High Peak Liberal Democrats

What next for Lib Dem drug policy?

Wow, what a month March was for Liberal Democrat drug policy. First, the Lib Dem-commissioned independent panel report on cannabis regulation was published, advocating a framework for a fully legal regulated market for cannabis. Secondly, Norman Lamb proposed a motion to adopt the framework of the panel report as official party policy, which was subsequently voted in near-unanimously at conference. Finally, Norman presented a 10 Minute Rule Bill to the Commons, presenting our newly adopted policy to the rest of the House with an impassioned speech. The motion was voted through without contest and will now receive its second hearing later this month, on April 22nd. Progress indeed, although sadly it is deeply unlikely that the Bill will get past its second hearing.

However, before we congratulate ourselves too much having the most progressive drug policy of any UK party, we must ask ourselves what next? Where do we go from here? To know this, we must look at our existing policies, at what declarations we may have forgotten, and what new evidence can be brought to bear in shaping a truly liberal, evidence-based drug policy.

Ewan Hoyle, a long-time activist for drug policy reform within our party, alluded to this at conference, where he reminded the audience of the wider aims of our drug policy. In particular, he pointed out that much of the harm associated with drug use is often related to harder drugs, and it is these harms that it is essential we mitigate with intelligent policy interventions.

The long-standing principles of our party's drug policy are that it must be evidence-based, respect the rights of the individual, work towards harm reduction, and be realistic. In our current political situation though, what is realistic needs consideration. We could, as some suggested, ask the independent panel of experts that conducted the cannabis report to reconvene and write reports investigating regulated frameworks for every other psychoactive substance in use. However, this would be very time costly, and in many cases, produce suggested regulatory frameworks that, despite their great merit, would not be politically palatable. I would suggest an alternative, a more incremental approach to advances in our drug policy, one that encourages change to come from a local level, rather than top-down decisions that, for the foreseeable future, are politically unrealistic.

What do I mean by this? Here are two disparate examples that, in my opinion at least, are both essential and robustly evidence-based, whilst also politically achievable; they also share some interesting common ground. The first is the adoption of drug testing facilities at clubs and festivals, or as walk-in centres, as exist in the Netherlands. These allow people using drugs, particularly club drugs like MDMA, to have them tested for impurities and strength, which prevents people ingesting unintended, dangerous substances, or overdosing on unexpectedly pure samples. The adoption of such testing facilities also comes with a raft of proven knock-on benefits.

The second, mentioned in Lib Dem policy documents as far back as 2002, is that of supervised injection facilities for injecting drug users, generally opiates. The benefits of such facilities have been immediately evident, with all examples of supervised injection facilities showing a dramatic, and often near-complete reduction of deaths from injecting drug overdoses within their communities. Another benefit of these facilities is it increases contact time between medical and support staff and injecting drug users, creating opportunities to provide advice and support for this particularly hard to reach group of drug using people.

The common ground between both policies is that they can both be instigated without making great changes to general drug laws, (although both are also easier, more effective and more feasible when drug decriminalisation policies are in place,) but merely by an adoption of de facto decriminalised spaces (testing or supervised injecting facilities), whereby drug users can make use of the services being provided without fear of criminal prosecution. As such schemes can be instigated at a local level, both are ideal candidates for 'bottom up' approaches to drug policy reform. A progressive and determined local authority could pilot such schemes to prove their worth at a local level, and in doing so put much greater pressure on government to roll out such schemes nationally, or at least provide valuable evidence that would help to persuade other local authorities to adopt similar schemes.

The challenge of instigating such schemes is that they would require close cooperation of both local health and police services and the support of local government and communities, but it is just such an approach that would suit Liberal Democrat aims of localised government and community-focused initiatives. The key difficulties would be convincing local authorities and police forces to adopt such initiatives, as it has often been the conservative nature of these authorities that has prevented such initiatives from being instigated. For example, it is generally the threat of event license removal by uncooperative local authorities that has prevented festivals from offering drug testing facilities of any kind, a move that unequivocally increases the health risks to the many festivalgoers who consume drugs at such events.

It is incredibly heartening to see the party adopting bold drug reform policies such as regulation of cannabis, but without political might in Westminster, we must also consider how we can usefully influence drug policy by looking at what may be achieved at a local level.

* Dr Henry Fisher is a Liberal Democrat and ALDES member living in London. He is the policy editor for VolteFace, a new platform that offers fresh perspectives on drug policy, lifestyle, and culture.

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