Dr. John Collins on why we need to stop criminalising people for taking drugs & the last gasps of the prohibitionist movement

Dr. John Collins, the Executive Director of the London School of Economics’ Drug Policy Unit, has expanded on the letter of rebuttal that thirteen leading drug policy research academics wrote last week in response to claims made by the Cannabis Risk Alliance.
Countering the CRA’s assertion that, “Decriminalisation and ‘medical cannabis’ campaigns have proven to be effective ‘Trojan horse’ strategies on the road to full legalisation,” Collins and his colleagues pointed out that: “Evidence worldwide clearly shows that societies with tougher drug laws do not have lower rates of drug use than those with less repressive regimes. But the damage caused by unnecessary criminal records and the costs of law enforcement and public health working at cross-purposes are now clear. The ideas underpinning criminalisation came from a different era, one where our understandings of drug dependence and consumption were limited by an absence of science and compassion for individuals who use drugs.”
Talking to Hot Press, the Dubliner says: “All of the people I contacted were happy to sign up to the letter very quickly. These are people who’ve worked with and understand the concerns of police agencies who are willing to consider this from a public health perspective. These are not people who sit isolated in their academic towers; they’re working and consulting with frontline services on a daily basis.”
Asked whether we’re revisiting the Reefer Madness/Just Say No days of yore, Collins continues: “These are the rearguard actions of a failing paradigm. We see these narratives in the US – ‘This is a disaster, this is the corporate takeover of marijuana, this is a slippery slope to an ‘anything goes’ society’ – but what the public comes to realise is that the worst case doesn’t necessarily materialise; that this is just a case of social progress and we’re moving on in these issues. So, rather than it being a step backwards, I see these statements as being a last throw of the prohibitionist dice.”
Does Collins get a sense of where the broader Irish medical community stands on marijuana?
“It’s a complicated one,” he admits. “Any public health expert should be concerned about what shape and direction we’re going in with cannabis legalisation. But that is to completely blur these issues, which are so distinct, around how the criminal justice system interacts with either problematic drug use or non-problematic drug use. The medical profession may be struggling to comprehend what is a rapidly changing policy sphere, but it’s important that we keep some of these issues distinct in our mind. Decriminalisation is not necessarily a ‘slippery slope’ into legalisation.”
Asked about the Cannabis Risk Alliance’s notion of medicinal cannabis being a “Trojan horse”, Collins responds: “Places that legalise medicinal cannabis tend to be among the first to legalise recreational cannabis. That’s nothing to do, though, with Trojan horses. It's simply to do with it breeding familiarity among those communities who start to realise that they’re not uncomfortable with a move towards legalisation. Where it’s happened in the United States it’s been by an overwhelming democratic decision. This is not something done by the back-door. This is put to public ballot. They’ve also seen what’s happened in those areas that have legalised recreational cannabis – increased tax revenues and how they can be used, removing the illicit market and decriminalising all these communities that have been effected by it – and decided that, ‘This is better than what we have now.’ It shouldn’t need saying but the 'War On Drugs' has failed.”
Addressing the Cannabis Risk Alliance’s concerns about "the mental and physical health of our young people", Collins concludes: “We’re not advocating that younger people have more access to cannabis. In fact, we specifically say in our rebuttal that cannabis can be particularly harmful for younger people. What we are saying is that the criminalisation associated with it can destroy their career chances and ability to travel, and have all sorts of other traumatic effects. It’s saying, ‘The policy shouldn’t be worse than the symptom it’s trying to ameliorate.’”
Expect this one to run and run...