Conference notes with concern:
That 21 injecting heroin users have contracted anthrax infections from contaminated heroin in Britain since December last year, with 10 of these infections proving fatal.
That the Health Protection Agency advice issued in response to this developing crisis is unlikely to reach injecting heroin users and unlikely to significantly change their behaviour, and that treatment service availability is often insufficient if users do seek help.
Conference further notes:
A growing number of European states are providing treatment-resistant heroin addicts with pharmaceutical heroin for supervised consumption and have observed considerable benefits both to the patient and to the wider community as a result of this practice.
That experience from these countries and from trials in the UK show heroin to be considerably more effective than methadone in improving patient and societal outcomes.
Conference believes:
The enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being without distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic or social condition.
Provision of alternative pharmaceutical sources of heroin to injecting heroin users in the geographical areas affected would not only protect them from the risk of anthrax infection, but protect the communities in which they live from the criminality they are often compelled to engage in to service their addiction.
Conference therefore calls for:
The United Kingdom authorities to expand provision of clinics where addicts can use pharmaceutical heroin under medical supervision, with urgent priority given to regions affected by anthrax-contaminated heroin.
Potential speech:
The killer stalking heroin addicts in Britain today is the same killer that provoked me to found Liberal Democrats for Drug Policy Reform last year. There are eerie parallels between the health authority's current pleas to heroin addicts to stop taking heroin and the police pleas in 2006 asking girls working on the streets of Ipswich to “look out for each other”. Both are utterly inadequate in the face of an unfolding tragedy.
The final victim of Steven Wright gave an interview with ITV news 5 days before she disappeared. When Paula Clenell was asked “Despite the dangers, why have you chosen to come out tonight?” she replied “Because I need the money. I need the money.” When someone is a heroin addict, and knows they run a high risk of being murdered if they continue to try to fund their habit, but they work the streets anyway... surely we can learn from this that heroin addiction isn't something you can just stop.
So what is the killer stalking heroin addicts today? Is it incompetence in the relevant government authority? Or is it public indifference failing to demand that action is taken? How much do we really care when a prostitute goes missing or a heroin addict dies? I know I cared a great deal more after watching a documentary that profiled the young women who died in Ipswich. They were just ordinary girls living ordinary lives who made one mistake in taking heroin and couldn't escape its clutches. Heroin addicts aren't feral animals, they are people's sons and daughters, sisters, brothers, mothers, fathers and friends. Their mistake in taking heroin does not exclude them from their right to health laid down in the constitution of the World Health Organisation and restated in the body of this emergency motion.
In order to illustrate what prescribed heroin might bring to our communities I shall now read an excerpt from a journalistic piece written in 1995 by Mike Gray about the closure of a clinic in Widnes. Heroin prescription used to be widespread in the UK, but had been scaled back under diplomatic pressure from the US.
“In March of last year I visited the Chapel Street Clinic and met with several of the patients. I sat in on a group session where eight heroin users discussed their lives and problems with a counselor before picking up their prescriptions for pharmaceutical heroin. Unlike the junkies we are used to seeing, this group was virtually indistinguishable from any other bunch of young adults on the streets of Liverpool. They were well dressed, talkative, energetic -- they had jobs -- and they used heroin daily.
One was a young woman named Juliette who had been an addict for 13 years. She came from a middle-class background, married a rich kid who got her into heroin, then left her with two kids and no money. She tried desperately to kick but couldn't make it. Somehow for ten years she managed to stay afloat through petty theft and prostitution, with the authorities breathing down her neck. Finally, terrified that they were about to take her kids away, she happened to find the right doctor and he sent her to John Marks. Marks gave her a check-up, satisfied himself that she was indeed a heroin addict, and wrote her a prescription.
"For the first time in ten years," she said, "I had spare time. I didn't have to worry that my dealer wouldn't show -- I didn't have to worry about the price or where to steal the money. So for the first time in ten years, I had a minute to look in the mirror. I looked and I said, `Oh, my God.' Then I looked at the kids, and I said, `What have I done?' All these middle-class values came flooding back in on me.
" Today Juliette has a job, a house, and a mortgage. The kids are in school and doing well. Everybody's in excellent health. And once a week she comes to Chapel Street for her prescription. I asked John Marks what will happen to Juliette on April 1 (when the clinic closes). He said, "Well, she'll go down the tubes."
This isn't going to be an easy process. Each addict will suddenly have free time to reflect on the shameful things they have done over the course of their addiction. But tens of thousands of families can be reunited with loved ones they may have thought lost forever.
I suspect there are very few of these people in the audience today (this is a Liberal Democrat conference after all), but if you are ruled by your wallet and not your compassion, then the cost of providing safe heroin to addicts is tiny relative to the estimated £60,000 yearly cost to society that the average problem drug user constitutes at present. They don't want to die a slow, painful death from an anthrax infection. I'm fairly sure they don't want to be stealing, dealing and prostituting themselves either. Provision of safe heroin under medical supervision means they really don't have to.
Showing posts with label liberal democrat conference. Show all posts
Showing posts with label liberal democrat conference. Show all posts
Thursday, 18 February 2010
Thursday, 14 January 2010
paraphrasing Gordon Brown "Evidence. Pah! We will never follow evidence!"
So the second of the open goals for the Liberal Democrats provided yesterday was contained within a letter Gordon Brown wrote to the Transform Drug Policy Foundation (reproduced in full here: http://transform-drugs.blogspot.com/2010/01/gordon-brown-responds-to-transforms.html )
The key paragraph is this:
"We do not intend to undertake an impact assessment comparing the costs and benefits of different legislative options for domestic drug policy. We see no merit in embarking upon such an undertaking in view of our longstanding position that we do not accept that legalisation and regulation are now, or will be in the future, an acceptable response to the presence of drugs."
Meanwhile, the people of Scotland are dying drug-related deaths at twice the rate of a decade ago and the people of Switzerland and Portugal are dying drug-related deaths at around half the rate they were before the countries addressed their drug problems and enacted progressive reforms in response.
Along with 10 other elected reps, I submitted a policy motion yesterday calling for government to control and regulate psychoactive drugs. While I would love the conference committee to accept the motion for debate, this is not necessary for the lib dems to establish clear water between themselves and Labour on the issue. All we need to do is state a commitment to evidence-based drugs policy. The voters were rightly enthusiastic about our response to the sacking of David Nutt. We should now stand up and announce that we will examine all options for drug policy. Rather than commit ourselves to everlasting head-in-the-sand dogmatism, we should say that drugs are a massive problem in our nation's communities. Current policies have failed to address these problems. The Lib Dems want to explore how we can keep drugs out of the hands of children and vulnerable young people, how to reduce the crime committed by drug addicts, how to turn around the lives of street prostitutes and how to tackle the vicious organised criminals that run this nation's drugs trade. If the evidence points to tougher policing, that is the path we should take. If the evidence suggests international conventions are the source of much of the suffering associated with drugs, then we should challenge them.
Drugs policy, like all policy, should follow the evidence. This is not so much to ask.
The key paragraph is this:
"We do not intend to undertake an impact assessment comparing the costs and benefits of different legislative options for domestic drug policy. We see no merit in embarking upon such an undertaking in view of our longstanding position that we do not accept that legalisation and regulation are now, or will be in the future, an acceptable response to the presence of drugs."
Meanwhile, the people of Scotland are dying drug-related deaths at twice the rate of a decade ago and the people of Switzerland and Portugal are dying drug-related deaths at around half the rate they were before the countries addressed their drug problems and enacted progressive reforms in response.
Along with 10 other elected reps, I submitted a policy motion yesterday calling for government to control and regulate psychoactive drugs. While I would love the conference committee to accept the motion for debate, this is not necessary for the lib dems to establish clear water between themselves and Labour on the issue. All we need to do is state a commitment to evidence-based drugs policy. The voters were rightly enthusiastic about our response to the sacking of David Nutt. We should now stand up and announce that we will examine all options for drug policy. Rather than commit ourselves to everlasting head-in-the-sand dogmatism, we should say that drugs are a massive problem in our nation's communities. Current policies have failed to address these problems. The Lib Dems want to explore how we can keep drugs out of the hands of children and vulnerable young people, how to reduce the crime committed by drug addicts, how to turn around the lives of street prostitutes and how to tackle the vicious organised criminals that run this nation's drugs trade. If the evidence points to tougher policing, that is the path we should take. If the evidence suggests international conventions are the source of much of the suffering associated with drugs, then we should challenge them.
Drugs policy, like all policy, should follow the evidence. This is not so much to ask.
Friday, 8 January 2010
Why should Women Liberal Democrats support a motion calling for control and regulation of drugs?
The stories of how prohibition affects women give the drug policy reform movement the strongest arguments we have. The one experience more than any other that motivated me to campaign for drug policy reform was watching the documentary film: "Killer in a Small Town" The film tackled the story of the 5 young women who were murdered by Steve Wright in Ipswich in 2006. The film-maker spoke to their families and friends and attracted attention to the fact that these young women were seemingly ordinary girls from ordinary families who had apparently just made a few bad decisions in their life and found themselves addicted to heroin and selling sex on the streets. It struck me at the time that any unhappy or rebellious girl making a few mistakes could quickly find themselves in a similar situation, a thought that sickened me.
One of the most distressing scenes of the film was the playing of footage from the ITV news showing a journalist talking to a young woman after it was apparent a serial killer was preying on prostitutes in the town. The interviewer asked "Despite the dangers, why have you chosen to come out tonight?" to which she replied "Because I need the money. I need the money." The young woman interviewed was Paula Clennell, who was to become Wright's fifth victim.
Around 95% of street prostitutes in the UK are considered to be problem drug addicts according to Home Office estimates, and nearly two thirds cite funding drug use as their primary motivation, suggesting that the vast majority could leave prostitution if they could obtain their drug of addiction at an affordable price. Having recently met some former prostitutes at a conference and witnessed them struggle to confront their past and the effect it has had on their lives, I would say that our humanity compels us to do everything we can to ensure few others have to go through similar experiences. I certainly don't want to hear anyone else standing in front of me saying "I was lucky... I was only raped once."
Were the majority of street prostitutes to leave sex work, basic economics dictate that conditions for remaining prostitutes should improve. Sex workers should be able to increase prices, work less hours and be more choosy about the clients they take business from if "supply" of sex workers doesn't meet "demand" from punters. Some of the tens of thousands of police freed up by the massive reduction in acquisitive crime rates that should accompany controlled, regulated drug supply could be diverted into shutting down exploitative brothels, and ensuring demand is not met by trafficking from overseas.
The sad truth is that there are male heroin and crack addicts out there who are identifying vulnerable teenagers, seducing them, offering them drugs and sending them out on the streets to raise money to fund both their habits. I would much prefer any decision to take hard drugs to be based upon education provided by a trained pharmacist or counsellor rather than the extent of your education being contained in the phrase "Try some of this, it's awesome." spoken by the first man you think you love.
It is also true that many of the currently illegal drugs have the potential to cause great distress to families. They can bring about changes in personality and values that create awful dilemmas in mothers and other family members, torn between the pain of holding a drug-affected family member close and the pain of pushing them away. A system combining licensing and drug tagging might be very effective in restricting provision of drugs to children in the first place and the absence of criminal sanctions for use should make it much easier to seek and receive help, as has been the case in Portugal, where drugs have been decriminalised since 2001. In Portugal prevalence rates of use of all the major drugs by 13-18 year olds reduced between 2001 and 2006.
Another tragic feature of the relationship between women and drugs is the routine removal of the children of drug addicts. There are around 10,000 children of heroin addicts in care in the UK and addicted mothers who are having serious problems are resisting seeking treatment in the fear that their children will be taken from them. Current prohibitionist policy just increases harms for both the mother and the child. Removing the chaos from addicts lives by ensuring they don't have to be constantly chasing money to fund their habit can allow them to hold their children as their number one priority. What chance does a woman have of escaping the spiral of despair and addiction if she is living in constant fear of losing her kids?
The passage below is taken from a piece written in 1995 by Mike Gray about the closure of a clinic in Widnes. Heroin prescription used to be widespread in the UK, but had been scaled back under diplomatic pressure from the US.
"In March of last year I visited the Chapel Street Clinic and met with several of the patients. I sat in on a group session where eight heroin users discussed their lives and problems with a counselor before picking up their weekly prescriptions for pharmaceutical heroin. Unlike the junkies we are used to seeing, this group was virtually indistinguishable from any other bunch of young adults on the streets of Liverpool. They were well dressed, talkative, energetic -- they had jobs -- and they used heroin daily.
One of the most attractive was a young woman named Juliette who had been an addict for 13 years. She came from a middle-class background, married a rich kid who got her into heroin, then left her with two kids and no money. She tried desperately to kick but couldn't make it. Somehow for ten years she managed to stay afloat through petty theft and prostitution, with the authorities breathing down her neck. Finally, terrified that they were about to take her kids away, she happened to find the right doctor and he sent her to John Marks. Marks gave her a check-up, satisfied himself that she was indeed a heroin addict, and wrote her a prescription for a week's supply.
"For the first time in ten years," she said, "I had spare time. I didn't have to worry that my dealer wouldn't show -- I didn't have to worry about the price or where to steal the money. So for the first time in ten years, I had a minute to look in the mirror. I looked and I said, `Oh, my God.' Then I looked at the kids, and I said, `What have I done?' All these middle-class values came flooding back in on me.
" Today Juliette has a job, a house, and a mortgage. The kids are in school and doing well. Everybody's in excellent health. And once a week she comes to Chapel Street for her prescription. I asked John Marks what will happen to Juliette on April 1 (when the clinic closes). He said, "Well, she'll go down the tubes."
Many of the young women who get involved with drugs have had difficult lives and can only find comfort in drugs, despite what their addiction makes them do. We have turned our backs on their plight for too long. Regulating and controlling drugs sensibly can take the chaos from these young women's lives and allow us to offer them comfort that will not damage them. Careful pricing has the potential to put drug dealers out of business, removing the pushers that try to recruit children as customers. Control and regulation is not throwing in the towel in the "War on Drugs", it is moving the war onto ground that we understand and can control in order to limit the damage drugs can do to our society. Supporting the Liberal Democrats for Drug Policy Reform motion for Spring conference could help the Liberal Democrats take a massive step forward in tackling the terrible effects of prohibition in the UK and beyond.
If you are a rep for your local party and would like to support the motion (found at http://lddpr.blogspot.com) please get in touch with me at ewanhoyle@gmail.com
One of the most distressing scenes of the film was the playing of footage from the ITV news showing a journalist talking to a young woman after it was apparent a serial killer was preying on prostitutes in the town. The interviewer asked "Despite the dangers, why have you chosen to come out tonight?" to which she replied "Because I need the money. I need the money." The young woman interviewed was Paula Clennell, who was to become Wright's fifth victim.
Around 95% of street prostitutes in the UK are considered to be problem drug addicts according to Home Office estimates, and nearly two thirds cite funding drug use as their primary motivation, suggesting that the vast majority could leave prostitution if they could obtain their drug of addiction at an affordable price. Having recently met some former prostitutes at a conference and witnessed them struggle to confront their past and the effect it has had on their lives, I would say that our humanity compels us to do everything we can to ensure few others have to go through similar experiences. I certainly don't want to hear anyone else standing in front of me saying "I was lucky... I was only raped once."
Were the majority of street prostitutes to leave sex work, basic economics dictate that conditions for remaining prostitutes should improve. Sex workers should be able to increase prices, work less hours and be more choosy about the clients they take business from if "supply" of sex workers doesn't meet "demand" from punters. Some of the tens of thousands of police freed up by the massive reduction in acquisitive crime rates that should accompany controlled, regulated drug supply could be diverted into shutting down exploitative brothels, and ensuring demand is not met by trafficking from overseas.
The sad truth is that there are male heroin and crack addicts out there who are identifying vulnerable teenagers, seducing them, offering them drugs and sending them out on the streets to raise money to fund both their habits. I would much prefer any decision to take hard drugs to be based upon education provided by a trained pharmacist or counsellor rather than the extent of your education being contained in the phrase "Try some of this, it's awesome." spoken by the first man you think you love.
It is also true that many of the currently illegal drugs have the potential to cause great distress to families. They can bring about changes in personality and values that create awful dilemmas in mothers and other family members, torn between the pain of holding a drug-affected family member close and the pain of pushing them away. A system combining licensing and drug tagging might be very effective in restricting provision of drugs to children in the first place and the absence of criminal sanctions for use should make it much easier to seek and receive help, as has been the case in Portugal, where drugs have been decriminalised since 2001. In Portugal prevalence rates of use of all the major drugs by 13-18 year olds reduced between 2001 and 2006.
Another tragic feature of the relationship between women and drugs is the routine removal of the children of drug addicts. There are around 10,000 children of heroin addicts in care in the UK and addicted mothers who are having serious problems are resisting seeking treatment in the fear that their children will be taken from them. Current prohibitionist policy just increases harms for both the mother and the child. Removing the chaos from addicts lives by ensuring they don't have to be constantly chasing money to fund their habit can allow them to hold their children as their number one priority. What chance does a woman have of escaping the spiral of despair and addiction if she is living in constant fear of losing her kids?
The passage below is taken from a piece written in 1995 by Mike Gray about the closure of a clinic in Widnes. Heroin prescription used to be widespread in the UK, but had been scaled back under diplomatic pressure from the US.
"In March of last year I visited the Chapel Street Clinic and met with several of the patients. I sat in on a group session where eight heroin users discussed their lives and problems with a counselor before picking up their weekly prescriptions for pharmaceutical heroin. Unlike the junkies we are used to seeing, this group was virtually indistinguishable from any other bunch of young adults on the streets of Liverpool. They were well dressed, talkative, energetic -- they had jobs -- and they used heroin daily.
One of the most attractive was a young woman named Juliette who had been an addict for 13 years. She came from a middle-class background, married a rich kid who got her into heroin, then left her with two kids and no money. She tried desperately to kick but couldn't make it. Somehow for ten years she managed to stay afloat through petty theft and prostitution, with the authorities breathing down her neck. Finally, terrified that they were about to take her kids away, she happened to find the right doctor and he sent her to John Marks. Marks gave her a check-up, satisfied himself that she was indeed a heroin addict, and wrote her a prescription for a week's supply.
"For the first time in ten years," she said, "I had spare time. I didn't have to worry that my dealer wouldn't show -- I didn't have to worry about the price or where to steal the money. So for the first time in ten years, I had a minute to look in the mirror. I looked and I said, `Oh, my God.' Then I looked at the kids, and I said, `What have I done?' All these middle-class values came flooding back in on me.
" Today Juliette has a job, a house, and a mortgage. The kids are in school and doing well. Everybody's in excellent health. And once a week she comes to Chapel Street for her prescription. I asked John Marks what will happen to Juliette on April 1 (when the clinic closes). He said, "Well, she'll go down the tubes."
Many of the young women who get involved with drugs have had difficult lives and can only find comfort in drugs, despite what their addiction makes them do. We have turned our backs on their plight for too long. Regulating and controlling drugs sensibly can take the chaos from these young women's lives and allow us to offer them comfort that will not damage them. Careful pricing has the potential to put drug dealers out of business, removing the pushers that try to recruit children as customers. Control and regulation is not throwing in the towel in the "War on Drugs", it is moving the war onto ground that we understand and can control in order to limit the damage drugs can do to our society. Supporting the Liberal Democrats for Drug Policy Reform motion for Spring conference could help the Liberal Democrats take a massive step forward in tackling the terrible effects of prohibition in the UK and beyond.
If you are a rep for your local party and would like to support the motion (found at http://lddpr.blogspot.com) please get in touch with me at ewanhoyle@gmail.com
Tuesday, 5 January 2010
Prohibition is a cowardly, immoral idiocy that we can not afford
It's motion submission season for the Spring conferences and this year the conference committee will have the opportunity to allow conference to debate drug policy reform for the first time since 2002.
In the last decade the drug-related death rate has doubled in Scotland, while in countries like Switzerland and Portugal death rates have fallen by half since they had the bravery to adopt heroin prescription and decriminalisation policies respectively. It is perfectly reasonable to conclude that British reluctance to engage with drug policy has caused hundreds of the most vulnerable, desperate Scots to die.
A great many more Britons will have encountered illegal crack and heroin dealers, developed a habit, and descended into shameful lives of theft, prostitution or be dealing drugs themselves, creating more desperate addicts to steal from us and fill our prisons.
We can stop these people piling misery upon our communities. Were the government to control and regulate the production, distribution and sale of drugs, existing addicts could be managed in such a way that theft, prostitution and dealing would be entirely unnecessary. If problem drug users were treated medically rather than abandoned to wreak havoc, we could potentially reduce domestic burglary by 80% and virtually eliminate street prostitution. A well controlled market could come close to eliminating the illegal market for all drugs, greatly diminishing the chances of children and teenagers encountering anyone who might seek to profit from luring them into that lifestyle.
Far from "people who have kids going "Oh God no, anything but that" " (an assumption of Anita Anand on the daily politics), they should recognise that control and regulation is the best way to keep drugs out of the hands of children. Illegal dealers don't ask for proof of age. Control and regulation might require everyone buying drugs to have a licence to buy that drug and might allow systems to be put in place that allow drugs found in the possession of children to be traced back to their purchaser to aid in prosecution. In Switzerland heroin prescription has been credited with giving heroin the status of "loser drug". Controlling and regulating drugs should not be seen as consumption being approved. Rather legalising should hopefully remove the rebellion from drug use and establish it as a behaviour that responds to medical treatment, a behaviour which occurs as a result of unhappiness and is a symptom of failure.
It is true that control and regulation cannot happen until reform or rejection of the UN drugs conventions. This should not mean that we should not hold it as our aspiration. Decriminalisation may encourage people to seek treatment and may vastly reduce unsafe drug use and drug-related death in Portugal, but in Mexico, Colombia, the Caribbean and many other regions people are dying in their thousands because of the billions of pounds to be made from trafficking from and through these countries to meet Western demand. The only way to eliminate the illegal market is for states to control and regulate legal markets. Britain can be the first to announce this as their intention, and the Liberal Democrats can be the first party to gain considerable electoral success from holding it as policy.
If we do nothing to hasten reform, we are morally responsible for all the crimes and the prostitution that drug users engage in to fund their habits and all the distress that criminality causes in our communities. We need to take responsibility for the millions of pounds the Taliban are raising from the opium trade, money they are spending on the bullets and bombs that murder our troops and the innocent civilians of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Britain can grow our own poppies. We don't need to allow our addicts to be funding Islamic fundamentalist terrorism. We don't need our "recreational drug users" to be funding the criminal drug gangs that terrorise our own streets either.
There are no other policies that will reduce spending while improving public health, reducing crime, creating jobs, increasing freedom and undermining international criminal gangs and terrorists.
This is a stunningly beautiful policy flower breaking through the snow, patiently waiting for the party smart enough to pick it and present it to the people.
The nearly final draft of the motion can be found on the Liberal Democrats for Drug Policy Reform blog: http://lddpr.blogspot.com/ If you are an elected rep and wish to support the motion's submission or you wish to propose the motion to your local party or SAO, please e-mail me at ewanhoyle@gmail.com
In the last decade the drug-related death rate has doubled in Scotland, while in countries like Switzerland and Portugal death rates have fallen by half since they had the bravery to adopt heroin prescription and decriminalisation policies respectively. It is perfectly reasonable to conclude that British reluctance to engage with drug policy has caused hundreds of the most vulnerable, desperate Scots to die.
A great many more Britons will have encountered illegal crack and heroin dealers, developed a habit, and descended into shameful lives of theft, prostitution or be dealing drugs themselves, creating more desperate addicts to steal from us and fill our prisons.
We can stop these people piling misery upon our communities. Were the government to control and regulate the production, distribution and sale of drugs, existing addicts could be managed in such a way that theft, prostitution and dealing would be entirely unnecessary. If problem drug users were treated medically rather than abandoned to wreak havoc, we could potentially reduce domestic burglary by 80% and virtually eliminate street prostitution. A well controlled market could come close to eliminating the illegal market for all drugs, greatly diminishing the chances of children and teenagers encountering anyone who might seek to profit from luring them into that lifestyle.
Far from "people who have kids going "Oh God no, anything but that" " (an assumption of Anita Anand on the daily politics), they should recognise that control and regulation is the best way to keep drugs out of the hands of children. Illegal dealers don't ask for proof of age. Control and regulation might require everyone buying drugs to have a licence to buy that drug and might allow systems to be put in place that allow drugs found in the possession of children to be traced back to their purchaser to aid in prosecution. In Switzerland heroin prescription has been credited with giving heroin the status of "loser drug". Controlling and regulating drugs should not be seen as consumption being approved. Rather legalising should hopefully remove the rebellion from drug use and establish it as a behaviour that responds to medical treatment, a behaviour which occurs as a result of unhappiness and is a symptom of failure.
It is true that control and regulation cannot happen until reform or rejection of the UN drugs conventions. This should not mean that we should not hold it as our aspiration. Decriminalisation may encourage people to seek treatment and may vastly reduce unsafe drug use and drug-related death in Portugal, but in Mexico, Colombia, the Caribbean and many other regions people are dying in their thousands because of the billions of pounds to be made from trafficking from and through these countries to meet Western demand. The only way to eliminate the illegal market is for states to control and regulate legal markets. Britain can be the first to announce this as their intention, and the Liberal Democrats can be the first party to gain considerable electoral success from holding it as policy.
If we do nothing to hasten reform, we are morally responsible for all the crimes and the prostitution that drug users engage in to fund their habits and all the distress that criminality causes in our communities. We need to take responsibility for the millions of pounds the Taliban are raising from the opium trade, money they are spending on the bullets and bombs that murder our troops and the innocent civilians of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Britain can grow our own poppies. We don't need to allow our addicts to be funding Islamic fundamentalist terrorism. We don't need our "recreational drug users" to be funding the criminal drug gangs that terrorise our own streets either.
There are no other policies that will reduce spending while improving public health, reducing crime, creating jobs, increasing freedom and undermining international criminal gangs and terrorists.
This is a stunningly beautiful policy flower breaking through the snow, patiently waiting for the party smart enough to pick it and present it to the people.
The nearly final draft of the motion can be found on the Liberal Democrats for Drug Policy Reform blog: http://lddpr.blogspot.com/ If you are an elected rep and wish to support the motion's submission or you wish to propose the motion to your local party or SAO, please e-mail me at ewanhoyle@gmail.com
Thursday, 24 December 2009
Can the slaughter of a grieving Mexican family be the final straw?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/22/melquisedet-angulo-gunmen_n_400846.html
Melquisedet Angulo was the only marine who died in a military operation in which one of Mexico's most notorious drug barons was killed last week. In an apparent revenge attack, his mother, aunt, brother and sister have been slaughtered only hours after his funeral.
This is just the latest chapter in a shocking era of drug-fuelled terror that the Mexican government is clearly failing to contain. We need to ask ourselves what is the best way to help the Mexican people end this war. And from where I'm sitting the answer is fairly simple. The only way to prevent the drug users of the world enriching these savage terrorist cartels is to withdraw our support for the documents that grant them their power. The UN drugs conventions allow us to decriminalise drugs (as Portugal has done to great success), they allow us to prescribe heroin to desperate addicts (a model spreading across Europe following Switzerland's lead), but yet they leave the one step that will deprive the true evil-doers in the trade billions of pounds as unthinkable.
When the Portuguese Commission for a National Anti-Drug Strategy considered their options in tackling their nation's rapidly increasing drugs problem, they "concluded that legalisation was not a viable option due, in large part, to the fact that numerous international treaties impose the "obligation to establish in domestic law a prohibition" on drug use" (Quote from http://www.cato.org/pubs/wtpapers/greenwald_whitepaper.pdf). To not consider control and regulation of a legal market for drugs that takes away the billions of pounds of revenue from the cartels that are growing in power and influence in Latin America and West Africa is to offer a shrug of indifference to what remains of Melquisedet Angulo's family and to the families of the 15,000 other victims of the Mexican drug war since 2006. The UN drugs conventions are, in effect, contracts granting opportunistic and phenomenally violent criminals the rights to a drugs market worth hundreds of billions of pounds each year.
This is where the Liberal Democrats come in. As founder of Liberal Democrats for Drug Policy Reform, I have prepared a motion for Spring conference calling for the control and regulation of all currently illegal drugs. The current draft makes no reference to the UN drugs conventions, but following concerns raised I have proposed adding the following:
"It is precisely because of the Liberal Democrats full support for the excellent work of the UN in promoting liberty, health, human rights, peace and security across the globe that we should withdraw our support for the drugs conventions which are clearly creating quite opposite effects."
It is out of respect for the true aims of the UN that we should withdraw from the conventions which stand in their way.
If the Liberal Democrats were to adopt control and regulation as policy and achieve an unprecedented electoral boost as a result (and I genuinely believe this would occur), then we could be the instigators of a chain reaction that might spread across the world consigning prohibition to its historical status as the biggest, stupidest elephant to have stood in the world's most venerable debating chambers. And Melquisedet Angulo's family would not have died in vain.
Read the arguments I have prepared in support of my motion at http://lddpr.blogspot.com/ and join the debate on Lib Dem Act http://act.libdems.org.uk/group/liberaldemocratsfordrugpolicyreform
And Merry Christmas to one and all.
Melquisedet Angulo was the only marine who died in a military operation in which one of Mexico's most notorious drug barons was killed last week. In an apparent revenge attack, his mother, aunt, brother and sister have been slaughtered only hours after his funeral.
This is just the latest chapter in a shocking era of drug-fuelled terror that the Mexican government is clearly failing to contain. We need to ask ourselves what is the best way to help the Mexican people end this war. And from where I'm sitting the answer is fairly simple. The only way to prevent the drug users of the world enriching these savage terrorist cartels is to withdraw our support for the documents that grant them their power. The UN drugs conventions allow us to decriminalise drugs (as Portugal has done to great success), they allow us to prescribe heroin to desperate addicts (a model spreading across Europe following Switzerland's lead), but yet they leave the one step that will deprive the true evil-doers in the trade billions of pounds as unthinkable.
When the Portuguese Commission for a National Anti-Drug Strategy considered their options in tackling their nation's rapidly increasing drugs problem, they "concluded that legalisation was not a viable option due, in large part, to the fact that numerous international treaties impose the "obligation to establish in domestic law a prohibition" on drug use" (Quote from http://www.cato.org/pubs/wtpapers/greenwald_whitepaper.pdf). To not consider control and regulation of a legal market for drugs that takes away the billions of pounds of revenue from the cartels that are growing in power and influence in Latin America and West Africa is to offer a shrug of indifference to what remains of Melquisedet Angulo's family and to the families of the 15,000 other victims of the Mexican drug war since 2006. The UN drugs conventions are, in effect, contracts granting opportunistic and phenomenally violent criminals the rights to a drugs market worth hundreds of billions of pounds each year.
This is where the Liberal Democrats come in. As founder of Liberal Democrats for Drug Policy Reform, I have prepared a motion for Spring conference calling for the control and regulation of all currently illegal drugs. The current draft makes no reference to the UN drugs conventions, but following concerns raised I have proposed adding the following:
"It is precisely because of the Liberal Democrats full support for the excellent work of the UN in promoting liberty, health, human rights, peace and security across the globe that we should withdraw our support for the drugs conventions which are clearly creating quite opposite effects."
It is out of respect for the true aims of the UN that we should withdraw from the conventions which stand in their way.
If the Liberal Democrats were to adopt control and regulation as policy and achieve an unprecedented electoral boost as a result (and I genuinely believe this would occur), then we could be the instigators of a chain reaction that might spread across the world consigning prohibition to its historical status as the biggest, stupidest elephant to have stood in the world's most venerable debating chambers. And Melquisedet Angulo's family would not have died in vain.
Read the arguments I have prepared in support of my motion at http://lddpr.blogspot.com/ and join the debate on Lib Dem Act http://act.libdems.org.uk/group/liberaldemocratsfordrugpolicyreform
And Merry Christmas to one and all.
Tuesday, 20 October 2009
My maiden speech to conference... that I didn't end up making
I had submitted this for the Highland Liberal Democrat News (or whatever it's called), but it's twice as long as it should be so I'll have to do some editing. You lucky bloggers get to read the full 700-odd words.
My conference experience can be rather neatly summated by relating to you my maiden conference speech that I sadly didn't get to deliver in response to the motion “A Fresh Start for Britain: Choosing a Different, Better Future.”
Good morning conference. In 1997, when Labour were elected, I was skipping joyfully down the streeet arm in arm with friends in the early hours of the morning. I was 17 years old, jubilant, and full of hope. You can probably tell by my standing on this stage (This never happened -ed) that I have since found that hope to have been misplaced and have found the need to find a new home for my hopes for social justice, my commitment to compassionate, evidence-based policy, and my rejection of knee-jerk populism.
I joined the Liberal Democrats about 18 months ago for something to do. I suffer from chronic fatigue and was spending my days playing monotonous computer games and watching DVDs. The Inverness Thursday club envelope stuffing and blue envelope writing sessions quickly became a highlight of my week, but they weren't exactly forums of cutting edge political debate. So earlier this year I sent letters to my local MP, Danny Alexander on the subject of drug policy and electoral reform, and while Danny didn't agree with all I wrote, he welcomed my thought-provoking contribution and encouraged me to attend conference. There are no words for the gratitude I feel towards Danny for doing this. This policy motion neatly summarises everything I have loved about my experience this week. Everyone I have talked to has been highly intelligent and open to any ideas that can improve the lives of British citizens. This party is a party committed to rational policy making, not cynical populism, and this policy motion reflects this.
I'd now like to address the massive number of young people watching this on BBC Parliament (3 can be a massive number if you project it onto the side of a building... pause for laughter... (carry on regardless -ed) ) What are you doing joining radical charities and going on marches when you could be joining a political party and changing politics from the inside (I have plans to submit a motion on drug policy and prostitution for spring conference and given this party's commitment to rational, evidence based policy I hope it will be accepted). If you are thinking of taking your passion for politics to either of the other parties, well anyone describing the Tories or Labour as progressive has lost the plot...
And that's where my “speech” fades out, hastily scrawled in my stewards chair when I should have been listening intently to the motion on rail franchises. At conference I contributed to a policy consultation on mental health, drugs policy and electoral reform. I made my feelings known to an electoral reform rally on the urgent support I feel there should be for the Alternative Vote. I sneaked into various events I shouldn't have been at and saw Nick Clegg speak very well four times to various audiences. I hatched a plan with a prostitution advocacy charity to help women off the street and out of brothels. And I addressed a packed fringe event on drug policy reform and gained a near unanimous mandate to produce a motion for Spring conference advocating bringing all aspects of the drugs trade under strict regulatory control. There is one thing about the experience that I do regret though, and that's shouting “I'm voting Tory!” at Nick Clegg after he made a bad joke at glee club. Nobody laughed at his joke or mine. That would have been the fifth time I'd heard him speak well, but sadly he's no comedian.
If you're wondering about my health, it appears the latest herbal remedy is working well, or maybe I just needed my body to start feeling proud of what my brain was doing with its days again. Whatever the reason, it appears my chronic fatigue is on the back foot and I now find myself eyeing up an application pack for becoming a PPC for the coming election. I hope you'll understand now why I seized the opportunity to write this piece. Attending conference might have radically changed my life.
My conference experience can be rather neatly summated by relating to you my maiden conference speech that I sadly didn't get to deliver in response to the motion “A Fresh Start for Britain: Choosing a Different, Better Future.”
Good morning conference. In 1997, when Labour were elected, I was skipping joyfully down the streeet arm in arm with friends in the early hours of the morning. I was 17 years old, jubilant, and full of hope. You can probably tell by my standing on this stage (This never happened -ed) that I have since found that hope to have been misplaced and have found the need to find a new home for my hopes for social justice, my commitment to compassionate, evidence-based policy, and my rejection of knee-jerk populism.
I joined the Liberal Democrats about 18 months ago for something to do. I suffer from chronic fatigue and was spending my days playing monotonous computer games and watching DVDs. The Inverness Thursday club envelope stuffing and blue envelope writing sessions quickly became a highlight of my week, but they weren't exactly forums of cutting edge political debate. So earlier this year I sent letters to my local MP, Danny Alexander on the subject of drug policy and electoral reform, and while Danny didn't agree with all I wrote, he welcomed my thought-provoking contribution and encouraged me to attend conference. There are no words for the gratitude I feel towards Danny for doing this. This policy motion neatly summarises everything I have loved about my experience this week. Everyone I have talked to has been highly intelligent and open to any ideas that can improve the lives of British citizens. This party is a party committed to rational policy making, not cynical populism, and this policy motion reflects this.
I'd now like to address the massive number of young people watching this on BBC Parliament (3 can be a massive number if you project it onto the side of a building... pause for laughter... (carry on regardless -ed) ) What are you doing joining radical charities and going on marches when you could be joining a political party and changing politics from the inside (I have plans to submit a motion on drug policy and prostitution for spring conference and given this party's commitment to rational, evidence based policy I hope it will be accepted). If you are thinking of taking your passion for politics to either of the other parties, well anyone describing the Tories or Labour as progressive has lost the plot...
And that's where my “speech” fades out, hastily scrawled in my stewards chair when I should have been listening intently to the motion on rail franchises. At conference I contributed to a policy consultation on mental health, drugs policy and electoral reform. I made my feelings known to an electoral reform rally on the urgent support I feel there should be for the Alternative Vote. I sneaked into various events I shouldn't have been at and saw Nick Clegg speak very well four times to various audiences. I hatched a plan with a prostitution advocacy charity to help women off the street and out of brothels. And I addressed a packed fringe event on drug policy reform and gained a near unanimous mandate to produce a motion for Spring conference advocating bringing all aspects of the drugs trade under strict regulatory control. There is one thing about the experience that I do regret though, and that's shouting “I'm voting Tory!” at Nick Clegg after he made a bad joke at glee club. Nobody laughed at his joke or mine. That would have been the fifth time I'd heard him speak well, but sadly he's no comedian.
If you're wondering about my health, it appears the latest herbal remedy is working well, or maybe I just needed my body to start feeling proud of what my brain was doing with its days again. Whatever the reason, it appears my chronic fatigue is on the back foot and I now find myself eyeing up an application pack for becoming a PPC for the coming election. I hope you'll understand now why I seized the opportunity to write this piece. Attending conference might have radically changed my life.
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