Category Archives: regulation

“The disposable foot soldiers of crime” – Media, County Lines and Moral Panics

By Ellie Harding, MA candidate in Applied Criminal Justice and Criminology, Swansea University

‘We are cutting the head off the snake and taking down the kingpins behind these deadly supply lines…Drug abuse and addiction ruins communities, devastates lives and tears families apart.’

So announced Priti Patel in her speech to the annual Conservative Party conference earlier this month. Strong words from the Home Secretary, and certainly a standpoint that will strike fear in the electorate. This is arguably what the speech was intended to do. To generate fear and concern in the populace, rather than inform a discussion about a complex and multifaceted topic of drugs, crime and society.

A ‘moral panic’ is a criminological concept which suggests that stylised and stereotypical media reporting of a ‘threat’ to society results in a panicked response from the public, often leading to knee-jerk policy responses. In 1998, Kenneth Thompson identified several essential elements of a moral panic. These include (a) something is defined as a threat, (b) the threat is portrayed in the media, (c) the threat emerges rapidly in the public consciousness and (d) the threat provokes a response from the authorities.

Drugs as a moral panic in the UK is not a new phenomenon, and Priti Patel’s framing of the issue of county lines is certainly in keeping with that troubling tradition. As most audiences do not experience crime first-hand, they instead develop their understanding of criminality through media depictions. Since 2017, county lines drug trafficking has increased as has high profile media attention of the issue. This raises the concern of whether the representation of county lines in the British media is fuelling fear rather informing debate, and whether it meets the threshold of a ‘moral panic’.

Existing research around this topic lacked depth, therefore I conducted a study to examine whether media portrayal of county lines in the UK met the definition of a moral panic. To test this question, this research reviewed 132 online news articles from five major media outlets (BBC, Daily Mail, The Guardian, ITV and Sky News) and studied the language and imagery each used to report county lines. It examined how different players in the situation are represented – young people, ‘gang leaders’, police – and drew conclusions about the impact of these characterisations on public understanding of county lines. The results of the analysis concluded that the representation of county lines can comfortably be described as a moral panic.

The research documented the common use of terms such as ‘exploited’ (used 210 times) or ‘vulnerable’ (used 192 times) to describe the young people involved in the county lines drug trade, paired with stylised images of drugs (used 38 times). It found that the articles were empathetic to these individuals, who were often referred to as ‘victims’ (used 58 times) rather than criminals, with a focus on their vulnerabilities and associated risks. For example, one article described the children involved in county lines as “the disposable foot soldiers of crime”.

On the other hand, dehumanising descriptions were evident of those described as controlling or directing these trafficking operations. It was common to find the use of gang terminology such as “professional gangsters exploit i ng vulnerable minors”, despite the societal stigma associated with such language. The articles’ language often focused on the control and coercion associated with county lines (combined use of 64 mentions). This representation was paired with the use of mugshots (being featured 59 times), giving the audience a voyeuristic look into the criminal consequences of county lines. The impact of county lines was typically depicted using violence and weapons (mentioned 139 times with nine images of weapons), overall adding to public fear.

Articles also focused on the response from the government and law enforcement. This included language such as ‘crackdown’ (used 35 times) and images of the police (featured 60 times). Articles emphasised that policing county lines is a priority for government and law enforcement, using statistics of arrest rates and seizures of drugs and money to prove to the public the success of the police. This, combined with the repeated use of images of the police reinforces to the public that county lines is a threat to society, contributing to a sense of moral panic.

The research found the Daily Mail relied particularly heavily on information from the Home Office when reporting on the issue. Many of its articles focused on Priti Patel’s response to county lines and the new ‘Beating Crime Plan’ from a personal perspective. “I will not tolerate county lines drugs gangs terrorising our communities and exploiting young people, which is why I have made tackling this threat a priority”. The Home Secretary was featured in Daily Mail reporting far more often than in any of the other news sources examined.

The research also examined the extent to which the media offered support and protection to the vulnerable individuals involved in county lines (both the children used as drug couriers and the adult victims whose homes may be ‘cuckooed’ and taken over for drug dealing activities). Only two out of the five media outlets (BBC and ITV) consistently used their platforms to promote support and protection services. This included profiling organisations that offer services and other ways to promote the support and protection of the vulnerable individuals.

The overall conclusion from this research suggested that the manner in which county lines is portrayed in the British media meets the definition of a moral panic. The study indicates that the media are more focused on selling a story using a ‘scary’ narrative rather than supporting vulnerable people involved in county lines. This moral panic arguably gets in the way of the more important discussions about the context of county lines, drug markets and criminalisation.

The research found that the contributing factors driving county lines (although alluded to) need further emphasis from the media, as this would allow the public to better understand the issue and potentially have a more empathetic response. For example, the socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds of many of the individuals involved in county lines needs to be further featured in media news outlets. This includes more focus on issues such as poverty, lack of employment opportunities and the impacts of austerity, which are often drivers of county lines involvement. Similarly, the increasing rates of school exclusions (especially racially motivated ones) need to be addressed by governing bodies as well as the media, as this highlights the vulnerability of children who are then exploited by county lines organisations.

Regardless of reporting, while there is demand there will be supply of drugs. The counterproductive ‘war on drugs’ therefore needs to be addressed, but the moral panic surrounding county lines gets in the way of discussing bigger policy issues. The ‘war on drugs’ is driven through law enforcement, however these efforts against county lines often result in displacement, whereby “one county lines closes another quickly opens”. Therefore, the media reporting of county lines may not highlight the true extent of the problem, or the limitations of a law enforcement centred approach.

Within the county lines discourse there is also little discussion of the negative short and long-term impacts of the early introduction of the young people involved into the criminal justice system. Prevention/education and harm reduction programmes are not represented, and the issues of decriminalisation or legalisation are often the subject of their own moral panic.

Overall, not only the media but society as a whole need to support and protect the vulnerable individuals involved in county lines, rather than the moral panic style reporting which is more focused on selling stories rather than the potentially damaging effect of their reporting styles.

Proposing a Harm Reduction Framework for Youth Drug Use in Nigeria: A Research Inspired Commentary

Temitope Salami

Drugs is a hotly debated subject that attracts the attention of policymakers, especially regarding the perceived effects drug use has on society. But, following scientific research and targeted campaigns, it is apparent that the ‘war on drugs’ rhetoric has lost its gloss and public health alternatives are increasingly embraced over criminal justice measures. As an MA student in Applied Criminal Justice and Criminology this reality, together with losing a friend to drug misuse, inspired me to investigate for my dissertation harm reduction as an alternative approach to criminalising drug use in Nigeria.

Nigeria takes a relatively firm stand against illicit drugs. This is reflected in national policy, where drugs and drug-related activities are proscribed by law. Unfortunately, young people, who account for two-thirds of the national population, are disproportionately affected by these policies. Consequently, my research sets out to investigate the reasons behind the punitive response to drug use (especially cannabis which is the top drug of choice among young people globally). To achieve my aims, the research examined three questions:

How would a harm reduction approach to drug use be beneficial to young people in Nigeria?

Whether a harm reduction approach can be complimentary to a criminal justice framework?

Whether the criminalisation of young people who use drugs is harmful and discriminatory?

These lines of questioning were informed by the desire to develop a better understanding of the motivations for drug use, the challenges of prohibitionist legal framework, and the impact on the health and social wellbeing of young people who use drugs. To fulfil these aims, the research included elite interviews with academics, researchers, law enforcement, policy makers, rights campaigners and people who use drugs in Nigeria and on the international scene. Interestingly, factors inconsistent with popular understandings of the impacts of drug use were common themes revealed from the discussions. The key findings are summarised below:

Harm reduction demonstrates that drugs are not ‘inherently evil’.

Interviews with participants revealed broad support for a harm reduction approach to drug use because it proves that drugs are not ‘inherently evil’ and protects young people from the stigma and discrimination associated with criminalisation. Findings revealed how negative perceptions of drugs feed into socio-cultural and linguistic norms that shape public responses to drugs and drug use. This finding is important as it explains locally held beliefs that ‘drugs are a taboo that promote crime and deviance’, which serves as a barrier to recognising the benefits of harm reduction. In addition, it demonstrates that scapegoating drugs, drug use, and young people to combat rising insecurity is short-sighted. It neglects other systemic factors such as poor government policies, poverty, unemployment, climate change, mass illiteracy, poor leadership, and a weak justice system.

Furthermore, despite popular use of the term, there was a lack of clear understanding of what ‘harm reduction’ means by both law enforcement (especially officials in the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency and police) and civil society. For many state officials, ‘harm reduction’ is confused with demand and supply reduction activities, and often used in a political sense rather than as an urgent call to action. The need for full spectrum harm reduction programmes which take account of the social welfare needs (housing, education, employment, equality of care) of people who use drugs was emphasised as a determinant of health needed to address some of the harms of criminalisation. Addressing these equally addresses some systemic challenges faced by the state.

AU UN IST PHOTO / David Mutua – AMISOM Public Information, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

A mixed system is problematic but achievable. However, it is far from the ideal.

Another key finding is that the Nigerian drug regime is perhaps consciously and/or unconsciously biased towards criminalisation, without a consideration of the local and national implications of this approach. Yet despite the harms associated with criminalisation, this approach can coexist with public health-based interventions provided legal reform, market regulation, and stakeholder education are utilised as pillars of success. The danger of criminalising supply however remains for production and transit countries predominantly in the global south with many relying on alternative livelihoods for survival.

Young people are using drugs in a way that has yet to be captured by state policy and harm reduction programming.

Young people are adventurous and impulsive, rarely worrying about the position of the law in making decisions. Thus, criminalising drug use becomes counterproductive. It is held that criminalisation serves as cover for social control, and the ‘war on drugs’ is more about maintaining social order and increasing state power than it is about drugs. Consequently, criminalisation deprives young people who use drugs from services that they need. While the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency acknowledges the benefits of decriminalisation of cannabis for personal use in private communication, it maintains strong opposition to cannabis use and/or legalisation in public statements. These inconsistences further expose young people to the whims of law enforcement.

Other key findings include a misunderstanding of the role of drug reform advocates by law enforcement and the Nigerian public, which views them as ‘promoting drug use’ rather than seeking to save lives and reduce harm. However, efforts have been made to foster partnership working and training to unify purpose and enhance mutual success.

Conclusions

Drug control is heavily nuanced. It has political utility for the global north (control of the political economy of the international system) and south (funding of development programmes and regime support). Flowing from the findings of this research, it would appear that African states (including Nigeria) prioritise their international image over human rights and public health. Hence, drug control priorities tend to reflect the international reputation sought by the political establishment at the expense of people who use drugs who may require services.

Although, Nigeria might be regarded as a conservative state, the government prioritises its international drug control commitments at the expense of health and human rights obligations. Ultimately, you cannot arrest your way out of ‘the drug problem’. Therefore, legal (market) regulation and harm reduction remain the better approach to drug control, and the provision of a safe and legal supply of cannabis would be a great leap forward. It would better account for the health, welfare, and safety of many young people, an achievement that has consistently eluded blanketed drug prohibition. The main recommendations of the research are proper education for stakeholders; provision of targeted services to address context-specific needs of young people; political commitment to drug reform; and legal regulation of drugs.

‘Drug Smuggler Nation: Narcotics and the Netherlands, 1920-1995.’ By Stephen Snelders

A review by Christopher Hallam

Despite its reputation as a centre of illicit drug trafficking and the oft-times bane of the international drug control regime, relatively little has been written by academics on the historical background of that ‘Drug Smuggler Nation’, the Netherlands.

Stephen Snelders sets out to address this lacuna, exploring trafficking in the Netherlands between the end of the First World War and the 1990s, a key era in the establishment and development of both the drug trade and the international drug control apparatus. In a series of nine chapters including an introduction and a conclusion, a series organized both chronologically and in terms of broad thematic strokes, he elaborates this history through the use of certain conceptual tools, central amongst which is the idea of ‘criminal anarchy’. This conception deconstructs the popular notion of the strictly hierarchical crime syndicate with ‘Mr Big’ at the helm and a variety of low level ‘soldiers’ carrying out the dirty work of drug supply and associated criminality: the ‘pyramid model’.

Snelders notes that the advent of the international drug control regime created new opportunities for entrepreneurs in the Netherlands, a point which is equally valid in various other national contexts. The new system of controls, combined with an increasing public appetite for newly illegal drugs, ‘led to the proliferation of a ‘hydra’ of small, anarchic groups and networks ideally suited to circumventing the enforcement of regulation’ (p.2). He goes on to state that, ‘When one head of this hydra was chopped off, another one grew in its place’ (p.2). These groups included what Snelders calls ‘sailor-smugglers, idealists from countercultural scenes, and criminal opportunists.’ Forming fluid and mobile temporary alliances, they worked together with other groups and networks, and with legitimate ‘upperworld’ figures, especially in the chemical and maritime sectors. Coming from a wide range of ethnic backgrounds (Dutch, Chinese, Turkish, Kurdish, Moroccan etc), they made use of the Netherlands’ highly developed logistics and infrastructure and its rail, road, and maritime connectivity to turn the country into an important transit hub in the international trade, moving drugs on to other continental countries and to the United Kingdom.

Elaborating the political economy of the drug trade, Snelders critiques the theory of Robert McBride, a US social scientist whose PhD was entitled ‘Business as Usual’ and which argued that the illegal drug trade was structurally akin to that for legal intoxicants. McBride believed that criminalisation meant that the illicit market would tend toward monopolisation, high prices, and domination by organised crime groups (p.8). According to Snelders, however, predictions of ‘increasing monopolization of the market, higher prices, and control by vertically organized ‘enterprises’ have…not been validated; rather the contrary’. He observes that heroin and cocaine prices fell during the 1980s and 1990s; the market has witnessed increased competition and drug availability, ‘finding its own dark niche in the economic system’ (p.8).

The author contrasts the hierarchical model with a recurring spontaneous order that he terms ‘criminal anarchy’, as discussed above. He is careful to distinguish this flexible order from a mere mass of chaos and random linkages. Rather, its horizontal organization and dynamic connections were perfectly compatible with efficient smuggling and other supply mechanisms. Criminal anarchy deployed these horizontal connections to forge alliances and to embed itself within the host society. Some of those involved were drawn from what had been a licit supply economy and became criminals as a result of the establishment of the drug control apparatus and its new arrangement of roles and definitions; others were already criminals but saw the opportunities for profit in a novel area of illegal work and income. Snelders states that:

To understand the historical vicissitudes in the seemingly chaotic and unpredictable world of drug trafficking it is essential to observe the patterns of criminal anarchy (p.9).

The book illustrates its themes by use of a broad range of archival and other historical resources, citing well known examples such as the 1930s trafficker Ellie Eliopoulos. Despite a pervasive popular myth, Eliopoulos’ organization was not constructed along the lines of the pyramid model, with Eliopoulos as a Mr Big at the summit; instead, Snelders contends that he is best understood as a businessman who operated in the illegal drug markets as a facilitator, using his connections to forge linkages between supply and demand on an international scale. He made use of the loosely connected networks (including those in the upperworld) of criminal anarchy.

Chapter two of the book explores trafficking during the interwar period, beginning with the Dutch Opium Act of 1919, in which the Netherlands complied with its obligations as a signatory of the 1912 International Opium Convention. Like other colonialist nations, the Netherlands was ambivalent about the convention, as the Dutch state had substantial incomes from its opium regime in Asia. Domestically, companies often responded to the new controls by recourse to ‘off the books’ transactions, and individuals whose opium licences had been withdrawn continued their business by means of connections in the rapidly developing illicit market. The interwar years, says the author, witnessed the advent of Dutch criminal anarchy embedded in the border towns and ports, linked to an upperworld of respectable manufacturers and facilitators.

Three chapters of the book deal with what Snelders calls ‘global perils.’ This theme is highly significant, as the models of multi-ethnic cooperation frequently enabled the illicit market to outwit the control apparatus that was located within the strictly demarcated relationships of nation states. The first of these chapter on ‘global perils’, chapter 2, directs the focus onto this multi-ethnic dimension of the illicit market, looking primarily at Chinese and Greek smugglers in the interwar years. It was then that the Netherlands emerged as both an end point and a transit hub for illicit opioids produced in Asia. The country’s role in maritime trade is to the fore here, as the state sought to impose controls while limiting the damage to its licit trade. The Dutch East Indies provided the key opium connection, with many Chinese residents of the islands in the habit of smoking opium for pleasure and medical uses, a habit which had been introduced to much of Asia though colonial contacts with European sailors and merchants. The Chinese role in manning the ships on which colonial trade depended enabled them to transport their drug use and supplies back to the European end of the pole.

In a fascinating history, the book explores the emergence of the Chinese ‘secret society’, which came to haunt the Dutch and the wider European imagination. From this spectre congealed the ‘triad’ secret society, a term that originated in the Chinese ‘three dots society’. These shadowy networks pre-dated the creation of Fu Manchu and the ‘Yellow Peril’, which loomed large in European culture in the years between the world wars. They were, according to Snelders, mutual aid societies resembling the masonic societies of Europe, although their membership was drawn from a lower social class. The chapter weaves a fascinating and pungent narrative of the Dutch urban underground and its transnational links.

As Snelders summarises:

The interwar period already shows the pragmatic cooperation between trafficking networks of different ethnic backgrounds that is a characteristic of criminal anarchy…Their decentralization and fragmentation facilitated rather than hindered operations and made access to the market relatively easy (p.67).

The book then moves on to the post war drug trade and the countercultural movement of the 1960s, during which time the major drug of Dutch trade changes from opium to cannabis. Sourced from countries such as Lebanon, Morocco, and Afghanistan, where cultivation and production increased to meet an expanding western demand, hashish began its shift toward market dominance in the Netherlands in 1967. Those supplying the trade were at first counter-cultural youth travelling the hippie trail, and sailors. Hippie smugglers helped to forge connections with local producers in those countries named above, where borders were leaky and smuggling simple. The counterculture was international and transnational; its networks spanned the Netherlands, the UK and all of western Europe. Distribution was easy if one was part of these networks, and the aim was usually to make small profit and- probably most importantly- to access supplies for oneself and one’s friends. Sailors continued the mostly small-scale smuggling they had carried on before the war, and often had more of a motive in cash profit than their hippie counterparts. They were soon followed by criminal entrepreneurs who saw the opportunity to make serious money. These groups generally shipped larger quantities, and made use of the maritime trade, sometimes chartering ships and bringing several thousand kilos of cannabis into the Netherlands. By the 1970s, and in a step change in the business, they were employing container ships.

Chapter 5 is the second on ‘global perils’, and deals with the Chinese triads and Turkish families who trafficked in heroin. The Dutch heroin market was large by 1971, with an ‘epidemic’ of consumers. The US Drug Enforcement Agency alleged in the mid-1970s that Amsterdam was the capital of a global, Chinese-run heroin hub, operated by the triads. Dutch police had been focussed on the triads since 1973, in particular the Hong-Kong based ‘14K’ triad, which Snelders describes as a loose network of independent gangs’ (p.121).

By the 1980s, Turkish and Kurdish groups had assumed a dominant position in the heroin trafficking business. The Dutch cannabis trade bloomed after 1976, with the first of the country’s (in)famous coffee shops opening in the early 1970s. The cannabis trade is discussed in chapter 6, while the subsequent chapter discusses the arrival of the Colombian ‘cartels’ in the 1980s. The 1990s saw the advent of the synthetic drugs market, which was accompanied by fears that democracy, social authority, and the Dutch state would be subverted by organised crime, with a large and thriving underground economy of drug production and export and a partnership between criminals and chemists. The authorities’ anxieties focussed particularly on the country’s southern provinces, especially North Brabant and Zeeland, where drug smuggling became deeply embedded in a deviant cultural milieu. At the same time, Snelders argues in his concluding chapter that a curious pride existed in relation to the Netherlands’ underground multinationals; global adventuring and maritime trade constituting a longstanding facet of Dutch national identity. Alongside this paradox, the author notes another, more familiar in drug policy history: namely, that increases in demand have followed the intensification of expanded prohibition.

By way of conclusion, at the heart of Snelders’ book lies the concept of criminal anarchy. His historical research is marshalled to demonstrate the continuing role of the patterns of criminal anarchy in the development of the Netherlands as a major hub in the international illicit drugs market, and he builds an argument that this reviewer finds powerful, bringing into view as it does the networking, mobility and dynamism of a market that has resisted a century of unsuccessful attempts to control it. The patterns and modes of illicit trading and production relationships brought to light by the lens of ‘criminal anarchy’ help to show us how the market has achieved its continued effectiveness, and in doing so Snelders has made a highly significant contribution to historical and sociological understanding.

Cultivating Change: The Contemporary Challenges of Studying Cannabis Regulation in Jamaica

Branwen Lloyd*

At the end of summer 2019 the GDPO was successful in an application to Swansea University’s Higher Education Funding Council for Wales – Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) scheme. The GCRF is a £1.5 billion fund announced by the UK Government in 2015 to support cutting-edge research that addresses the challenges faced by developing countries. The fund supports research surrounding three challenge areas; Equitable Access to Sustainable Development, Sustainable Economies and Societies and Human Rights, Good Governance and Social Justice. As it happened the project the GDPO proposed touched on addressing issues in all of theses categories.

This was the GDPO’s second successful GCRF award. Earlier in 2019 GCRF funding was secured to begin the project Cultivating Change: UN treaties, cannabis regulation and options for sustainable development in the Caribbean, in collaboration with partners at the University of the West Indies, Mona (UWI) in Jamaica. The aim of this interdisciplinary project was to facilitate knowledge exchange and to identify in-region expertise pertaining to the complex and increasingly challenging issues of international drugs policy. The project focused on exploring the potential of enabling the currently illicit cannabis cultivation within the Caribbean to enter the licit market. This is an issue that is becoming an increasingly important part of sustainable development strategies within many traditional producer states in the Global South. With a rapid expansion of legally regulated markets for recreational use of cannabis comes the potential for market engagement and associated benefits, relating to social justice and human rights within marginalized communities in the Caribbean.

Jamaica is just one of many Caribbean islands exploring if the relaxation of certain drugs policies relating to marijuana can not only lead to social reform but to related economic development. The Jamaican ‘brand’ of cannabis culture and production is world-renowned. Add this to the historic and religious use of ganja for sacramental purposes and one can see why it is such a burning issue.

In 2015, the Jamaican government amended the Dangerous Drugs Act, which effectively decriminalized the possession and use of ganja in small amounts, (up to 2 oz), possession of larger amounts remaining a criminal offense, and which also legalized medical marijuana. This allowed the use of marijuana for medical and religious purposes, but not for recreational use. It also introduced licenses for its cultivation and sale. Other Caribbean nations have looked towards Jamaica as an early mover and many have amended and introduced their own legislation keen not to miss out on potential profits, particularly in the field of medical marijuana production. However, in the years since the act was passed forward progress has apparently stalled, and it is currently unclear how the legislation would develop to assist the significant numbers of traditional (illicit) marijuana producers across the country. Many of these growers struggle to survive economically; a fact often underpinning engagement with the currently illicit market.

The goal of the Cultivating Change project was to generate knowledge exchange and develop in-region expertise pertaining to complex and increasingly challenging legal and policy dilemmas around cannabis, both at the national, regional and international level. The project focused on the potential transition of currently illicit cannabis cultivation within the Caribbean to the licit market and as such become an important part of sustainable development strategies in traditional so-called producer states within the Global South. With a rapid expansion of legally regulated markets for both medical and recreational use come the potential for market engagement and associated benefits relating to social justice and human rights within currently marginalized communities within the Caribbean. While shifts would do much to help states work towards a range of Sustainable Development Goals (particularly those relating to poverty, gender equality, decent work and economic growth and life on land) there are currently complex legal questions concerning not only the practicalities of market transition within Jamaica and other states within the region, but also of the feasibility of international trade in cannabis for recreational purpose. The GDPO team were therefore keen to speak to legislators, growers and officials to examine the complex legal questions concerning the feasibility of international trade in cannabis and to consider how such a shift would do much to help states work towards a range of SDGs.

So, in June 2019, in the good old pre-COVID days (we thought the risk assessments were bad enough then!) GDPO Senior Research Associate Axel Klein and I boarded a fight to Jamaica to meet colleagues at the University of the West Indies, Mona and begin field work. The team visited traditional growers and discussed the impact the CLA regulations were having on licit and illicit cannabis production. They then met with Minister J.C. Hutchinson from the Ministry of Industry, Commerce, Agriculture and Fisheries (MICAF) who explained the Cannabis Licensing Authority’s (CLA) new ‘Alternative Development Programme’. The programme is a pilot project aimed at transitioning current illicit cannabis farmers into the legally regulated medical cannabis industry. It hopes to increase the legitimate earning potential of small, marginalised communities that have been disproportionately impacted by drug policy and regulation and therefore still operated within the cannabis black market. The team visited the site of the Maroon community project in Accompong, St. Elizabeth and saw first-hand that the transition from illicit to licit production and trade of cannabis will be a complicated but no less worthy endeavour. After meeting with CLA officials and numerous academics at Mona working in various fields of study relating to cannabis in the Caribbean we were confident we had had a good overview of the current state of play and were encouraged that there was much support for further collaboration.

When the second Swansea University GCRF grant award was approved in late 2019 the GPDO moved to assist in the set-up of the Interdisciplinary Centre for Cannabis Research (ICCR) at UWI, Mona. Its aim is to serve as a centre of research excellence for pertinent cannabis related study and discussion within the Caribbean. This includes the fields of political science, law and agriculture, gender studies, as well as criminology and public policy. A second research trip to Jamaica in January 2020 led to the publication of the ICCR first paper ‘Ganja Licensing in Jamaica Learning lessons and setting standards’ by Axel Klein and Vicki J. Hanson. The paper, at the request of Minister J.C. Hutchinson, is an analysis of the roadblocks within the licensing process that prevent small farmers from getting access to a license and problems they have in trying to enter the medical marijuana industry. Things were going well for the ICCR. Staff were appointed to set up the website, arrange workshops and start connecting the academics across the UWI network… then COVID struck.

Universities shut; countries went into lock down. Workshops, meetings and launches were delayed and put on hold, but we adapted, and thanks to the power of Zoom and not a little hard work and creative thinking we were able to proceed with the project and in fact generated more activities and outputs than first anticipated. Thanks to GCRF funding, research on cannabis policy, social and cultural impact now has a permanent home in the Caribbean that can react to developments first-hand. This was exemplified by one of the first events hosted by the ICCR, a Covid-19 and Ganja: Medical and Economic Impact Webinar. Working on an international project at this time was not without its challenges. Nonetheless, the lessons learnt, and connections made (albeit more virtual than face-to-face) will be far reaching and impactful. Further fieldwork in the Caribbean may be on hold for some time yet, however continuing to work together across international borders proved to be, after the first few weeks of uncertainty, a fairly smooth transition.

But the work doesn’t stop! Keep an eye out for some upcoming work by GDPO, TNI and ICCR on the Cannabis Trade in the Caribbean.

*GDPO Project Officer

Drugs, Prisons and ‘Unintended Consequences’ – Does drug interdiction drive drug-related harms?

Rick Lines, Olivia Howells and Daniel Webb*

The availability of drugs in prisons around the world is well documented. In Europe alone, up to seventy percent of people in prison have used an illicit drug. In Canada, forty-eight percent of prisoners in federal correctional institutions have had ‘problems’ with drugs. In Australia, one in six people discharged reported using illicit drugs during their sentence.

The 2018-19 Annual Report of HM Chief Inspector of Prisons for England and Wales stated, ‘we are regularly told how easy it is to get hold of illicit drugs in prisons, and of the shockingly high numbers who acquire a drug habit while they are detained’. The Chief Inspector was ‘particularly concerned by the high number of prisoners who said they had developed a problem while in prison – 13% of adult men in our survey reported that they had developed a problem with illicit drugs since they had arrived’. Here in Wales, a Cardiff prison survey found that fifty-two percent of prisoners said it was easy to get illegal drugs into the prison.

The availability and use of drugs in prisons cannot be separated from wider drug policy. The criminalisation of drugs and the people who use or sell them fuels mass incarceration in many countries, and in doing so creates large profitable markets for drugs behind bars. To counter this, prison systems around the world have deployed a wide range of supply reduction and drug interdiction measures – from searches to sniffer dogs to drug testing – to try to stop drugs entering prisons, and to disrupt internal markets.

Are these measures effective at deterring drug use or shrinking illicit markets? The high levels of drug use in prison cited above suggest the impacts are limited at best, and that despite the efforts of prison security, drugs continue to flow into places of detention with relative ease.

Although supply reduction efforts in prisons may be ineffective overall at eliminating drug markets, that does not mean they do not have an impact on drug consumption. As noted in 2008 by Antonio Maria Costa, former Executive Director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, efforts to control illicit drugs often have negative ‘unintended consequences’ not considered at the time they were implemented. In other words, drug enforcement efforts often have the effect of creating problems worse than those they were intended to solve. In prisons, one of these ‘unintended consequences’ is increased drug-related risk and drug-related harms.

One widely used measure to deter drug use in prisons is mandatory drug testing (MDT). The UK Ministry of Justice states that 67% of prisoners surveyed in 2014/15 had participated in some form of MDT. While the UK government states that MDT is intended to ‘deter prisoners from misusing drugs’ and to ‘contribute to drug supply reduction, and contribute to prisoner safety, violence reduction, order and control’, the evidence suggests that random drug testing may actually undermine all of those objectives.

Cannabis is the most commonly used drug by people in prison in the UK, with a reported 79% lifetime prevalence of use. It is also a drug that remains highly detectable in the body for long periods after use. As such, cannabis users in prison have a ‘high risk of detection through mandatory drug tests’. One of the ‘unintended consequences’ of MDT in prisons is therefore a switch from cannabis use to heroin use among prisoners. As heroin is undetectable via MDT after only two to three days, heroin use becomes a logical choice for people who want to use drugs and minimise their risk of being caught. This switch to heroin use can also lead to a switch from smoking to injecting as a route of administration, with the attendant risks of blood-borne virus transmission and vein damage from sharing and reusing scarce injecting equipment in prisons.

There are also increasing indications that drug interdiction activities in prisons are driving the availability and use of new psychoactive substances (NPS), with mandatory drug testing again playing a role. Many varieties of NPS are not detectable by drug testing, creating an incentive to choose new psychoactives as a way to minimise risk of detection. As noted by one observer, ‘due to testing…cannabis, which is argued to be a lower risk substance, has been replaced by spice – a substance perceived to have more dangerous health implications’. A study commissioned for the National Offender Management Service found that prevalence of synthetic cannabinoids was twice as high among prisoners at time of release than at the time of admission. In that study, synthetic cannabinoids were the only substance for which a higher prevalence was detected upon release than upon admission, suggesting a statistically significant uptake of use of NPS by people in detention.

The European Monitoring Centre on Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) has noted that ‘the avoidance of positive drug tests has been suggested as motivation for drug users to switch to NPS while in prison’ and that ‘increases in NPS use in prisons may therefore, arguably, be an unintended negative consequence of random mandatory drug testing programmes in some European prisons’.

While the UK and Germany have recently incorporated detection of synthetic cannabinoids into its MDT programme, this ultimately will not address the issues of drugs in prisons, or the creation of risk. As noted by EMCDDA, ‘One possible outcome…is that there may be displacement from use of synthetic cannabinoids to other substances, such as synthetic opioids, which may also be extremely harmful.’ Indeed, the EMCDDA notes that the use of synthetic opioids in Latvian prisons ‘has been accompanied by more overdoses and an increase in injecting, including needle-sharing’.

The UK Prison Inspectorate has stated that ‘NPS have created significant additional harm and are now the most serious threat to the safety and security of the prison system’. The widespread use of NPS, driven in part by random drug testing, suggests that the MDT is having the opposite effect of that intended by the government. In 2005, MDT was withdrawn from Scottish prisons as it was deemed a waste of funds that had little effective impact on drug use amongst prisoners.

Such negative ‘unintended consequences’ can also be identified from other supply reduction efforts. Drug detecting sniffer dogs are widely used throughout the UK prison regime. A 2014 review of supply reduction activities in Australian prisons described the impact of sniffer dogs as ‘modest’. However, even this ‘modest’ success is undermined in the case of new psychoactives. The EMCDDA, for example, cautions that, ‘Sniffer dogs are not trained to recognise the many different types of NPS.’ The UK Prison Inspectorate has noted that ‘Synthetic cannabis has no distinctive odour and is therefore harder to detect than non-synthetic cannabis, making it more attractive to smuggle in’. Even where dogs are trained specifically to identify one type of NPS, such as ‘Spice’, the longer-term effectiveness of this is made difficult by ‘the ever-changing composition’ of new psychoactives, making the programmes ‘ineffectual’.

Drug use is as much a part of the prison environment as it is the outside community. Overall, the supply reduction activities of prison regimes fuel drug-related risk and drug-related harms among people in detention. The advent of NPS only exacerbates this, creating an environment in which use of new psychoactive substances, substances often more dangerous than the traditional drugs they are created to mimic, are the easiest to smuggle in, and the most logical to use if wishing to avoid detection.

If governments are truly serious about addressing drug use and reducing drug-related harm, they must move away from enforcement-focussed responses, and instead implement laws and policies that reduce the number of people in prison for drug-related offences, and to provide comprehensive harm reduction programmes for people in detention.

*Dr Rick Lines is Associate Professor of Criminology and Human Rights at the School of Law, Swansea University. He is also a Senior Research Associate with the Global Drug Policy Observatory. Olivia Howells is a Law and Criminology student at Swansea University and Daniel Webb is a Criminology and Criminal Justice student at Swansea University.

This research was conducted as part of the Swansea Paid Internship Network programme, a scheme enabling School of Law students to obtain experience working on an active research project under the guidance of an academic supervisor.

Nowhere to hide: It’s high time we measured countries’ performance in drug policy

By Marie Nougier IDPC Head of Research and Communications & Dave Bewley-Taylor, GDPO Director

First published here by IPDC, October 2019

Traditionally, the UN and governments have measured progress in drug policy in terms of flows and scale; principally the numbers of people arrested, hectares of drug crops eradicated and the amounts of drugs seized. For years now, IDPC and many civil society colleagues (in particular the Global Drug Policy Observatory (GDPO), CELS, the Centre on Drug Policy Evaluation, and the Social Science Research Council among others), have advocated against such an approach, because of its inability to truly assess the real impacts of drug control policy – especially for communities affected by the illicit drug trade on the one hand and by drug policies on the other.

The 2016 UN General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) was instrumental in pushing the boundaries of UN drug policy to consider issues related to health, human rights, social inclusion, criminal justice reform and how all of this might contribute to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. However, while recent years have seen a welcome increase in focus on the adverse health consequences of drug use and interventions aiming to reduce them, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and many member states have thus far been resistant to incorporate these critical elements into their main data collection tool – the Annual Reports Questionnaire (ARQ). The ongoing review of this tool has so far been a missed opportunity to fully reconsider what success in global drug policy should look like.

In 2018, IDPC published our landmark Shadow Report ‘Taking stock: A decade of drug policy’, in which we assessed the progress made – or rather, the lack thereof – in global drug policy since the adoption of the 2009 Political Declaration and Plan of Action on drugs, to inform the Ministerial Segment of March 2019. Collaborative work by the IDPC network and other civil society experts was instrumental to obtaining a full picture of the global situation relating drug control approaches on demand and supply, but also on the impacts of drug policies on the broader UN priorities of promoting human rights, development, and advancing peace and security. What we found was extremely worrying. While the UN was in many ways side-stepping difficult questions, drug policies in many parts of the world had become responsible for increased HIV and hepatitis C infections among people who inject drugs, half a million drug use-related deaths in 2015 alone, and tens of thousands of people falling victim to extrajudicial killings, as well as arbitrary and compulsory detention. In the meantime, the prevalence of drug use, the hectares of crops cultivated for the illicit drug trade, and the tons of drugs trafficked had reached record highs. But far from being a wake-up call, UN drug policy debates in Vienna have mainly continued to rely on the business-as-usual approach.

Faced with the clear lack of appetite from both governments and the UN to evaluate the impacts of drug control on communities worldwide in any meaningful way, it seems likely that civil society will once again need to take a proactive stance. The critical role played by civil society in holding governments accountable by creating transparent and informative policy evaluation tools is not a new idea. This has been done before in various policy areas. For instance, Transparency International has, for some time now, been tracking progress made by countries across the world in reducing corruption, with the Global Corruption Perception Index. Journalists without Borders has done the same with their World Press Freedom Index. And the list continues. Indeed, it is now widely recognised that the ‘soft power’ of indices is capable of exerting considerable social pressure and can – via a number of interrelated process – be a potent lever for the generation of policy change.

With this in mind, IDPC and GDPO have now embarked on a similar endeavour, faced with the urgent need to develop a tool that would enable us to track drug policy developments worldwide in a systematic and scientific way, as well as to assess how effective these turned out to be on the ground. The results of this analysis would enable us to compare policies adopted between various countries, and track evolution over time, as well as rank countries according to how well their drug policies have been able to foster improved health, human rights protection, gender equality, social inclusion or violence reduction.

Learning from other composite indices, the proposed Global Drug Policy Index (GDPI) would be a collaborative civil society endeavour (as was the case for the Shadow Report), with the aim of increasing transparency in decision making processes around drugs, promoting new indicators to evaluate drug control, facilitating the participation of civil society in data collection, and ultimately supporting more humane policies and reforms.

We are still in the preliminary stages of development and fundraising for this ambitious tool, but we are excited by the advocacy opportunities that a carefully designed Global Drug Policy Index will bring to the global and national debates on drug policy for the years to come. Stay tuned for more information!

What have the Russians done for us in the international drug policy field? A timely reminder to take back control

Axel Klein, GDPO Senior Research Associate.
April 24, 2019.

At the 62nd meeting of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) in March this year the tensions between states with widely diverging drug policies finally came to the surface. On the floor of the plenary meeting the Russian delegation took Canada to task for ‘violating international law [by] legalising cannabis.’ (http://cndblog.org/2019/03/plenary-item-9-implementation-of-the-international-drug-control-treaties-cont-2/)

The Russia delegate also took issue with the Expert Commission on Drug Dependence of the World Health Organisation for recommending that cannabis be moved from schedule 4 of the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs and placed in the less strict schedule 1. Interestingly, the objection had nothing to do with either the new assessment of the harms posed by cannabis or its medical potential. What had given cause to offence was that the ‘perception of the world of the community would be that legalisation is fine and dandy. Probably the experts don’t have to go through the turmoil of thinking through the repercussions of their decisions. They are technical experts. Nothing more’ (emphasis added).

Technical issues, say of patient benefit, the need to address discrimination and stigma, or pre-empt trafficking were not touched upon. The Russian Federation’s statement also glossed over the fact that the placement was not designed to be permanently fixed. The original founders of the system expected that substances would move across the schedules as more scientific evidence became available. Important to recall here is that at the time that cannabis was slotted into schedule 4, tetrahydrocannabinol, the most important psychoactive substance, had not even been discovered.

The point of Russia’s attack on countries like Canada, Uruguay and several US states– though only Canada was singled out – was the risks that legalisation was having consequences.

Consequentialism has not been a driving force in the history of international drug control, given the ontological foundation of the treaties on the ‘welfare of mankind’. The system architects recruited ‘mankind’ to labour in the construction and then retire. Hence the object of Russian concern were not people in their totality or diverse sub-populations – patients, drug consumers, communities – but the ‘international drug control system’ itself.

Taking this to its logical conclusion, we then understand that adhering to the provisions of the three drug control conventions and the various associated agreements and protocols is only indirectly to do with problems of addiction and substance misuse. Their overriding purpose lies in protecting the functionaries and officials who work in it.

Such proposals tend to resonate particularly with representatives of countries with natural resource-based economies and authoritarian regimes. If the recent focus on human rights has already opened a divide between countries, the question of accountability is likely to push them even further apart. Justifying costly layers of administration to tax-paying electorates (though not to universities), is difficult at the best of times, but particularly when they fail to have a positive purpose.

And yet this is what the international system has long been lacking, at least according to Antonio Maria Costa, the former head of UNODC. In a seminal address to the CND in 2008 he stated with counter-intuitive perspicacity, that the ‘system was no longer fit for purpose’ and unable to contain a number of displacements.(Costa, Antonia Maria, Making drug control ‘fit for purpose’ Building on the UNGASS decade, Report by the Executive Director of the UNODC, 2008) The first he mentioned was the ‘huge criminal black market that now thrives in order to get prohibited substances from producers to consumers.’ Along with these markets comes the full spectrum of crime from large, police and policy corrupting syndicates to addiction fueled shoplifting. Such crime is the trade-off for containing the public health that is threatened by open drug markets. It is on this Faustian pact that the system is build.

(Antonia Maria Costa, UNODC)

Picking up on the admonition by the Russian delegate to consider the repercussions of our actions we need to review the criminogenic effect of drug control. This has to be done repeatedly and publicly precisely because it runs counter to the popular assumptions. In popular folklore, police and paramilitaries are believed to be breaking down doors and shooting up laboratories in ‘response’ to drug criminals. In effect, the causal effect runs the other way. The harder police and magistrates squeeze drug supply, the more devious and brutal the industry becomes when meeting the demand.

The fact that drug control generates crime needs to be repeated to policy makers at every level and may even hold sway with an audience that is otherwise immune to arguments about human rights, patient needs or stigmatization.

At the CND in Vienna most national delegations are comprised of and led by senior law enforcement officers or officials of the Ministry of Interior. If the realisation that vigorous enforcement is resulting in ever more vigorous criminality has not so far had much effect comes down to one of two possible sets of explanation. First, it could be that they are (i) simply not listening, (ii) the causal chain has not been understood, or (iii) is simply not believed. But the second explanation is that the criminal justice sector agencies and public have different objectives. The former are interested in expanding and increasing means and powers to enforce the law. And if public safety is one of the outcomes, so much the better.

In accordance with key tenets of institutional economics we hold that drug control and law enforcement are driven by motives of any social organism – self perpetuation. Hence the need for continuous checks and assessments of policy purpose and outcomes. Since all institutions also include well intentioned and dedicated professionals the need for restating the arguments of criminogenic consequence has to be repeated over and over.

Naturally it is much more difficult to achieve results in thematic areas where key policy decisions have been abstracted by remote and unaccountable international bodies. As the Russian delegate reminds of the importance of repercussions, it is high time to take back control.

Yes, legalizing marijuana breaks treaties. We can deal with that.

By John Walsh, Tom Blickman, Martin Jelsma and Dave Bewley-Taylor

This Op-Ed was originally published in iPolitics on December 11th, 2017

Buzzing in the background of Canada’s debate on cannabis legalization is the issue of the three UN drug control treaties, and what to do with them.

The issue arose during the House of Commons’ consideration of Bill C-45, and may well come up again now that the bill is coming under Senate scrutiny. There is no doubt that legalizing and regulating cannabis markets for non-medical use will mean Canada is no longer in compliance with the obligation under the treaties to restrict cannabis to “medical and scientific” purposes. And Canada will need to address those treaties — in due time.

However, what ‘due time’ should mean has been the subject of some alarmist commentaries. It has been argued that Canada should have initiated the process of withdrawing from the treaties by this past July 1 to avoid a breach of international law when cannabis is legal for recreational use in July, 2018, as the government intends. Some have suggested that, by missing this supposed deadline, Canada has now limited its legal options and might even suffer international sanctions if its reforms continue as scheduled.

This raises two key questions. Did the supposed July 1 deadline really exist? And does Canada really now have fewer options with regard to managing the mismatch between cannabis regulation and UN drug treaties?

The 1961 UN Single Convention specifies that if formal notification of withdrawal from the treaty is submitted before July 1, it takes effect on January 1 of the next year; if notification is submitted after July 1, then withdrawal takes effect a full year later. But at this stage in Canada’s reform effort, the mechanics of the treaty withdrawal process do not dictate hard deadlines. The alarmism about treaty violations, deadlines and delays is misplaced.

Canada certainly has important decisions to make about how to ensure that its impending cannabis reforms will align with its international obligations. As we describe in our report Cannabis Regulation and the UN Drug Treaties: Strategies for Reform, a range of alternatives merit Canada’s careful consideration. Beyond simply withdrawing from the drug treaties, these options include the possibility of withdrawing from and then rejoining the treaties with reservations (a procedure that Bolivia used with regard to coca) or of modifying certain treaty provisions by means of a special agreement among a group of like-minded countries.

In reviewing its options, Ottawa would be wise to be protective of Canada’s positive reputation as a country that upholds international law. But there is no need to postpone the regulation of cannabis, and there is also no reason to rush to withdraw from the drug treaties — certainly not before the relevant legislation has even become law, and not even immediately afterwards.

The experience in Uruguay — the first country in the world to regulate cannabis — demonstrates why immediate withdrawal from the treaties is not necessary. Having justified its policy position via its human rights obligations, Uruguay has suffered no negative consequences beyond mentions in the annual reports of the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), the watchdog of the UN drug conventions — noting that the country’s law regulating cannabis is contrary to the provisions of the drug conventions and urging a resolution.

The United States — where eight states have legalized adult-use cannabis and where the federal government has adopted a policy of accommodation — has received a similar message from the INCB regarding Washington’s legally dubious interpretation of the drug treaties.

Canada has better and more legally-grounded options, and plenty of time to consider them carefully. A good starting point would be for Canada to publicly acknowledge that moving forward with regulation of adult-use of cannabis will result in a period of respectful non-compliance with certain treaty obligations — a route that, in the absence of a seamless transition, displays the appropriate regard for international law.

Canada could explain the reasoning behind its reforms and why the country’s new regulatory approach is justified by the need to realize other domestic and international legal and policy commitments, particularly with regard to public health, child protection and human rights.

Canada is not alone in reforming its cannabis policy, nor is it the first. In addition to Uruguay and the eight U.S. states, many local authorities in other countries, notably in Europe, are pushing national governments to follow suit. In the Netherlands this has resulted in the October 2017 decision of the new coalition government to allow for experiments with regulated supply of cannabis to coffee shops. This would extend toleration of cannabis sales in these premises to tolerated regulation of the supply.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization has initiated a review of the classification of cannabis under the drug conventions. Canada’s cannabis regulation is part of a bigger trend and there is no reason to rush to unilaterally withdraw from the drug conventions. Acting unilaterally may not even be in Canada’s best interests; it could be wiser to act in concert with like-minded states.

The bottom line is that Canada ultimately will need to choose a path forward with regard to cannabis regulation and the drug treaties. But there is no need for hasty decisions and plenty of time for Canada to evaluate its options — and act when the time is ripe.

John Walsh is director for drug policy at WOLA (Washington Office on Latin America) in Washington, DC. Tom Blickman is a senior policy analyst and Martin Jelsma is director of the Drugs & Democracy program of the Netherlands-based Transnational Institute (TNI). Dave Bewley-Taylor is director of the Global Drug Policy Observatory (GDPO), Swansea University, U.K.

Read the Original Publication Here

View from the Ground – Harm reduction, drug policy and the law in the Maghreb: focus on Tunisia and Mauritania

Khalid Tinasti
Honorary Research Associate, Swansea University
July 2017

Introduction:

The Maghreb countries – Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia – while seldom discussed, are crucial to global debates on drug control policies. These countries are at the heart of drug trafficking routes for various substances, from Latin America to Europe, from the Middle East to Europe, and from West Africa to North America. The region is also home to the largest producers of cannabis, as well as amphetamine type stimulants (ATS). Illicit drugs are prohibited and drug laws are harsh if not efficient – Mauritania retains death penalty for drug-related offences.

The Maghreb (in green), copyright epidop.com

This blog will focus on two of these countries, Tunisia and Mauritania, who share common religious, ethnic groups, cultural and socio-economic realities, but face clearly different challenges related to illicit drugs.[i] The two countries nevertheless face a drug trafficking framework which is unparalleled. In fact, the Maghreb and its neighbouring Sahel region represent large desert areas, sparsely populated, with porous borders and the existence of terrorist and other separatist groups. These parameters, combined with failed states and inadequate drug control policies, make drug trafficking thrive. This blog attempts – through available data and literature – to analyse the drug situation currently in both countries, review their drug control laws, and evaluate the outcomes of their implementation. The piece also narrates the current efforts to reform the drug law by the Tunisian government.

The current situation:

There are an estimated 140,000 people who use drugs (PWUD) in Tunisia,[1] with around 10,000 people injecting drugs.[2] Other sources report up to 400.000 PWUD in the country.[3] In 2015, 21.44% of new HIV infections were among people who inject drugs.[4] Moreover, HIV prevalence among this same population has increased from 3% in 2011 to 4% in 2014, while it is of 0,1% in the general population.[5] This increase takes place in the absence of a national strategy of harm reduction. There are no opioid substitution programmes, and the distribution of syringes is mainly undertaken by non-governmental organizations. In 2013, the 48.000 syringes distributed in the country were by the ATIOST, the ATUPRET and the ATL-MST.[6] The prevalence of hepatitis C in the same population is 29%.[ii]

Drug control policies are steered through law 52 adopted in February 1992 – referred to as law 92-52. The law, which sentences prison terms even for simple use or consumption, has resulted in an unprecedented prison overcrowding, mainly targeting young males incarcerated on cannabis use charges. Out of the 25.000 inmates in the country prisons, 8.000 are incarcerated for drug offences, of which it is estimated that 9 out of 10 are there for simple possession or personal use,1 the law allowing for urine tests in prisons and in the community to prove the consumption. In 2015, 7.451 people were arrested and prosecuted for drug offences, of which about 70% were related to cannabis possession or consumption.[7] A year later, 8.984 people were arrested on the same charges, with 6.212 of them aged 18 to 30 years old.[8]

In Mauritania, data on the prevalence of drug use is unavailable. Similarly, the prevalence of HIV among the general population reaching 0,6%, the prevalence among people who inject or use drugs is unavailable. More worryingly, the National Committee to fight AIDS does not recognize PWID as a key population most at risk of acquiring HIV.[9], The non-inclusion of PWUD as a key population deters a discussion on evidence-based interventions to respond to AIDS, including prevention, harm reduction services and treatment.

Rather, the debate on drugs focuses heavily on trafficking, with Mauritanian authorities, media and other stakeholders considering that the country is only a transit country. This vision of a country where illicit drugs transit – through the routes of Senegal, Mali, Algeria, Niger, Morocco or the Canary Islands – and where there is no local consumption is emphasized by the geographic position of Mauritania, its limited population (4 million inhabitants), and a large, desert and difficult to control territory. Whether such assertion is true or not – it remains difficult to define in the lack of data on illicit drug use – the country rightly faces challenges related to the smuggling and trafficking of drugs, intertwined with terrorist groups’ financing and their unlawful intrusion in the Mauritanian territory. Drug-related cases often make the headlines in Mauritanian media, due to the large seizures of illicit drugs by customs and law enforcement agents, including cases where relatives of former Presidents or former Presidents themselves are cited.[10][11] The nature of the implication of political authorities in drug trafficking remains anecdotal since it is not proven. Nevertheless, the characteristics of drug trafficking depends on many parameters that are specific to Mauritania and the Sahel region. As stated earlier, the country has a large desert territory that is difficult to control. Moreover, trafficking relies on ethnic groups, their inter-relationships and their control of their territories that transcend the Sahel borders.[12]

Drug seizure in northern Mauritania by the Gendarmerie (military law enforcement). Copyright Sahara Medias

Very limited data shows that there is a small cannabis production in the south of the country near the Senegal River, while cocaine is imported from Latin America and heroin from Asia through Nigeria or other West African countries.[13] Trafficking of illicit drugs includes alcohol, which is a banned substance in Mauritania. Moreover, Mauritania’s authorities address money laundering as the banking system is sensitive to drug profits laundering, mainly due to the important volume of foreign currency circulating from tradespeople and other economic emigrants working mainly in the Gulf countries.

The laws and policies for drug use and trafficking:

Tunisia, country of the Jasmine revolution and youth-driven democratization, has the harshest law in terms of repression of drug use and possession for personal use. Mauritania, on the other hand, is the only Maghreb country sentencing drug traffickers and growers/producers to death penalty.

The Tunisian law – to be explored in more detail below – punishes individuals who consume or possess a narcotic or psychotropic drug with imprisonment of one to five years and with a monetary fine between 400 and 1.200 USD (1.000 to 3.000 Tunisian Dinars). It also punishes the attempt to consume or possess drugs with the same sanction. Therefore, the Tunisian law punishes the possession for the purpose of consumption and for the actual consumption even if there is no possession involved. The court may as well force the convicted offender to undergo detoxification for a period set by a medical doctor at a public hospital. If the detoxification is refused, a permit can be issued by the president of the court forcing the offender to undergo this treatment in a compulsory manner.[14] The most problematic provision of the law, until its partial reform in April 2017 (see following section), was article 12 of the law, providing that judges cannot take into account mitigating factors, and have to pronounce a prison sentence for drug use offences. This was problematic as the law 52 was the only one in the Tunisian criminal code to deprive judges of their free choice and of sentencing proportionally to the offences. Under the terms of the law as well, traffickers and growers of narcotics are sentenced to prison terms from 6 to 10 years, while those importing or exporting drugs face a minimum of ten years of incarceration, up to a life sentence.

“Our kids and friends are not criminals #end law 52”[iii]

In Mauritania, the law responds to drug use and possession for personal use by a prison term of a maximum of two years and a monetary fine between 140 and 280 USD (50.000 to 100.000 Mauritanian Ouguiya). Prosecutors also have the obligation to inform health authorities about the arrest of people who use drugs. The health authorities investigate the health conditions and family conditions of the arrested individual, and prescribe mandatory detoxification. Producers and growers of illicit drugs face 15 to 30 years in prison, the same penalty as drug traffickers. This punishment, in case of recidivists, becomes a sentence to the capital punishment. Finally, laundering illicit drugs’ profits is punished by a prison term between 10 to 40 years.[15]

It is also important to note that both laws have been amended and adopted following the adoption of the United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances in 1988 and right before the adoption of the Arab Convention against Illicit Use of and Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances in 1994. The articles of both countries’ laws and the lack of proportionality vis-à-vis the real severity of the offences represent an example of the interpretation countries make of the international drug conventions, and the impact these conventions have on people’s lives when implemented on the ground, far from the debates of diplomats drafting and negotiating them in multilateral forums.

What reform for the Tunisian drug law?

In Tunisia, the excessive number of young people arrested under the provisions of law 92-52 started a heated debate on the need for its reform. This debate has been deepened through the use of the law provisions to arrest young Jasmine revolutionaries, and by their own capacity to stand for their rights in the post-Revolution era.[16] Movements such as the Sajin52 (prisoner 52) emerged and denounced the law. In his 2014 presidential campaign, the current head of state Béji Caïd Essebsi promised a reform of the law and denounced the use of prison terms for first-time drug use. In December 2015, his government approved a new narcotics bill to amend law 52, and introduce the following provisions: i) the establishment of a national drug observatory to collect data; ii) the establishment of treatment centres, including the introduction of substitution therapy; iii) the diversion of first and second-time offenders, arrested for use, to social services (third-time offenders will serve the same terms as the current law provides, between one and five years); and iv) the possibility of judges to decide on the most appropriate sentences.[17]

Infographic by the movement “Al habes lé” (no incarceration) calling to reform law 52

The latter, targeted at article 12 of law 92-52, has been amended in April 2017 when Parliament gave judges the right to apply Article 53 of the Criminal Code to reduce penalties, not only for consumption, detention and consumer intent (Article 4 of law 52) but also for attending consumption spaces (Article 8 of Law 52).[18]

The process leading to this partial amendment started with the submission to Parliament of bill 79 amending law 52. With the bill not finding a majority necessary for passage into law for more than 12 months, President Essebsi decided in January 2017 to use his executive powers to freeze all the arrests related to Law 92-52, and urged Parliament to find a consensus and vote for the reform. A month later, the President convened a meeting of the National Security Council, which decided to revise the criteria for granting special grace to people charged with drug use or possession, and to have the Grace Committee meet once a month to overturn the judges’ decisions on arrests. The National Security Council also repealed partially law 92-52, and specifically its article 12 leading to the reform of April 2017 by Parliament, giving judges the capacity to take into account mitigating factors.

In the current economic, social and security framework in Tunisia, where tensions among society are numerous – from the declining standards of living of the population, the decline of the industrial, tourism and service sectors, as well as the security and fight against terrorism – the calendar of the adoption of bill 79 in Parliament remains unclear.

Conclusion:

The debate on drug policies in the Maghreb, when it occurs, is usually focused on Morocco, the largest producer of cannabis in the world, and one of the main suppliers of the European Union due to its geographic proximity with Spain. With the deterioration of the security situation in the Sahel and the rise of terrorist risks, along with some evidence that terrorist groups are either involved in trafficking, protect traffickers or benefit from trafficking revenues,[19] combined with the disintegration of the state apparatus in the fifth Maghreb country, Libya, is also beginning to attract some interest.

Nevertheless, as discussed here, other states within the region are increasingly worthy of attention with debate around drug policy emerging for a complex range of internal, societal and social peace reasons.
Tunisia is currently being driven to reform its policies due to the population’s pressure, while this debate does not exist in Mauritania. However, while differences exist on this point,, the two countries seem to share a common lack of understanding of drug policies, providing similar legal responses to people who use drugs (PWUD), to small players in the illegal drug market (small dealers, farmers and other couriers), and to large-scale traffickers and terrorist groups suspected of trafficking illicit drugs to fund their terror actions. Such policies, intended to deter drugs’ presence in society, are failing to achieve their objectives and are extremely costly to society, to the criminal justice and health systems.

While it remains unclear when the Tunisian drug policy reform will take place, it provides the brightest prospect of reform in the Maghreb, as bill 79 will bring along the first policies based on evidence, and provide space for scientific monitoring to inform and fill gaps in the future. The adoption of this bill, its successful implementation and flexibility, as well as its tight monitoring is all highly important not only for the Tunisian society but the whole Maghreb.

[I] This is the second and last blog on drug policy in the Maghreb. The first blog was published in October 2016 and titled “View from the Ground – Harm reduction, drug policy and the law in the Maghreb: focus on Morocco and Algeria”.

[ii] In Mauritania, HIV key populations are female sex workers and their clients, women and youth, inmates, people living with STIs, truckers, sailors and fishermen.

[iii]Protest against law 52 in front of the Assembly of the Representatives of the People (Parliament) on 28 December 2015. Copyright Nawaat

[1] Amraoui, A. Drogues : une jeunesse victime de l’échec de la politique de prévention. Nawaat.org; September 2015. Available from: https://nawaat.org/portail/2015/09/05/tunisie-drogues-jeunesse-victime-echec-politique-prevention/ (accessed 10 July 2017)

[2] Tunisie Numérique. 10 000 toxicomanes usagers de drogue intraveineuse en Tunisie. Turess; April 2012. Available from: http://www.turess.com/fr/numerique/119208 (accessed 10 July 2017)

[3] Bentamansourt, N. Tunisie-Drogue : 3,9% des consommateurs contaminés par le VIH! African Manager; October 2016. Available from: https://africanmanager.com/mots-cles/association-tunisienne-de-la-prevention-contre-la-toxicomanie/ (accessed 10 July 2017)

[4] Africaine Santé. VIH/SIDA en Tunisie: Où en est-on? December 2015. Available from: http://africaine-sante.com.tn/a-la-une/vihsida-en-tunisie-ou-en-est-on/ (accessed 10 July 2017)

[5] UNAIDS. Key Populations Atlas: Tunisia- People who inject drugs: HIV Prevalence 2014. UNAIDS; 2014. Available from: http://www.aidsinfoonline.org/kpatlas/#/home (accessed 10 July 2017)

[6] National HIV/AIDS Programme of Tunisia. Rapport d’activités sur la riposte au sida 2012-2013. UNAIDS; 2014.

[7] Human Rights Watch. « Tout ça pour un joint » La loi répressive sur la drogue en Tunisie et comment la réformer. Tunis; December 2015. Available from: https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/report_pdf/tunisia0216fr_sumandrecs_.pdf (accessed 11 July 2017)

[8] African Manager. Tunisie-stupéfiants : Le bilan de 2016 en chiffres. March 2017. Available from: https://africanmanager.com/tunisie-stupefiants-le-bilan-de-2016-en-chiffres/ (accessed 10 July 2017)

[9] Comité national de lutte contre le Sida. Rapport d’activité sur la réponse au sida en Mauritanie 2014. Nouakchott; March 2014. Available from: http://www.unaids.org/sites/default/files/country/documents/MRT_narrative_report_2014.pdf (accessed 10 July 2017)

[10] Berghezan, G. Panorama du trafic de cocaïne en Afrique de l’Ouest. Group for Research and Information on Peace and Security: Brussels; June 2012.

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Need Versus Greed: the Complex Nature of Opium Farming in the North East of India

This blog was written by Romesh Bhattacharji, former Narcotics Commissioner of India, founding member of the Institute of Narcotics Studies and Analysis (INSA) and GDPO Technical Advisor

During the shooting of the film Raw Opium in March 2009 I was interviewed in a poor man’s steep and low yielding opium field in Kadong village of Anjaw district in eastern Arunachal Pradesh, India. The village is a good three hours uphill march from a motorable mountain road. I was overwhelmed by the unrelenting misery that I saw amongst the poor who cultivate opium mainly for their own use and barter the small surplus for essentials like utensils and kerosene oil. Faced with such abysmal poverty and the continuing brutal living conditions, I was so sad and swamped by waves of ineffective empathy that I forgot to highlight the fact that there are both rich and poor cultivators. As soon as I saw the finished film a year later I realised that I ought to have distinguished between those that farm on account of need and those that are producing poppies commercially.

A poor man’s opium field on a steep hill side (photo: Romesh Bhattacharji)

Within a year of filming Raw Opium in Arunachal Pradesh, some ex-narcocrats got together to form a think tank – the Institute for Narcotics Studies and Analysis (INSA) – to analyse the drug laws and consequential problems in India. I helped plan a survey that would quantify as precisely as possible opium cultivation and its use in Anjaw and Lohit districts in Arunachal Pradesh, a border state in the North East of India.

The actual survey, carried out by young college students from opium cultivating families, found that a few rich farmers (less than 15%) produced the large majority of the opium. It was noted that the villages close to the road cultivated opium on a commercial scale, while those away from the road (especially in Anjaw district) did so only to provide marginal subsistence and support their addiction. The wealthier farmers have benefited the most from development programmes including financial subsidies for businesses and agriculture such as orange orchards and cardamom plantations, help with marketing their products, interest free loans, free school and college education and free electricity, as well as large-scale government investment in infrastructure projects such as dams, all weather roads, hospitals and schools, employment schemes and health care.

The rich farmers, who were once poor themselves, have properties all over the region and are now able to send their children away to be educated to become engineers, bureaucrats, businessmen, doctors, professors, politicians and so on. The poor opium cultivators now hope that one day roads will reach their villages so that they can also become rich by growing opium on a commercial scale. It should be noted however, that many villages reported that they are ready to give up opium cultivation if a viable agricultural alternative is available.

Approximately 95% of villages in Anjaw and 89% of villages in Lohit district had opium addicts: the total number of addicts was almost 11,000 in number in both the districts (largely males but also about a 1000 females). In both districts there were addicts as young as 15 years old. Very few addicts received treatment but a number of them – almost 1600 addicts – were interested in the possibility of treatment. Unfortunately most of the villages did not have any health care facilities nor were there any community efforts in this direction. It should be noted that whilst locally grown opium is sometimes used for medicinal and ritual purposes, it is increasingly used to support addiction.

A line has to be drawn between greed and need. Those in the former category are selling opium to neighbouring states, to new and old users, and for conversion to heroin. Such cultivators deserve the full brunt of efficient eradication and jail. Those that are poor often grow the opium for their own use and therefore deserve to be given access to opium via the now defunct Opium Registry. The Government of India set up the Opium Registry in 1971 whereby registered opium users received doctor-certified dosages of opium from government stores. At the beginning of the programme there were about 300,000 people enrolled on the programme. More than forty years later, less than a handful are alive to benefit from it and new users are not added to the programme. All over India there are at least 2 million opium users. They get their doses from illicit cultivation and from diversion from licit opium cultivation.

It is my belief that the Opium Registry should be revived on order to curb opium cultivation. If the opium user/cultivator is given opium by the government he or she will not need to cultivate it. Opium fields could then be eradicated without endangering any one’s health. In 1999, whilst Narcotics Commissioner, I recommended that the Government of India revive the system but the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) objected, and the idea was dropped. In 2004 the National Drug Dependence Treatment Centre (NDDTC) of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi held a workshop where this topic was discussed further, but nothing came of it.

I have been monitoring the plight of the poor opium cultivators since my first visit to the region in January 1987. More than two score visits followed. Until 2003, as Narcotics Commissioner of India, I used to help eradicate illicit opium fields in these parts and elsewhere in India. In India it is still being done as tenderly as possible: no one is arrested and in the operations I participated in, a little would be left for personal use.

The local government administrators in the late 1980s and early 1990s thought that development and eradication would wean the cultivators away from opium cultivation. It did for a while and the opium available for sale decreased. By the end of the 1990s there were only small cultivators. There were a few large fields but these were collectively cultivated by entire villages. By the end of the 1990s opium cultivation was down to a few hectares in these two districts. However in recent years things have changed and now poppy cultivation is in the thousands of hectares.

The young were initially against opium cultivation but their elders would not listen as they required it for their own use. Development did improve the lives of some villages: electricity and computers have reached wherever the roads have gone, where people once had to walk for days to get to the district headquarters, there are now many buses and taxis and privately owned vehicles plying the roads round the clock; where earlier most people were poorly clothed, they are now dressed in jeans and warm jackets and the young now deliver opium on expensive motorbikes; previously everyone in the district lived off the land, many now have different occupations. In the past they were reluctant to leave their homes and families as they would have no news from their families for months but now they have mobile phones and computers which have helped them leave their homes for employment all over the country.

However despite these improvements in living standards for some, poverty is still rampant in the region and poppy growth is on the rise once again. As has been mentioned above, now those who have gained from the improvements in infrastructure have turned to farming opium for commercial use rather than in order to survive.