Peter Reynolds

You can be forgiven for a sense of despair if you live under the rule of the Conservative and Labour Party in Britain or the Fine Gael/Fianna Fail/Green Party coalition in Ireland. Our politicians are obsessed with pushing a ‘tough on drugs’ narrative. It’s an easy, cheap, go-to headline-grabber rather than addressing the real issues on drugs policy.

There are a few hopeful signs. But not in Britain. The dullard consensus between Conservative and Labour is depressing and another manifestation of the sickness that pervades all our political discourse. In Ireland, politicians are paying lip service to reform but the recent Citizens’ Assembly on Drugs Use has forced the issue along, despite best efforts to rig the outcome.

The hope comes from the west, that re-scheduling of cannabis in the USA is about to be confirmed and from the east, that Germany seems to have finally resolved its cannabis reform bill and decriminalisation should take effect within a few months.

So Britain and Ireland are getting squeezed. Both countries face elections later this year. Drugs policy will not be an election issue in either country but crime, violence and anti-social behaviour will be. There’s a complete failure, a refusal, to see the link between bad drugs policy and these problems. In fact, it’s one of the principal causes of societal breakdown but not something that politicians will face up to.

Neither rational argument, nor evidence-based campaigning have any immediate effect on drugs policy. Over many years they do have some impact as understanding across society is improved and eventually wiser politicians come into office. While we’re stuck with those brought up with the ‘War on Drugs’; logic, evidence and common sense make no difference. They continue to ‘Just Say No’.

Nothing seems to move politicians except media embarrassment. It was only the tabloid coverage of Alfie Dingley and Billy Caldwell that shamed Theresa May into legalising prescription cannabis. More recently, the UK Post Office scandal has shown that government and civil service are perfectly capable of acting quickly when it suits them but they prefer a life of indolence and procrastination. There’s an almost endless list of scandals that the Conservatives have preferred to ignore: contaminated blood, sodium valproate birth defects, Grenfell, Windrush, etc, etc. Labour will do exactly the same when they get into power. 

In Ireland, despite the recommendations on cannabis by the Oireachtas Justice Committee and the Citizens’ Assembly, unbelievably the government has decided they need another committee but they’re going to put it off for nine months by which time the election will be imminent. It really is farcical. ‘Yes Minister’ and the Office of Circumlocution from ‘Little Dorrit’ aren’t fiction, they are factual narratives.

So while we must keep on with our efforts in campaigning and education for the long-term, politicians aren’t really interested in us or in reasoned argument. We’re wasting our time expecting it. We have to find the lever that will cause them embarrassment, show them an immediate personal gain or rely on broader international pressures before they will do the right thing.