I have been thinking more recently about why the criminalisation of drugs doesn’t work. I went to a brilliant talk the other night by Neil Woods who worked undercover for 14 years to put drug dealers and drug users away for their “crimes”. He realised that what was actually happening as a result of police work was that violence was increasing, there was always another, even nastier, dealer waiting to step into the shoes of those he had helped to put away. As they became aware of the strategies the police were using, the violence became worse.

In one town, the drug rate was so high that it was suspected that drug users were being given lethal doses of drugs and of course, when they died, it just ended up looking like accidental overdose. He asked an investigating officer one day how long the streets had been drug free after helping to arrest around 90 people and it was two hours. That’s all it took before somebody else took over!

They talk about how this might work in practice, and have five models to regulate the supply of drugs. These include having licensed medical practitioners selling drugs only, that different drugs will need to have different regulations (not a one size fits all) and having heroin consumption rooms so that people are getting their heroin PLUS support and care to reduce their usage and lead a better life. People just don’t know what they’re getting when they buy drugs on the street and regulation would stop that. Human Rights will also be protected which, at the moment, they are not.

We’re not just talking about heroin and cocaine here though. The Loop do some amazing harm reduction work in the UK, allowing festival goers and clubbers to test their drugs before they take them, with no risk of arrest. They also provide harm reduction advice (in other words, if people are choosing to take drugs, they teach them to do it safely). Not only have they found drugs being cut, sometimes completely, with concrete and anti-malaria tablets, but also that the strength has increased massively in MDMA, which has led to the increase of deaths caused by ecstasy.

Anyone’s Child are a project made up of families who have sadly lost a loved one through drugs. They are campaigning to change the UK drug laws and are doing a fantastic job. They obviously know that if drug laws were different, and regulated there is a good chance their loved one’s would be alive today. Their figures show that 50% of fifteen-year olds are offered illegal drugs. That might come as a shock to some, but it’s true.

During those adolescent and experimental years, many of the children will say yes. I know, because I remember from my own childhood about my exposure to drugs, and also, I saw the effects of drug use when I worked in a Young Offenders Institution. I used to deliver induction for all the young men in custody and my first question was “Who is here because they have committed a drug related crime or when you have been under the influence of drugs?” every week, nearly every hand shot up. Yes, you could put this down to bravado, but actually it wasn’t. It was my team’s job to assess every young person in the prison to establish whether they needed help. We got to know them and nearly all did. I wrote more about this here.

That’s not to say that all children that use drugs will end up in prison because many people don’t and may use most of their lives without having any problems. Also, around 10% of users of any drug will develop and addiction. The point is that ANYONE’s child could be exposed to drugs, even once, and that world can be a dangerous place.