Pubdate: Thu, 1 Apr 2010
Source: Times, The (UK)
Copyright: 2010 Times Newspapers Ltd
Contact:  http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/454
Author: Melanie Reid

NO LAW WILL STOP PEOPLE WANTING TO GET HIGH

Selling Small Amounts of Drugs in Clubs Is Not Shocking. It's A 
Responsible Idea

Last autumn, in the throbbing vaults of a mainstream Manchester 
nightclub, surrounded by a horde of happy, normal, affluent young 
people heavily intoxicated by recreational drugs, I saw for myself 
how pointless the current moral panic over mephedrone is.

The woman who took me there, Fiona Measham, a criminologist from 
Lancaster University, allowed the scene to speak for itself. Her 
research, the first of its kind, indicates that two thirds of British 
clubbers -- ie, tens of thousands of otherwise law-abiding citizens 
- -- are routinely taking cocaine, Ecstasy and amphetamines at weekends 
before going back to work on Monday morning. Dr Measham, who is also 
member of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), found 
that 98 per cent of clubbers had used drugs at some point.

This leads one to the inescapable conclusion that drug-induced 
dancing and socialising is a significant part of modern culture -- 
and of the UKP30 billion night-time economy. And the inevitable 
follow-up question is: how on earth does one begin to ban that?

Mephedrone is being made illegal, like Ecstasy, GHB, GBL and ketamine 
before it. The Home Secretary says so; the Tories say so; anxious 
parents want it so. But the non-drug-taking classes should realise 
that the comfort they gain from such legislation will be largely for 
their own benefit; and is irrelevant to the hordes of people who will 
continue to get high regardless.

The reality is that we can, with the best of intentions, ban 
mephedrone, and with it the whole family of cathinones; we can ban 
the entire generation of derivatives that will surely follow from 
China; or indeed the generation after that. But nothing we do will 
alter the central, inescapable fact that people take drugs because 
they enjoy them.

Quite simply, large swaths of the young -- and often the not-so-young 
- -- have an irresistible desire to get out of their heads on a Friday 
night. Be it right or wrong, that's a fact of life. The American 
pharmacologist Ronald Siegel has described intoxication as the fourth 
strongest irrepressible human desire after food, sleep and sex, and 
few would challenge him -- particularly on the miserable evidence of 
our relationship with that other well-known legal high, alcohol. 
(Interestingly, ACMD this week called for a ban on drinking games at 
university -- potentially more deadly and destructive than any banned 
substance -- but one does not expect a race to legislate.) All of 
which rather suggests that blanket prohibition of recreational drugs 
is destined to be a disaster, or at the very least an endless waltz 
between legislators and those who tweak chemical compounds for 
criminal gain. According to Measham, the debate needs to become much 
more sophisticated but also more realistic. Because of the sheer 
numbers of people involved and their desires, and because of the 
power of the internet, not to mention the ingenuity of chemists in 
China designing the next legal high, we have to be a lot more nuanced 
in our responses.

Her latest research from Lancaster University, published this month, 
shows that stricter security at ports and airports, together with 
recent drug seizures, have steered drug users towards more readily 
available legal highs, such as mephedrone, because of the reduced 
availablity and purity of Ecstasy and cocaine. Lack of supply 
doesn't, one notes, curb anyone's desire to get high.

The "perversity of prohibition", Measham found, is that reduction in 
supply results in drug users turning to unfamiliar and 
under-researched chemicals -- perhaps more dangerous than the last one.

So what are the sensible options? One is honest information -- give 
people a few hard facts about the dangers of drugs such as 
mephedrone, rather than rumour, misinformation and waffle about bans. 
The criminalisation of intoxication is happening without accompanying 
help for users, largely because such people do not present a problem 
to society. But the provison of accurate, non-judgmental, harm- 
reduction information for recreational drug use is as vital as it is 
lacking. Arm young people with the facts, and they are at least 
better equipped to decide about risks for themselves.

Another creative option is to criminalise the act of supplying 
intoxicating substances, rather than the possession of the substances 
themselves. But while this might prevent the weary process of banning 
one drug and waiting for another to take its place, it would not 
address the fact that people will continue to seek to intoxicate 
themselves for a good night out.

Professor David Nutt, the former head of the ACMD sacked by the 
Government for not giving the official line on the dangers of drugs, 
suggested yesterday that a new approach might be the sale of small 
amounts of drugs like mephedrone and Ecstasy in controlled 
environments, such as clubs.

For those who prefer to keep their heads firmly in the sand, this is 
a shocking idea. But after an evening observing youngsters indulging 
in mass "illegal" intoxication -- with the tacit acceptance of club 
owners, police and, by extension, society itself -- to me it seems an 
honest, logical and responsible thing to do. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake