Is getting stoned such a big deal nowdays?But is this liberation or defeatism?

[Guest guest]

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/drugs/story/0,11908,686438,00.html

Boom or bust?

 

Attitudes towards drugs have relaxed in the past decade, but is this

liberation or defeatism?

 

Mark Kohn

Sunday April 21, 2002

The Observer

 

Britain has never felt so comfortable with its drugs even as they continue

to disturb, to dismay and to shock. This becomes clearer with every line

drawn in the legal sand, every tragedy publicly shared, every celebrity

exposed, every time a gun is fired and drugs are blamed.

Many Britons probably continue to regard illegal drugs as sinister and

fundamentally wrong. In these basic respects, attitudes may not have changed

much in the 15 to 20 years since drugs began to be treated as a national

problem. But the atmosphere today is different. Despite the headlines, the

air of panic has been dispelled. Many Britons may not like drugs; some

detest them. But we all accept that we have to live with them.

 

At first, the more people saw or heard about drugs, the more alarmed they

became. Now, each new report or incident in the street underlines the truth

that drugs are here to stay. People are getting used to drugs, and slowly

getting the measure of them. When parents read of a young person dying

because of drug abuse they cannot help but sympathise with the bereaved

parents, and many will wonder what risks their own children may be running.

But precisely because drugs are so prevalent, parents have become used to

the anxiety. Half, according to The Observer poll , do not think their own

children would try drugs. When people hear of 'turf wars' between dealers,

they may be appalled, but they will probably not feel personally threatened

unless they live so close to the disputed turf that they can hear the

shooting.

 

Drugs are even a laughing matter these days. Broadsheet newspaper columnists

can regale their readers with anecdotes about activities that, if presented

as evidence in court, might earn them substantial prison sentences. MTV can

present its UK viewers with a cannabis night, in the confidence that it will

arouse little more controversy than a Kylie weekend. All it lacks are ads

for hash and Dutch skunk. Earlier in the evening, it is now considered

acceptable to make jokes about being 'addicted' to 'Charlie' in front of

Blind Date's family audience. Jokes and knowing references are a sign that

attitudes to legal and illegal drugs are beginning to converge. If you make

jokes about drinking, nobody will blame you for the alcoholics in the park

or the victims of drunk drivers. But back in the harsh climate of the 'war

on drugs', careless remarks amounted to collusion with the enemy.

 

It is possible that this layer of complacency may co-exist indefinitely with

support for prohibition. Inconsistency is the rule, after all, from the

legality of some drugs but not others, to the assumption made by many drug

users that although the law should stay in place, they are entitled to

remain above it. Or this complacency may after all represent a softening of

opinion that will eventually translate into support for changes in the way

that our society handles drugs.

 

One straw in the wind is a question asked in a previous poll: 'Do you agree

or disagree that using cannabis is no worse than smoking or drinking?' Four

years ago, only a third agreed. In The Observer poll, we now find cannabis

ranked bottom of our 'health risk' table, way below alcohol and tobacco.

Something significant is going on here, and if we can make sense of it, we

may understand ourselves better as a society. Why, after 80-odd years of

prohibition and periodic panics, and with levels of drug use apparently as

high as they have ever been, should anxieties have abated rather than

intensified?

 

Surveys of drug use, such as The Observer poll and the British Crime Survey

(BCS), offer some pointers. The Observer poll and the 2000 BCS figures agree

that about three in 10 of us have taken a drug illegally at least once in

our lives. Half of those aged under 25 have used an illegal drug at least

once; nearly a third of that age group have done so in the past year, and

nearly a fifth in the past month. These results put Britain at the top of

the European tables for illegal drug use. They do not reflect a consistent

national attitude towards intoxicating substances, as British alcohol

consumption is close to the European average; though they may perhaps

reflect different attitudes to intoxication itself.

 

For the population as a whole, levels of drug use continue to rise, though

in a relatively measured fashion. (Cocaine, whose use is increasing sharply,

is a notable exception.) And this may be the basis for the recent relaxation

of attitudes towards drugs. Although people are not aware of the statistics,

they have an idea of what is going on around them, and in general they are

pretty confident that things are not getting dramatically worse, though

consumption continues to increase.

 

That is one of the main differences between the present moment and much of

the past couple of decades. The first wave of mass drug use, in the 1960s

and 1970s, was psychedelic in its pretensions and exclusive socially. In the

1980s drugs began to look like a menace to society as a whole. Then came

raves, in the late Eighties. Hallucinatory states and drug experience became

part of growing up for a large minority of British youth.

 

In some respects, though, perspectives on drugs have narrowed. One of the

striking aspects of the drug panic of the early Eighties was its commitment

to social inclusion. The drug that defined the problem was heroin. It stood

not only as the end-point to which drug taking led, but also as a symbol of

the processes that were pulling society apart. Heroin was seen as a terrible

side-effect of Thatcherite economic reforms, preying on the regions that

were vulnerable after the destruction of their industries.

 

At the same time, heroin was understood to be a great leveller. Stories

about addicts on council estates were complemented by accounts of addiction

among people who grew up on country estates. As the cracks grew in the

consensus that the affluent had some responsibility for the poor, heroin

stories reasserted that rich and poor were in it together. Today, the

comfortable classes have shed much of the guilt they once felt about those

who don't enjoy the affluence of the majority. And heroin hardly figures in

public discussion any more. It stands out, though. Whereas illegal drug use

in general is a crime of affluence, being most common among the better-off,

heroin is an exception. It is much more prevalent among the poor than the

rich or those in the middle, and so, instead of being used to symbolise the

plight of the poor, it is ignored.

 

The recent publicity surrounding the tragic death of Rachel Whitear, the

young woman whose parents released images of her body as it was found after

her death from a heroin overdose, was an exception that proved the rule: the

fact that Whitear came from a middle-class background may explain some of

the shock those images evoked. But in general, Britain's heroin addicts are

ignored.

 

A similar indifference may have neutralised another source of fear. Urban

shootings are often attributed to rivalry between drug dealers. As well as

overstating the role of drugs in disputes between men, this suggests that

the violence is an internal matter, rather than a threat to the wider world.

The communities in which the gunmen live are not seen to be the concern of

others. There is a racial element to this - although it's worth noting that,

according to the BCS, black Britons and other ethnic minorities take fewer

drugs than whites - but even if race was not an issue, a class barrier would

still exist.

 

Another kind of indifference has certainly changed the way that drugs are

regarded. The tone of the times is blasé. It is unfashionable to admit shock

or distaste at any aspect of recreational culture, and that includes drugs.

Add to this the ageing of once-threatening rock stars into figures of fun,

and of the rave generation into middle management young professionals, and

the domestication of drugs is well under way. Already it looks like a

foregone conclusion. Drugs are the one glaring anomaly in a culture and an

economy based on the pursuit of pleasure and sensation. Over a quarter of a

century, for example, women have been encouraged by magazines and novels to

pursue sexual pleasure in the course of personal development and for its own

sake. Over a similar period - Star Wars and Cosmopolitan magazine hail from

the same era - viewers have sat stunned before a succession of increasingly

spectacular film productions. While in music, the number of speakers

multiplies and the bass goes ever lower.

 

What drugs do is what this culture is all about. The desire for a

drug-induced high is mirrored by the pursuit of pleasure and entertainment

that is so much a part of our culture. To a large extent, drugs have

inspired culture, and parts of it would not exist without them. But while

just about everybody would affirm the joys of sex and spectacle, despite

wide differences of opinion about their proper place and content, drug

taking is the one source of sensual pleasure that is still widely felt to be

wrong in itself. It is the one standing pillar of a moral edifice that has

long since crumbled, in which sensual pleasure had always to be pursued in

the service of a higher cause, such as married love. Nowadays it is

difficult to express moral concerns about the pursuit of pleasure, so these

are translated into concerns about the risks that drug users run. Right and

wrong have been replaced by health and safety issues.

 

Drug policy has followed a similar path. With the moral pressure eased, the

authorities have been able to follow the voluntary sector's advice and

promote 'harm reduction' policies. Instead of zero tolerance, the Home

Office suggests chill-out rooms; instead of declaring a war on drugs, it

sets performance targets for reductions in drug use. The problem is

estimated to cost between £10.6bn and £18.8bn a year in England and Wales,

almost all of it down to a hard core of at least 281,125 'problem drug

users'. These days the name of the game is management.Fortunately for the

Government, the British have a weakness for fudge.

 

In the case of cannabis, many people seem to have resolved the

contradictions by deciding that it is now legal. If middle-class parents who

have stopped hiding their Rizlas from their children could make that

mistake, who can blame teenagers for having only a hazy idea of what

illegality means? Along with the muddle, though, there is an unprecedented

openness towards dialogue about drugs. The current tone was recently

epitomised in an episode of The Archers, with a heady scene in which

teenager Fallon Rogers was able through ecstasy to tell her mother how much

she loved her. Her mother, Jolene, responded with model concern, measured to

warn, but not alienate, her daughter. Britain now feels relatively

comfortable about drugs in part because the country has begun to look more

stable than in recent years. Drugs were part of the upheavals of the early

Eighties, and of the onrushing consumer economy that developed later in the

decade. Drugs seemed to be symptoms of processes that were uncertain and

possibly out of control.

 

In the present equilibrium, conditions have never been better for a

thoughtful national conversation about drugs, despite the hectic impression

created by explosive headlines and chattering columnists. But it may only be

a pause for reflection. When the ground beneath our feet begins to rumble,

and seems to tilt once again, drugs may get their demons back.

 

· Marek Kohn's Dope Girls: The Birth of the British Drug Underground is

published by Granta

 

 

Drugs Uncovered: Observer special

Drugs Uncovered

 

News and comment

21.04.2002: Revealed: Britain's drug habit

21.04.2002: Leader: Time to be adult about drugs

 

Exclusive Drugs Uncovered poll

21.04.2002: The poll: What you take ... and what you think

 

Introduction

21.04.2002: Mark Kohn: Boom or bust?

 

The knowledge

21.04.2002: The lowdown, drug by drug

21.04.2002: 100 years of altered states

21.04.2002: How much do children know?

21.04.2002: Tales of experience

 

Street market

21.04.2002: Drugstore Britain

21.04.2002: In the lab: What's in the drugs?

21.04.2002: My drugs

21.04.2002: Sylvia Patterson: Cocaine nation

 

Staying clean

21.04.2002: Martin Bright: can you kick addiction?

 

Class A capitalists

21.04.2002: Faisal Islam: who reaps the profits?

21.04.2002: Tony Thompson: Deadly cargo

 

The future?

21.04.2002: Andrew Smith: Can drugs make you smarter?

21.04.2002: The next Big High?

 

Drugs policy debate

24.03.2002: Rowena Young: What do we do when the drugs war stops?

24.03.2002: Blair 'must scrap failed drug tactics'

03.03.2002: Mary Riddell: The private hell of a very public death

08.07.2001: Cristina Odone: Don't legalise drugs

25.11.2001: Arnold Kemp: Prohibition should be banned

29.07.2001: Henry McDonald: Legalise drugs, but tax them too

22.07.2001: The drugs debate: where next?

20.01.2002: Viv Evans: Why Eton's drug policy is wrong

18.11.2001: Toby Young: Fed up with media cant about cocaine

28.10.2001: Euan Ferguson: But there's only one problem. I hate dope

28.10.2001: Andrew Rawnsley: New Labour is for U-turning

 

Britain's hard drugs epidemic: Observer investigation

15.07.2001: David Rose: Our society is hooked - here's how to fix it

08.07.2001: David Rose: Opium of the people

 

New epidemic fear

24.03.2002: Epidemic fear as 'hillbilly heroin' hits the streets

24.03.2002: Oxycodone explained

 

The drugs debate: Observer investigation

24.02.2002: The Dutch lesson: No drugs war, but pragmatism works

24.02.2002: Brixton experiment: " The dealers think they're untouchable

now... "

 

More from Guardian Unlimited

Special report: drugs in Britain

 

The changing drugs debate

24.03.2002: Focus: How smears brought top gay cop to brink of ruin

03.03.2002: Drug video's shock tactics 'won't work'

17.02.2002: Drug laws revolution set for UK

17.02.2002: Crack 'epidemic' fuels rise in violent crime

23.12.2001: Dutch model for UK drug laws

09.12.2001: Police urge major rethink on heroin

09.12.2001: The police and hard drugs: the Cleveland report

20.01.2002: Focus: ecstasy after-effects that could last a lifetime

 

 

 

 

 

 

Haze of confusion hangs over dangers to health

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/drugs/story/0,11908,1125727,00.html

From the end of this month cannabis will be reclassified as a class C drug,

alongside tranquillisers and steroids. But does anyone really know what the

dangers of smoking dope are? Jason Burke and Anushka Asthana report

 

Sunday January 18, 2004

The Observer

 

Steve, 25, Jamie, 23, and Amit, 30, all liked, or like, a smoke.

Steve tried cannabis at school and was smoking 10 to 15 joints every evening

by the time he was at college. He lost his job and started behaving

erratically. One night, drunk and stoned in a club, he ate a lump of hashish

resin and woke up hearing voices. He is still being treated for

schizophrenia.

 

For several years Jamie had smoked 20 joints, often of powerful skunk, a

week. He holds down a well-paying office job and says that he has no

problems with motivation or concentration. He says he has never suffered any

adverse effects, let alone mental health issues, and describes his

consumption as a 'positive lifestyle choice'.

 

Amit smoked 15 joints a day for six years. 'My life was like something from

The Office,' he said last week. 'I had an undercurrent of depression

throughout that time. Without cannabis, it would have been much worse.' Amit

has a new job and stopped using cannabis six months ago. But he admits it

was hard to break his habit. 'There is no doubt I was addicted,' he said.

 

All three men were heavy users. According to the Independent Drugs

Monitoring Group, a typical user consumes more than seven grammes (a quarter

of an ounce) of average-strength cannabis a week. This year an estimated one

in 10 Britons aged between 16 and 59 - about 3.3 million people - will use

the drug. Few of them will smoke as much as Steve, Jamie and Amit ever did.

Instead it will be a quiet spliff on a park bench outside school, or with

coffee after a dinner party, or while watching a video on a Sunday evening

when the children have gone to bed.

 

The amount of cannabis smoked in the UK is unprecedented. But for an

activity that has such mass appeal - one in four 15- to 24-year-olds smoked

it in 2002, according to the British Crime Survey - very little is known

about the effects of such broad consumption on people, on health, on

society.

 

At the end of this month, cannabis will be reclassified from a class B to a

class C drug - putting it on the same level as steroids and tranquillisers.

The effect of the change, and the police guidelines issued along with it,

will make it extremely unlikely that anyone consuming cannabis in private

will be arrested. Smoking pot in your own home will, in practical terms at

least, be legal. Offend repeatedly or smoke in a public place or outside a

school and the consequences could be severe, however. Under-18s, say the

guidelines, should be arrested, although in reality it is unlikely that the

police will always follow the law to the letter. Possession can still result

in a two-year prison sentence. There are also increased penalties for

dealing.

 

The changes, recommended first in a report by the Police Foundation, a

council of scientific experts and the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee,

regularise the reality of the enforcement of soft drugs law. In much of the

country, police rarely arrest and prosecute 'personal users'. None the less,

in 2000 there were 70,000 convictions for possession of cannabis.

 

The changes are controversial. Some criticise any move to liberalise drug

laws, others criticise the confusion surrounding the new policy and many say

the changes don't go far enough.

 

The debate grew more heated again last week when new research by leading

psychiatrists pointed to a strong link between mental illness and cannabis

use.

 

Professor Robin Murray, a psychiatrist at the Maudsley hospital in south

London, published findings stating that cannabis both increases the risk of

serious mental illness and exacerbates existing psychotic conditions.

 

Murray's conclusions were controversial. His research was not published in

time to be presented to the council of experts consulted by the Home Office

when it decided to go ahead with the declassification. Critics of Home

Secretary David Blunkett's decision seized on it as evidence that the

Government's drugs policy is, in the words of the Daily Mail's Melanie

Phillips, 'reckless'. The Conservative Party accused the Government of

'mixed messages' and vowed to reverse the move.

 

In fact, the situation is more nuanced. Murray cited research in Sweden and

Holland that confirmed the link between cannabis and psychosis. Research at

Yale Medical School showed that tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) - the active

ingredient in cannabis - can produce a psychotic reaction. The studies

confirmed that no one could sensibly say that cannabis was 'harmless'.

However, they did not prove that cannabis was necessarily dangerous for

everyone.

 

According to Paddy Power, a consultant psychiatrist with the Lambeth Early

Onset Service in south London, 70 per cent of the 170 people referred to the

clinic each year take cannabis. 'A proportion of the population is certainly

at risk of psychosis from heavy use of cannabis, but they are a minority and

it is possible that they are already at risk of psychosis for a variety of

other factors,' he told The Observer last week.

 

And, to many, this is key. Power likens the connection between cannabis and

psychosis to the link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer and heart

disease. 'It does not mean one leads inevitably to the other. The more you

do, the more you are at risk,' he said.

 

Steve, quoted above, is certain that cannabis triggered his psychosis.

Trying cannabis since developing his condition set off an immediate

reaction. 'It made me feel instantly crazy,' he said. 'It was like turning

on a switch.' But Steve may have been vulnerable already, backing up the

general consensus that cannabis can make mental illness worse or increase

the risk, but does not cause it. Steve's father, Terry Hammond, now works

for the mental health charity Rethink. He agrees that, though cannabis had

'hurled [his son] over the edge, Steve had previously showed signs of

vulnerability'.

 

But no one knows how many might be vulnerable. Some talk of as many as one

in seven or in 10. Yet Les Iversen, professor of pharmacology at Oxford and

a House of Lords adviser on drugs misuse, said the fraction was 'tiny'.

Harry Shapiro, of the independent research centre Drugscope, referred to a

'handful out of millions' being affected.

 

The issue of psychosis touches on many key debates within the broader

argument over the legalisation of cannabis and, more generally, society's

approach to other drugs.

 

Is the risk of exposing a vulnerable minority to possible psychosis

outweighed by the harm done to society by criminalising millions of people

who safely enjoy cannabis? Is it even correct to lump cannabis with other

controlled drugs such as heroin or crack that are far more dangerous to

individuals and to society? What about the differing strengths of cannabis?

What would happen if cannabis supply was controlled by the government? Is it

not irrational to focus on cannabis when alcohol, almost all health

professionals agree, is a far more harmful drug and is misused far more

widely?

 

Despite decades of debate, there is little clear consensus over the way

forward.

 

Peter Coker, who has worked with drug users for nearly 20 years and

currently runs the National Drug Prevention Alliance, opposes the

reclassification, let alone any further liberalisation. 'Blunkett thought

that, if he gave this concession to the liberalising lobby, it would be

satisfied. Instead it has just been encouraged,' Coker said. 'The

reclassification is being read [by potential users] as a signal that there

is a more relaxed attitude to all drugs, and that is very dangerous.'

 

Bob Carstairs, of the Secondary Heads Association, is also concerned about

the message sent to children by the reclassification. His organisation,

which represents headteachers at more than 4,000 schools, has recommended

that they maintain a policy of suspending first offenders and of expelling

those who sell cannabis to their school mates, or who otherwise encourage

consumption of the drug.

 

'The majority of heads are disappointed at the confused message that is

being sent,' Carstairs said last week. 'There is a huge amount of confusion.

There are eight-year-olds trying cannabis. They are simply too young to make

a mature judgment.' But predictably others criticise the policy for not

going far enough.

 

Francis Wilkinson, a former chief constable of Gwent, says the cannabis laws

discredit all drug laws. 'Children experiment [with cannabis] and find it is

not harmful. They then think that all the laws are wrong, even those dealing

with drugs that are very damaging.' He says cannabis and heroin have a

completely different impact on the individual and on society. 'For example,

people who smoke cannabis do not commit crime to get more,' Wilkinson, who

claims widespread support within the police force, said.

 

'If there is one thing that would substantially reduce crime, it is

government regulation and control of the supply of both cannabis and

heroin.'

 

Another supporter of the reform is Mike Trace, the Government's former

deputy drug tsar from 1997 to 2002. He said that, in 1999 and 2000, he and

his staff calculated that 'in the realms of £100 million' would be saved by

the criminal justice system if cannabis was legalised. He blames fear of a

'Middle England' backlash for politicians' failure to push through radical

measures. 'There is a fear of being portrayed . . . as soft on drugs,' he

said.

 

Some, such as Professor Iversen, advocate a 'coffee shop system' like

Holland's. 'We need to separate the supply of cannabis from those drugs that

are more harmful.'

 

However, major change in drugs legislation is unlikely in the short term,

not least because Britain is bound by a series of United Nations conventions

to keep cannabis use illegal. Policy is likely to come from the broad

moderate consensus represented by drugs professionals such as Power and

others working on the front line of drugs and mental illness in Lambeth.

Despite his concerns on health issues, Power backs reform. 'The main risk is

the extremely detrimental effects on youngsters of being caught up in the

criminal justice system simply because of the recreational use of a drug

that has relatively limited adverse health effects compared to other drugs

and alcohol,' he said.

 

Most health professionals see education as the critical issue. The Home

Office officials say they are sensitive to the need for teaching people

about health risks and are investing £1 million in a campaign to educate the

nation about the new legal situation regarding cannabis use and about the

impact smoking the drug can have on bodies and minds. Campaigners such as

Hammond say that much more effort is needed.

 

What no one denies is that millions in Britain will continue to use

cannabis - whatever the legal situation and whatever the health advice.

 

Alex makes £50,000 a year selling cannabis and cocaine to mainly

middle-class clients. 'Even if they legalise cannabis, it would be taxed and

we could undercut it,' he said. 'The really low-quality goods would be taken

off the market and some street dealers would go out of business. But I'd

carry on. There is a huge demand for cannabis. That's capitalism. Where

there is demand, there will always be a market.'

 

 

Special report

Drugs in Britain

 

Net notes

10.07.2002: Cannabis

 

Useful links

talktofrank.com

DrugScope

Trashed

UK Online: drugs