Documents/adf drug.control.short.doc
THE DRUG CONTROL PROBLEM
Half-hour keynote address to the ADF Winter Symposium,
Brisbane, QLD, 4-7 July 2005.
Emergence of the Drug Problem
The
emergence
Zealand,
of
an
Australia,
identified
Britain,
and
drug
problem
many
other
in
New
western
nations, occurred less than 40 years ago.
It’s been with us ever since.
What I intend to do in this paper is to look at the drug
problem in NZ and internationally, and make some general
observations
about
the
effectiveness
of
drug
control
measures.
Drug Use in NZ
In NZ, drug use has risen inexorably since first being
ID’d in the late 1960s.
Here, increasing usage is
drug
offences
reported
roughly
to
the
reflected in annual
police,
which
exponentially from:
[graph police-reported drug offences]
125 in 1966
1
grew
745 in 1971
9,000 in 1981
20,000 in 1991
27,000 in 1994 (peak)
It has now apparently reached saturation point and over
the past 10 years has settled at about 24,000 recorded
offences p/a.
As
in
most
countries,
90%
of
these
reported
offences
involve cannabis.
Control Measures in NZ
These meteoric rises notwithstanding, a great deal of
energy has been expended, and a wide range of measures
has been created, to try to control it.
They
are
too
numerous
to
recite
in
detail,
but
the
principal steps have involved:
*
Increasing
criminal
intelligence
networks
both
nationally and internationally;
* Tightening border controls;
*
Giving
police
greater
search
and
investigation
powers;
*
Giving
suspicious
police
greater
financial
powers
transactions
to
and
investigate
confiscate
assets believed have been criminally obtained;
2
*
Controlling
the
supply
of
precursor
substances
used in local MFG;
*
Increasing
the
maximum
penalties
available
for
dealing in illegal drugs.
NZ currently spends $224m p/a on preventing/reducing harm
caused by tobacco, alcohol, and drug abuse.
Of this:
$32m (14%) goes on demand reduction.
$52m (24%) goes on treatment services.
But the bulk:
$139m (62%) goes on law enforcement and control.
Effectiveness of Drug Control Measures
How effective have these drug control measures been?
In NZ, there are a few instances of control activity
having
demonstrably
impacted
on
the
availability
of
illegal drugs.
EG.
Rigorous
police
and
customs
activity
was
successful in staunching the importation of heroin
and marijuana to NZ in the late 1970s and early
1980s.
Imported MJ and heroin are still rare in NZ.
Large drug busts have certainly also had an impact on the
quantities and prices of drugs available on the streets.
3
However, if we look at the problem historically, it is
clear that attempts to stop or even significantly reduce
the supply of illegal drugs in the long term have failed.
The
control
of
imported
marijuana
and
heroin
simply
resulted in these drugs being replaced by local product:
*
Imported
MJ
has
been
replaced
by
high-quality
homegrown ‘NZ Green’.
Today
Marijuana
is
freely
available,
it
is
relatively cheap ($200-$400/oz),
and 20% of the population aged 15-45 report they
have used it in the past year (2002).
* Heroin has been replaced by Homebake [
] and MSTs
[ ].
Although imported heroin is seldom seen, opiates are
now cheaper and easier to get than ever.
A non-habituated user can get off for as little as
$15.00.
In spite of this, however, NZ doesn’t seem to have a
serious opiate abuse problem.
This
is
partly
because
of
the
program, which has 3,500 clients,
4
Methadone
maintenance
but it’s also due to the fact that opiates are not ‘in’
with young people these days.
Only 1% 15-45 y/o report past-year usage, and this figure
is slightly declining.
LSD, another popular drug in former times, is similarly
unfashionable, with past-year usage low and dropping from
3.8% to 3.2% since 1998.
The drugs that are trendy these days are the so-called
‘party
drugs’,
or
ATS
drugs,
like
Ecstasy
and
Methamphetamine.
Attempts
to
control
the
new
drugs
have
been
markedly
unsuccessful.
The Ecstasy trade is accelerating rapidly and the price
of ‘E’ is stable at $40-$80.00.
3.4% of 15-45 year-olds report past-year usage
- more than double the 1998 figure.
Amphetamine is even more popular.
Indications are that despite the huge amount of attention
being paid to controlling it, amphetamine use is rising.
5% of 15-45 year-olds report past-year usage, which is
almost twice the 1998 figure,
And supply is such that the price of a gram has fallen
from $1,000 to $600-$800 in the last year or so.
5
But Meth’s expensive: $100 a point.
Those who can’t afford the expense of Meth are using
Ritalin,
which
is
cheap
on
the
streets
and
readily
available from doctors for kids with ADHD.
Ritalin scripts rose from 2,900 in 1993 to 72,000 in
2002.
A lot of people are shooting up Rit., which has similar
properties to Meth.
So where drug use patterns have changed, it has been the
fashions
of
youth
culture
and
shifts
in
user
demand,
rather than police activity that have had the greatest
impact.
The International Picture
NZ is not unique in its failure to control the illegal
drug supply.
In the United States, which spends $6.2 billion a year on
drug control and currently has 1.3 million drug offenders
in prison, the 20-year long ‘war on drugs’
[started by Pres. Reagan in the 1980s]
has had little demonstrable effect.
The USA has one of the highest youth use prevalence rates
in the world.
6
Here, a drop in illegal usage the 1980s was followed by
an increase in the 1990s.
Between 2001 and 2003, an 11 percent drop in past-month
illegal
drug
use
in
America
was
offset
by
a
steep
increase in misuse of potentially dangerous prescription
narcotics like Vicodin and OxyContin.
In
Australia
there
was
a
documented
and
significant
‘heroin drought’ between 2000 and early 2002 which was
partially caused by a 606kg heroin bust in the summer of
2000
- ie law enforcement.
But another factor in the Australian drought was a fall
in the poppy harvest in Myanmar, accompanied by growing
demand for heroin in China.
The limited heroin stock became diverted to satisfy the
massive Chinese market.
Important, too, is the fact that in Australia, at the
same time as heroin became scarce and more expensive,
there
was
a
coincidental
rise
in
the
availability
of
methamphetamine from the Golden Triangle area; the same
area that the heroin was coming from.
This suggests that when heroin grew difficult to procure,
importers simply substituted their products.
7
Moreover, at the same time there was a sharp increase in
robberies and thefts as rising prices forced heroin users
to take desperate measures to support their habits.
Another example of this so-called ‘substitution effect’
was in Thailand, where a ‘War on Drugs’ saw the execution
of over 2,000 alleged drug dealers in 2003.
[The ‘Final Solution’?]
Here, a temporary heroin drought resulted in a rise in
use of cocaine, amphetamines, solvents and cheap whisky.
And as in Australia, there was also a rise in property
crime.
So apart from resulting in the deaths of 2,000 people,
the Thai ‘War on Drugs’ generated other problems.
In fact,
from
an
examination
of
international
literature,
it’s
difficult to find an evidence-based example of a drug
control policy that has had a sustained impact anywhere
in the Western world.
The
only
countries
eradication
of
that
illegal
have
drugs
succeeded
are
closed
in
long-term
authoritarian
nations such as Maoist China and the old Soviet Union,
which:
* operated behind iron curtains
8
* controlled all aspects of economy and
* suppressed human rights.
The
opening
up
of
both
states
since
the
1980s
has
resulted in an explosive drug problem.
Execution of drug dealers and long mandatory sentences
for drug possession have had little effect.
Internationally, occasional examples of successful drug
control strategies have generally been short-lived.
Prevalence
control
figures
measures,
tend
and
to
fluctuate
are
driven
independently
primarily
by
of
the
cyclical nature of youthful drug trends.
That is, kids will tend to use whatever drug happens to
be
fashionable,
and
the
market
then
responds
to
the
demand.
Accordingly, a drop in the prevalence of one type of drug
is normally matched by a rise in another.
This is simple economics:
When supply of a particular drug is short, prices are
driven up as dealers struggle to maintain their incomes.
Rising costs force addicts into more crime in order to
support their habits.
Meanwhile recreational drug users, whose choice of drugs
is affected by prices, search for new and cheaper drugs.
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Dealers respond to market forces and supply whatever is
in demand.
Moreover,
there
is
evidence
internationally
of
a
significant research investment in the production of new
‘designer drugs’ that are not yet illegal.
These will inevitably fill any gaps that are created by
effective law enforcement.
It is unlikely that this can be stopped and, given the
profits available, it is equally unlikely that it will
ever end.
Effective Drug Control
So where does this leave us in terms of drafting a drug
control strategy?
The
use
of
recreational
drugs
precedes
the
advent
of
civilisation and has remained ever since.
The amount and variety of drug use in the world today is
greater than at any other time in world history, and is
likely to continue to increase.
Evidence shows that successful supply reduction will tend
to be short-lived unless effective action can be taken to
reduce endemic demand.
2 factors need to be born in mind here:
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1. Different classes of drug have different properties
and different dangers associated with them:
* Some are automatically addictive, some aren’t.
* Some can be injected, some can’t.
* The potential of fatal overdose varies from high
in some drugs to zero in others.
* Some severely impair driving ability, some don’t.
*
Some
are
alcohol),
inclined
some
to
have
make
the
people
opposite
violent
(eg
effect
(eg
Ecstasy).
* And the potential for damage from long-term usage
varies significantly from one drug to the next.
So to talk in terms of overall reductions in drug abuse
means nothing, unless the types of drugs involved are
specified.
EG.
If marijuana use was halved, and amphetamine
use increased by 50%, then I’d call this a negative
outcome.
Drug control policies need to target the more dangerous
drugs, and they need to do so in a way that minimises the
chance of a worse drug being substituted.
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2. The majority of illegal drugs that are available have
legitimate
medical
uses,
and
are
relatively
harmless
provided they’re used intelligently:
That is, if they aren’t used in large doses, or they
aren’t used too often.
Most illegal drug users are occasional or opportunistic
dabblers,
and
will
experience
few
deleterious
effects
from their use.
In NZ, for example, although an estimated 1 million tabs
of ‘E’ are used each year, there have only been 3 deaths
from the drug and it has produced very little evidence of
medical morbidity or dependency.
Methamphetamine is reportedly used
year, but only 1/3
by 84,000 people a
report using it more than once a
month.
In
2002,
only
about
40
people
presented
in
Auckland
hospitals
[
]
with meth-related conditions, and Amphetamines have been
associated with a total of only 5 deaths in total.
Alcohol kills 400 p/a and 100 in road crashes.
12
From
this
it
is
hard
to
deduce
that
Amphetamine
use
causes serious problems for any but a small proportion of
users.
It
appears
that
only
a
minority
of
users
abuse
amphetamines to the point where they become psychotic and
a danger to others or to themselves.
If a drug control policy halves the amount of meth being
used,
but
the
policy
only
affects
the
casual
users
without
impacting on the habituals,
then the danger of the drug remains and the policy can be
considered a failure.
Conclusion
In my submission,
those who draft drug control policies need to recognise
these factors.
History shows that policies aimed at eradication of drugs
have never been successful in free democratic societies
and as such are probably doomed to failure.
Harm reduction is, however, a realistically attainable
outcome.
If this is to be achieved, the ‘scattergun’ approach to
drug control would appear to be a waste of time.
Instead, finely-tuned policies need to be drafted that
target
13
specific kinds of drugs and
specific kinds of users,
and they need to do so in a way that avoids substitution
to drugs and anti-social behaviours that may be as bad or
even worse, than what the policy is trying to control.
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