The Evidence Base for UK Drug Policy

1
The Evidence Base for UK Drug Policy
Alex Stevens
2
Evidence for policy

• The policy dilemma
• Government expected to solve drug problems, but
• Government action has limited effect on patterns
  of drug use.
• Four strands of the new drug strategy
• Protecting communities (crime and supply
  reduction)
• Preventing harm to children, young people and
  families.
• Drug treatment and social re-integration.
• Public information campaigns
• The unmentioned strand
• Increased imprisonment, focused especially on
  black men.

3
Drugs and crime
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Drugs and crime (2)

• Policy based on the assumption of a causal link
  from drugs to crime, but
• This is challenged by evidence from arrestee
  data, which suggests that socio-economic
  variables are more important in predicting
  frequency of offending.
• It ignores role of drug prohibition in increasing
  drug prices and influencing levels of
  economic-compulsive offending.
• Arrestees form a minority of offenders, so
  interventions targeted only on arrestees will
  struggle to have major impacts on crime.

5
Supply reduction

• Source country production remains high
• Afghanistan produced 8,200 tons of opium in 2007
  (34 increase on 2006).
• Expected fall this year due to weather.
• Drug law enforcement supports huge profit margins
• Heroin - 16,800
• Cocaine - 15,800
• (Coffee 413)
• Low proportions of drugs are seized
• Pudney et al 2006 estimates
• Heroin - 12
• Cocaine 9
• Cannabis - 25

6
Supply reduction (2)

• Policy response
• Improved international co-operation on production
  and trafficking.
• Asset seizure of traffickers/producers in UK.
• Post-conviction ASBOs for drug dealers
• Weak evidence base
• Some suggestion from US RICO act that asset
  seizure can deter organised crime from the drugs
  trade.

7
Preventing harm to children and families

• There is strong evidence of harm
• 1,366 drug-related deaths in England Wales in
  2006.
• HIV and Hepatitis C increasing among injecting
  drug users
• But these harms are absent from the strategys
  action plan.
• Harms to children
• Proportion of children under 16 living with
  problem drug user
• 2- 3 in England, 4-5 in Scotland.
• Reduction in delivery of support to parents by
  specialist services, despite Hidden Harm.
• Strong need for support to vulnerable families,
  as included in the action plan.

8
Drug treatment and social reintegration
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Drug treatment and social reintegration (2)

• Good evidence on
• Reductions in illicit drug use.
• Reductions in individual offending.
• Less good evidence on
• Achieving abstinence.
• Encouraging employment.
• Differential impacts
• Early exit by young, homeless and stimulant
  users.
• Problems for dual diagnosis and black and
  minority ethnic groups.
• Evidence of need for personalised, mainstreamed
  services
• As included in the strategy.

10
Public information campaigns

• Very little evidence of effect in reducing drug
  use and related harm.
• The high reach and awareness of Frank does not
  mean that it is effective.
• 94 of 15-18 year-olds recognise Frank adverts
• 13 of surveyed Frank website visitors (16-18)
  say they would say no to drugs.
• No basis for using the classification of cannabis
  as a public information tool.

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Prison - The unmentioned drug policy.
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Conclusions

• Good evidence for treatment and harm reduction
• Weak evidence for drug prevention and law
  enforcement
• Gaps in the evidence base
• Socio-economic influences on drug use and harm.
• The effects of supply reduction.
• Effective tactics for law enforcement.
• How to improve drug treatment effects
• Personalisation
• Wraparound services
• How to persuade public and politicians that
  evidence matters.