# UK: We all need to grow up a bit when it comes to drugs



## LdyLunatic (Aug 6, 2006)

In attacking the ABC classification system for controlled drugs, as it 
has in its report subtitled Making a Hash of It?, the Commons select 
committee on science and technology has shot a sitting duck. The 
shortcomings of an arrangement that dates back to James Callaghan's 
spell as home secretary have long been evident, and in recent years the 
classifications have sunk from disrepute into ridicule.
Only in Whitehall could magic mushrooms, responsible for one death 
between 1993 and 2000, occupy the same category as heroin, which was 
responsible for 5,737 deaths in the same period. Only in Whitehall could 
chewing coca leaves also rank alongside injecting heroin, a notion which 
begs the question why Bolivians are not keeling over and dying en masse. 
And surely only in Whitehall could a drug be moved from one class to 
another, as was the case with "crystal meth", primarily on the grounds 
that it was being talked about in the papers and on television.
The terminal judgement on the uselessness or worse of the ABC system was 
probably delivered by the expert witness who informed the committee: "We 
do not even know if the public see that if a drug is in class A, is that 
more of a deterrent or is it actually an attraction." If you are an 
18-year-old who has just got straight As in your A-levels, in other 
words, you might be forgiven for thinking that only a class A drug would 
do for the celebrations.
The committee was more than critical of this; it was contemptuous and 
vituperative. Rightly so, on the whole: much - including many human 
lives - is at stake here, and an indefensible shambles has been 
tolerated for far too long. Yet ministers and their advisers are 
entitled to some sympathy, for this is a matter that brings out the 
worst not only in politicians, but also in the media, which have an 
important role, and in the general public.
The whole apparatus would not be necessary, after all, if large numbers 
of ordinary people did not insist on putting poisonous substances into 
their bodies. From that choice flows all the other ill-effects of the 
drug abuse world - family breakdown, social corrosion, crime and the 
rest. And people do this not only at considerable expense, but despite 
the danger of prosecution and even imprisonment. Perfectly legal poisons 
are available in the form of alcohol and tobacco but no, these are not 
enough.
The point is not merely facetious. In tackling the drug problem, 
ministers are wrestling with the irrational. They are also wrestling 
with something that constantly changes: new drugs come along; old drugs 
take on new characteristics and medical science occasionally changes its 
mind about the threats that are posed. Yet ministers know that every 
time they change a classification in the ABC grid there are consequences 
which bear no relation to objective scientific or social judgements- 
moving cannabis from the B to the C class, for example, caused hysteria 
in some quarters, confusion in others, and may since have proved a 
mistake on the scientific merits. No wonder they hesitate.
Both the public and the media need to grow up when it comes to 
controlled drugs. This is at least as much a matter of individual 
responsibility as it is of public policy, so we must educate ourselves 
and our children and we must exercise cool and informed judgement. 
Hysteria will not do: greeting an alteration to the classification 
system as a "tacit endorsement" of this or that drug, for example, 
paralyses efforts to prevent abuse and promote understanding.
This presupposes that the system itself is credible, and here the select 
committee is right: the government needs to start again. More important 
than the report's findings on the flawed character of the ABC system is 
what it reveals of the flawed character of the entire process by which 
the government is advised on these matters. No one seems to have given 
this any thought, in fact, since Callaghan, and the result has been 
muddle, weakness and a collapse of credibility. Ministers must create a 
system that has authority and delivers information the public can trust.
If they treat us as adults, there is a better chance we will behave as 
adults.


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