, often through the sharing of needles and whilst many drug users might be aware of the health risks of sharing needles they are often driven to do that by their need to take the drug before they, for example, get arrested and have the drug taken away from them by the police.
So overall we have a situation where the drug price is high leading to criminality, theft, shoplifting, robbery, and of course the activities such as prostitution to pay for one’s illegal drug habit. We have health issues, we have extreme costs to the criminal justice system, there seems to be very little in favour of maintaining the status quo.
The most common argument is that many of the drugs which are used are harmful. This is a relatively weak argument as there are many other drugs that are seriously harmful, such as alcohol and tobacco, which are not subject to law enforcement - although they are subject to some control and regulation, unlike drugs like heroin, cocaine and cannabis.
The people who support the status quo will also argue that the law has a strong deterrent effect. Whereas if we moved to a system of control and regulation then a signal would be sent out which would result in a dramatic increase in the consumption of drugs. Surveys don't support that view and studies in a number of countries have shown that the main factors associated with drug use are cultural, societal and peer pressure and at most the fact that drug use is illegal may account for something like a 20% or a fifth of any deterrent effect. It is very difficult of course to quantify that absolutely and certainly in countries like Portugal where there has been de jure decriminalisation of personal drug use there has been no surge of increase in uptake of drugs many of the nay-sayers predicted.
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Mainly due to my area of study and activities with Students for Sensible Drug Policy, I spend a lot of my time writing and talking about drugs, government policies, and the effects of these on societies in general. I do this with little first hand experience, I choose to keep my personal life separate from illicit drugs. So I thought I’d actually try meeting people involved with 'illegal' drugs. After making a number of phone calls, I managed to arrange to meet a cannabis dealer at a location that was neutral to us both.
I must admit, I was a little worried as I was travelling to meet them, I didn’t really know what to expect. When I arrived at the location I was met by “Joe” (named changed to hide identity), a rather friendly individual in their early 20s. For obvious reasons, at the beginning of our conversation Joe seemed a little reserved as they tried to gauge me, but after a while they began to be more open with me.
By their own admission, Joe is not your stereotypical drug dealer. They were brought up in a middle-class family and had started dealing cannabis whilst at university due to financial difficulties. I’m told they wouldn’t have been able to finish their course if they had done the usual 20-hour a week, minimum wage job, especially after having spent time working as a non-skilled worker which they had hated.
It all started for Joe when they thought that maybe they could sell a small amount of cannabis to cover the cost of their own use, just dealing to friends. “And for a while I didn’t make any money off of it” partly from being ripped off by the people Joe bought cannabis off and partly from simple mistakes that are made by someone doing something for the first time. Within a small number of months though, things seemed to have picked up for Joe, as friends passed on Joe’s number to other friends and is now struggling to keep up with demand. From what I’m being told it appears Joe rather enjoys this job, spending most of the day travelling round chatting and smoking with the people they deal to, and whom I’m informed are generally interesting folk.
What’s apparent from talking to Joe is that dealing cannabis is something that they have done as an active choice. It’s common to talk about those individuals, especially those from less privileged backgrounds, who have become involved in the drugs trade due to lack of alternatives. I personally like to use the phrase “drug dealing is the only equal opportunities employment in some places". However Joe’s story, where someone starts dealing to fund their own use but then it grows into something bigger is not one I’m unfamiliar with. This can have terrible consequences with addictive drugs where people try to encourage other people to use so they can pay for their own addiction.
As time has gone on, the paranoia that comes from working in a black market has built up on them. “I do have nightmares about getting caught, dreams where my place gets raided or I’m in court.” Most people have a story about someone they know who used to deal drugs and they got caught by police or attacked by rival drug dealers, and I get a real feeling of worry from Joe as they tell me about these stories being recalled to them.
We also discuss the ethics of being a cannabis dealer. Despite for all intents and purposes Joe seems a good person they’re fully aware that higher up in the drug ladder some less nice people will be operating. Joe insists that cannabis is not a damaging drug like heroin or cocaine, and that they would feel awful if they were dealing drugs like those to people who were ruining their lives through drug use. “I’m not a criminal, I would consider myself a good person, I try to live my life in a good way…”
It’s at this point Joe’s phone rings, makes their excuses and leaves.
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An opportunity has arisen to help develop the web presence of a new youth driven organisation working to reform drug policy. The developer will be responsible for the creation and design of the website according to specification.
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In order to apply send your CV to Levent Akbulut at levent.akbulut@ssdp.org.uk.
Between 1919 and 1933, alcohol was illegal in the United States; historians believe that the decision to end prohibition on March 23 1933 was partly fuelled by the desire to raise tax revenue in the 1930s when the depression started. Today, the risk of a double-dip recession is very high, and cuts are necessary in many parts of the world. Yet the President’s Fiscal Year 2011 Nation requests $15.5 billion to reduce drug use in the United States. This represents an increase of $521.1 million (3.5%) over the FY 2010 enacted level of $15.0 billion. In the European Union, state expenditure on the drug problem costs about €34 billion [2] – in other words, an incredible amount of money that could be saved and used to address the economic difficulties faced by Western countries nowadays.
The Commission is considering various ways to make the EU rules more effective, such as alternative options to criminal sanctions, new ways of monitoring substances that cause concern, and aligning drugs control measures with those for food and product safety. In the autumn, the Commission will present a series of options in this respect.These words are music to this drug policy reformer's ears. What is being actively considered here is a legal framework for the supply of new recreational drugs.
Students for Sensible Drug Policy activists took to the streets to support Manchester SlutWalk on Friday 10th June. The SlutWalk protests have sprung up after a policeman in Toronto misguidedly advised a group of female students to “avoid rape by not dressing like sluts”. This caused outrage as it was seen to place the blame of rape onthe rape survivor and not on the rapist themselves.
SSDP Education Officer, Jess Bradley, was part of the organising collective behind SlutWalk Manchester; “We recognise that not everyone wants to reclaim the word 'Slut', but the central message that rape is not the fault of the survivor, whatever they are wearing or however inebriated they are, is one worth getting behind”. The marches come as Justice Secretary Ken Clarke has been widely criticised for trying to categorise some sexual crimes as “serious rape”, implying that other sexual crimes are less serious.
SlutWalk Manchester organiser Greta Friedlander said; “There is a prevailing attitude of taking sexual assaults less seriously if the survivor had been drinking, taking drugs, or engaging in sex work. This attitude is disturbing as it somehow implies that some people are more deserving of rape than others”.
See Also: Sexuality and Drug Use
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This series of blog posts will be discussing the social aspects of drug use. It’s taken in the main from Jock Young’s 1971 seminal work The Drugtakers: The Social Meaning of Drug Use. Each post will cover questions commonly encountered whilst campaigning for drug law reform, hopefully it’ll be useful for when you yourself are out talking to people. This post’s question is: “Won’t drug use increase if we legalise drugs?”
Now, we could argue the merits of the term “legalise drugs”, that wouldn’t address the concerns of the people posing the question. The majority of people believe that the current drug policies do stop people from using drugs, and that any attempt at “legalising” or “liberalising” drug-users would result in increased drug use. We can quote countries with punitive drug laws and high drug-use such as the
An underlying issue of the posed question is that drug use is seen in a negative light. Trying to overcome 50 years of prejudice is a difficult task, and will take more work than the few minutes you get to talk to someone. But what is commonly ignored is the extent to which drug policies or our approaches towards drugs may actually encourage use.
Last time I discussed how people of different values and cultures use different drugs for effects that are more appropriate to those factors. For those who support prohibition, it is these values and cultures that are considered so removed from social acceptability that criminal sanctions are deemed necessary. To justify such actions prohibitionists highlight these values of the drug user. By doing this they place the values they deem negative not just on the user, but also on the drug in question in an attempt to deter people from its use.
To some extent this does work, many people do not use certain drugs because they view them in a negative way or because of the punitive law surrounding them. Indeed, I know a number of people who no longer use certain drugs because of the risk of prosecution. However, this isn’t what happens in every case, for the drug user these values are, unsurprisingly, not seen as negative but actually as superior to those values to which the mainstream mass media push as socially acceptable.
In the face of society’s disfavour, the drug user may increase use of their drug of choice as a way of reaffirming their values. Some drugs may also be seen as attractive to people who wish to adopt or develop these values. Adolescents, who are at a stage of their development where experimentation with personality is common, are particularly likely to be interested in the values and cultures of drug use. The individuals who view drugs so negatively are unwittingly creating the environment to which drug use becomes appealing.
