Mixing Drink and Drugs: ‘Underclass’ Politics, the Recovery Agenda and the Partial Convergence of English Alcohol and Drugs Policy

Highlights

• The criminal law upholds a ‘great regulatory divide’ separating the licit trade in alcohol from the illicit trade in substances classified as either class A, B or C under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. This article, however, makes explicit comparison of recent policy developments used to govern alcohol and illicit drugs in England.
• Consideration of the idea of a convergence between policies governing alcohol and illicit drugs in England through the lens of the recovery agenda.
• Analysing the relevance of Berridge's long term historical argument to policies enacted by UK governments over the last 20 years, which pays specific attention to the re-emergence of abstinence in both alcohol and drugs policy.
• Examining whether the relevant policies of the New Labour Government (1997-2010) and the Coalition Government (2010-2015) to question whether the dividing line of the criminal law necessarily means that all public policies relating to alcohol are distinct in form and unrelated in practice from those which affect illicit drugs.

Abstract

Alcohol policy and illicit drugs policy are typically presented as separate and different in academic discussion. This is understandable, to a degree, as the criminal law upholds a ‘great regulatory divide’ ( Seddon, 2010 : 56) separating the licit trade in alcohol from the illicit trade in substances classified as either class A, B or C under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. 

This paper takes a different stance. In doing so, it draws upon Berridge's (2013) argument that policies governing various psychoactive substances have been converging since the mid-twentieth century and seeks to elaborate it using recent developments relating to the control and regulation of drugs and alcohol in the broader areas of criminal justice and welfare reform. Significantly, the article examines how recent policy directions relating to both drugs and alcohol in England have, under the aegis of the ‘recovery agenda’, been connected to a broader behavioural politics oriented towards the actions and lifestyles of an apparently problematic subgroup of the population or ‘underclass’. 

The paper thus concludes that, although the great regulatory divide remains intact, an underclass politics is contributing towards the greater alignment of illicit drugs and alcohol policies, especially in regards to the respective significance of abstinence (or abstinence-based ‘recovery’).

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By:  Mark Monaghan, Henry Yeomans

School of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Leeds, UK

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Psychedelics and Cognitive Liberty: Reimagining Drug Policy through the Prism of Human Rights

Abstract

This paper reimagines drug policy–specifically psychedelic drug policy–through the prism of human rights. Challenges to the incumbent prohibitionist paradigm that have been brought from this perspective to date - namely by calling for exemptions from criminalisation on therapeutic or religious grounds - are considered, before the assertion is made that there is a need to go beyond such reified constructs, calling for an end to psychedelic drug prohibitions on the basis of the more fundamental right to cognitive liberty. This central concept is explicated, asserted as being a crucial component of freedom of thought, as enshrined within Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). It is argued that the right to cognitive liberty is routinely breached by the existence of the system of drug prohibition in the United Kingdom (UK), as encoded within the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (MDA). On this basis, it is proposed that Article 9 could be wielded to challenge the prohibitive system in the courts. This legal argument is supported by a parallel and entwined argument grounded in the political philosophy of classical liberalism: namely, that the state should only deploy the criminal law where an individual's actions demonstrably run a high risk of causing harm to others.

Beyond the courts, it is recommended that this liberal, rights-based approach also inform psychedelic drug policy activism, moving past the current predominant focus on harm reduction, towards a prioritization of benefit maximization. How this might translate in to a different regulatory model for psychedelic drugs, a third way, distinct from the traditional criminal and medical systems of control, is tentatively considered. However, given the dominant political climate in the UK - with its move away from rights and towards a more authoritarian drug policy - the possibility that it is only through underground movements that cognitive liberty will be assured in the foreseeable future is contemplated.

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By:  Charlotte Walsh

School of Law, University of Leicester University Road LEICESTER LE1 7RH

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Harm Reduction as a Complex Adaptive System: A Dynamic Framework for Analyzing Tanzanian Policies Concerning Heroin Use

Contrary to popular belief, policies on drug use are not always based on scientific evidence or composed in a rational manner. Rather, decisions concerning drug policies reflect the negotiation of actors’ ambitions, values, and facts as they organize in different ways around the perceived problems associated with illicit drug use. 

Drug policy is thus best represented as a complex adaptive system (CAS) that is dynamic, self-organizing, and coevolving. In this analysis, we use a CAS framework to examine how harm reduction emerged heroin trafficking and use in Tanzania over the past thirty years (1985-present). 

This account is an organizational ethnography based on of the observant participation of the authors as actors within this system. We review the dynamic history and self-organizing nature of harm reduction, noting how interactions among system actors and components have coevolved with patterns of heroin us, policing, and treatment activities over time. 

Using a CAS framework, we describe harm reduction as a complex process where ambitions, values, facts, and technologies interact in the Tanzanian socio-political environment. We review the dynamic history and self-organizing nature of heroin policies, noting how the interactions within and between competing prohibitionist and harm reduction policies have changed with patterns of heroin use, policing, and treatment activities over time. 

Actors learn from their experiences to organize with other actors, align their values and facts, and implement new policies. Using a CAS approach provides researchers and policy actors a better understanding of patterns and intricacies in drug policy. 

This knowledge of how the system works can help improve the policy process through adaptive action to introduce new actors, different ideas, and avenues for communication into the system.

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By:    Eric A. Ratliff, Pamela Kaduri, Frank Masao, Jessie K.K. Mbwambo, Sheryl A. McCurdy

Affiliations

Center for Health Promotion and Prevention Research (CHPPR), University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth), School of Public Health, 7000 Fannin St., 26^th Floor, Houston, TX 77030, USA

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Atmospheric Pressure: Russian Drug Policy as a Driver for Violations of The UN Convention Against Torture & The International Covenant on Economic, Social & Cultural Rights

Responding to problematic drug use in Russia, the government promotes a policy of "zero tolerance" for drug use and "social pressure" against people who use drugs (PWUD), rejecting effective drug treatment and harm reduction measures.

In order to assess Russian drug policy against the UN Convention Against Torture and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, we reviewed published data from government and non-governmental organizations, scientific publications, media reports, and interviews with PWUD.

Drug-dependent people (DDP) are the most vulnerable group of PWUD. The state strictly controls all aspects of drug dependence. Against this background, the state promotes hatred towards PWUD via state-controlled media, corroding public perception of PWUD and of their entitlement to human rights. This vilification of PWUD is accompanied by their widespread ill-treatment in health care facilities, police detention, and prisons.

In practice, zero tolerance for drug use translates to zero tolerance for PWUD. Through drug policy, the government deliberately amplifies harms associated with drug use by causing PWUD (especially DDP) additional pain and suffering. It exploits the particular vulnerability of DDP, subjecting them to unscientific and ideologically driven methods of drug prevention and treatment and denying access to essential medicines and services. State policy is to legitimize and encourage societal ill-treatment of PWUD.

The government intentionally subjects approximately 1.7 million people to pain, suffering, and humiliation. Aimed at punishing people for using drugs and coercing people into abstinence, the official drug policy disregards the chronic nature of drug dependence. It also ignores the ineffectiveness of punitive measures in achieving the purposes for which they are officially used, that is, public safety and public health. Simultaneously, the government impedes measures that would eliminate the pain and suffering of DDP, prevent infectious diseases, and lower mortality, which amount to systematic violations of Russia's human rights obligations.

Full article at: http://goo.gl/0F2Gp3

By: Golichenko M1, Sarang A2.

• 1Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network.
• 2Andrey Rylkov Foundation for Health and Social Justice.  

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