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Letters |
Cannabis legalisation
December 2014 |
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the taxpayer of every methadone
prescription user is over £47,000 per
annum and also indicate that less than
3 per cent of such addicts will reach
abstinence in their lifetime.
However, the cost of putting a drug or
alcohol addict through a 26-week
residential self-help addiction recovery
training programme is under half that,
and delivers relaxed abstinence for life
in 55 to more than 70 per cent of cases
first time through the programme, with
another 5 to 15 per cent succeeding
following a shorter refresher course.
Nearly four years on since psychiatric
professor John Strang was appointed to
run eight payment by results ‘pilots’
(which he based nearly exclusively on
the OST medication principles
promulgated by Paul Hayes), we have no
report but only rumours that the OST
gospel – according to both Paul and
John – just doesn’t work to deliver
abstinence, relaxed recovery or other
possibilities of payment by results.
Self-help addiction recovery training
delivers all those results, so why are
Paul and John trying so hard to
pretend it doesn’t exist?
Kenneth Eckersley, CEO Addiction
Recovery Training Services (ARTS)
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On 26 May 2014
in a joint letter from the
ministers for health and justice, the Danish
government rejected the proposals submitted by
Københavns Kommune (Copenhagen City Council)
to establish a time-limited ‘controlled legalisation’
of cannabis in the city. The ministers’ decision
repeated previous reasons in response to similar
past proposals. KK’s re-submitted proposals
followed wide discussion and debate, political and
public, in the city, and majority support for the
proposals in the city council formed after the
November 2013 local elections.
The proposals acknowledged the negative health
effects that the use of cannabis can have. The
council’s letter to the ministers, dated 19 March
2014, challenged the view that controlled
legalisation would lead to greater availability and use
of cannabis – one of the principal reasons for the
government’s rejection of earlier proposals. The letter
emphasised that the current situation, with an easily
accessible illegal drugs market controlled by criminal
organisations, does not work in a preventive way and
involves many young people, often marginalised, in
the criminal activities of importing, trading and
selling cannabis. The council asserted that evidence
suggests that implementation of the proposals could result
in a containment of the use and misuse of cannabis, and
remove profit from the criminal market.
The proposals included that:
• The cultivation of cannabis become a legal activity based
in Denmark.
• Designated retail outlets be established across the city,
similar to alcohol outlets in Norway and Sweden.
• These outlets include staff able to give advice to potential
purchasers and existing users who may be experiencing
problems associated with their cannabis use.
• The council extend parallel prevention campaigns and
activities.
• Assessment and evaluation of the impact of the scheme
be undertaken, with a view to assessing whether the
scheme should become permanent.
The ministers’ response rejected the proposals and the
rationale. The principal reason, once again, was that the use
of cannabis is associated with a range of negative health
effects. This argument is part of a wider governmental view
that the use of all euphoriant substances other than for
medicinal purposes should remain prohibited. Doing so, the
response claims, is in itself preventative. The second reason
given was that the proposals, by giving approval to the use
of cannabis, would increase accessibility, use and ill effects,
and the reduction of criminality associated with the illegal
drugs market is best countered by intense and targeted
policing.
Current practice and legislation therefore remain intact.
Research and evidence obtained by Københavns Kommune
and others indicate that cannabis is widely available
throughout the city; is frequently sold alongside other illegal
drugs; and that the market is controlled by criminal groups,
who have used violence and shootings to protect their
market share. The drugs market situated in the Christiania
district – ‘Pusher Street’ – continues to operate, implicitly
separating the markets for cannabis and other drugs, and
accepted or tolerated by the authorities, less so by local
residents.
Blaine Stothard is an independent consultant in health
education.
www.healthed.org.uk
COPENHAGEN
CANNABIS
The Danish government has just rejected proposals for
‘contained legalisation’ of cannabis, designed to limit drug
misuse and remove profit from the criminal market, deciding
instead to step up policing.
Blaine Stothard
reports
The entrance to the ‘Green Zone’ in Christiania,
where cannabis is sold from tent-like stalls