Transaction Search Form: please type in any of the fields below.
Date: April 30, 2024 Tue
Time: 1:45 am
Time: 1:45 am
Results for drug policy (u.k.)
4 results foundAuthor: Ruggiero, Vincenzo Title: Unintended Consequences: Changes in Organised Drug Supply in the UK Summary: This paper looks at the unintended consequences of control systems and strategies in the UK. These include: criminal black markets, policy displacement (law enforcement replaces treatment), geographical displacement, and substance displacement. Details: Santiago, Chile: Global Consortium on Security Transformation, 2010. 24p. Source: Internet Resource; Policy Brief Series, No. 11. Accessed August 10, 2010 at: http://www.securitytransformation.org/gc_publications.php Year: 2010 Country: United Kingdom URL: http://www.securitytransformation.org/gc_publications.php Shelf Number: 119584 Keywords: Drug Abuse and Addiction (U.K.)Drug Markets (U.K.)Drug Policy (U.K.)Drug Trafficking (U.K.) |
Author: Gyngell, Kathy Title: The Phoney War on Drugs Summary: The Government has repeatedly declared that it is fighting a War on Drugs. But this has been a Phoney War, shows Kathy Gyngell in The Phoney War on Drugs published on Monday 18 May 2009 by the Centre for Policy Studies. For the UK now has one of the most liberal drug policies in Europe. Both Sweden and the Netherlands (despite popular misconceptions) have a more rigorous approach – and far fewer problems with drugs. Kathy Gyngell shows how the Labour Government has taken a new direction for drug policy. Its new “harm-reduction” strategy aimed to reduce the cost of problem drug use. The focus was switched from combating all illicit drug use to the problems of PDUs. Cannabis was declassified. Spending on methadone treatment increased threefold between 2003 and 2008. The aim of treatment for drug offenders was no longer abstinence but management of their addiction with the aim of reducing their reoffending. In practice, this meant prescribing methadone. But this harm-reduction approach has failed. It has entrapped 147,000 people in state-sponsored (mainly methadone) addiction. Addicts leaving government treatment programmes clean of drug use are at the same level as if there had been no treatment programme at all. The UK now faces a widening and a deepening crisis. Over the last 10 years, Class A consumption and ‘problem drug use’ have risen dramatically, drug use has spread to rural areas and the age of children’s initiation into drugs has dropped. 41% of 15 year olds, and 11% of 11 year olds, have taken drugs. Drug death rates continue to rise and are far higher than the European average. The UK has 47.5 deaths per million population (aged 15 to 64) compared to 22.0 in Sweden and 9.6 in the Netherlands. There are over ten Problem Drug Users (PDUs) per 1,000 of the adult population, compared to 4.5 in Sweden or 3.2 in the Netherlands. Weak enforcement and prevention The UK drugs market is estimated to be worth £5 billion a year. In comparison, the Government is spending only £380 million a year – or 28% of the total drugs budget – attempting to control the supply of drugs (over £800 million is spent on treatment programmes and reducing drug-related crime). Only five boats now patrol the UK’s 7,750 mile coastline. The numbers of recorded offences for importing, supply and possession of illicit drugs have all fallen over the last 10 years. At the same time, seizures of drugs have fallen and drug prices have dropped to record low. The quantity of heroin, cocaine and cannabis that has been seized coming into the UK has fallen by 68%, 16% and 34% respectively. Both Sweden and the Netherlands have far more coherent and effective drugs policies. All illicit drug use is targeted. Treatment is clearly aimed at breaking addiction. Drug laws are clearly understood and enforced. And, unlike in the UK, the majority of the drugs budget of both countries is spent on prevention and enforcement. As Kathy Gyngell demonstrates, these principles have been lost sight of over the last 10 years in the UK. A successful UK drug policy would in contrast: bear down on the illicit use of all drugs, not the harms caused by drug use; abandon the harm reduction approach; focus treatment on abstinence and rehabilitation; include a tougher, better-funded enforcement programme to reduce the supply of drugs. Details: London: Centre for Policy Studies, 2009. 82p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed July 10, 2012 at: http://www.cps.org.uk/files/reports/original/111026175647-thephoneywarondrugs.pdf Year: 2009 Country: United Kingdom URL: http://www.cps.org.uk/files/reports/original/111026175647-thephoneywarondrugs.pdf Shelf Number: 107669 Keywords: Drug Abuse and AddictionDrug ControlDrug EnforcementDrug Policy (U.K.)Drug War |
Author: Bryan, Mark Title: Licensing and Regulation of the Cannabis Market in England and Wales: Towards a Cost-Benefit Analysis Summary: We agree with David Cameron's observation on drugs policy that "it would be very disturbing if some radical options were not at least looked at". Among the radical options that are often proposed is the creation of a system of licensed cannabis supply subject to taxation and regulation of supply and demand sides of the market. In this study, we consider a hypothetical reform of this kind and identify a long list of possible sources of net social cost and benefit that could result. We attempt to quantify them, using the concept of net external benefit as an evaluation criterion. Net external benefit is the total value in cash-equivalent terms of the costs and benefits that cannabis use imposes on society outside the user him/herself, and it therefore excludes the potential net benefits ('enjoyment') accruing to cannabis users in a reformed market. Our evaluation is consequently conservative in that it contains an inherent bias in favour of the prohibitionist status quo. In our view, it is impossible with available UK evidence to produce a credible estimate of net consumption benefits. Despite the bias this entails, it gives a far more reliable picture of the policy question than the many widely-cited estimates of the "social cost of drug use", which include internal costs (potential harms to drug users) but ignore completely the internal benefits which are the reason that recreational drugs are used in the first place. The estimates underpinning our evaluation should not be seen as predictions of what would happen if such a policy were to be introduced in some future period, since they relate to the market situation as it existed in England and Wales in 2009/10, and they abstract from any transitional adjustments (and any accompanying transitional cost). We have not attempted to extend the evaluation to cover Scotland or Northern Ireland, since most of the data resources available to us cover England and Wales only. In constructing the estimates, we consider a wide range of evidence and the difficulties involved in drawing conclusions from that evidence. We provide simple, largely subjective, quantitative indications of the degree of uncertainty involved in our estimates, some of which should be regarded as illustrative calculations rather than formal estimates. Our aim is not to produce a definitive cost-benefit analysis of a licensed and regulated cannabis market - which we believe to be impossible in the present state of knowledge - but to set out clearly the range of considerations that need to be considered in forming a view about this policy, and to indicate which aspects of the evaluation are likely to be critical to the outcome of a full cost-benefit analysis. Details: London: The Beckley Foundation; Colchester, UK; Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Essex, 2013. 156p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed November 11, 2013 at: http://www.beckleyfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/BF-CANNABIS-CBA-REPORT.pdf Year: 2013 Country: United Kingdom URL: http://www.beckleyfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/BF-CANNABIS-CBA-REPORT.pdf Shelf Number: 129956 Keywords: CannabisCost-Benefit AnalysisDrug MarketsDrug Policy (U.K.)Marijuana |
Author: Fleetwood, Jennifer Title: Sentencing reform for drug trafficking in England and Wales Summary: Internationally, laws and sentencing practices tend to treat drug supply offences very harshly, often with the stated aim of deterrence. International drug trafficking is subject to the longest penalties, from 8-30 years, and up to the death penalty. Long sentences are often applied under inflexible legislation with little or no attention to individual mitigating circumstances, or the offenders' role or gains, resulting in disproportionately heavy penalties for minor offenders, such as drug couriers. This paper discusses recent changes to sentencing in England and Wales, which aim to recognise drug couriers as a distinct category, and so attribute lesser, more proportionate punishment. This innovation did not involve substantive change to drug laws, and reform has been achieved through revising sentencing practice by issuing guidelines for sentencers. This minor reform impacts on one specific group of beneficiaries only: drug couriers. Sentencing in England and Wales operates according to a complex categorisation of activities and separates possession, different types of selling and production activities, and international trafficking. This sentencing innovation is broadly a step in the right direction in that it will reduce punishments for many, but not all, drug couriers. It suggests that taking role into account offers the possibility of more proportionate sentences for drug couriers. Details: London: International Drug Policy Consortium, 2015. 15p. Source: Internet Resource: Briefing paper: accessed May 1, 2015 at: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/64663568/library/IDPC-briefing-paper_Sentencing-reform-for-drug-trafficking-in-the-UK.pdf Year: 2015 Country: United Kingdom URL: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/64663568/library/IDPC-briefing-paper_Sentencing-reform-for-drug-trafficking-in-the-UK.pdf Shelf Number: 135488 Keywords: Drug CouriersDrug MulesDrug Policy Drug Policy (U.K.)Sentencing |