Tendencies in European drugs legislation

The attempts of the Italian government to reverse the "zero tolerance" policy and re-establish the distinction between hard and soft drugs, and put the emphasis on "prevention rather than punishment" and "treatment and rehabilitation rather than repression", can be seen as aligning drugs legislation within the European tendency.

Although some countries maintain their criminalisation and penalisation of drugs use, and the enlargement of the EU has brought ten new countries where deprivation of liberty are common sanctions for drugs use, all other countries have increasingly accepted drug use to be “a minor offence”, particularly in the case of cannabis.

The tension seems to remain a highly controversial issue at the international level, particularly strong at the UN drugs level. Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, issued a warning at the publication of the World Drug report in June 2006, that cannabis posed "health risks" similar to those caused by heroin.

A EMCCDA (European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drugs Addiction) in a study on European legislative approaches on illicit drugs use of 2005, concluded that each country apparently has the space to define it’s own sanctions on drug use, other than scientific and medical, as prescribed by the UN conventions. Prison sentences in these countries do not seem to be perceived as effective, and the courts seem to prefer treatment and other social support measures like administrative sanctions like fines, when no aggravating circumstances are present. The report continues stating that this tendency should not be interpreted as a “relaxation” or “softening” of the drug policy in Europe, but rather as an adapted response to illegal conduct.

This may be seen as a contradiction, but in fact this study has made some important facts explicit, which are still far from reaching a consensus on the global level:

- The insights gained in daily practise of dealing with problematic drug use in many European cities, have shown that harm reduction measures work. Many examples of needle exchange programmes and drug users rooms have proofed being effectively superior in terms of helping people with their problems related to drug consumption, to repressive measures.
- Small steps are made to put legislation back into the reality: diverging effects of substances consumed: distinguishing between cannabis on the one hand, and heroine and cocaine on the other, show that policies should be sensitive to what kind of drugs we are talking about
- Scientific evidence, rather than moral judgement or future doom scenarios are increasingly being recognized as the only acceptable basis for drug policies.

The importance of this should not be underestimated, as a signal from Europe in taking a lead in the UN reform agenda on the drugs question. But much still needs to be accomplished; and within Europe divisions are still strong. The EU principle, set forward in the European Drugs Strategy 2005-2012, to present one common position in the global arena of drug policy, the UN Commission of Narcotic Drugs, has met difficulties. Eventhough Harm reduction has been accepted in it for the first time as a policy too, some countries and sometimes simply individuals take harsh positions towards changes. More active and proactive members within the Horizontal Drug Group, where EU policies are defined, are desperately needed in order to bring the debate forward. The Netherlands and the UK often stand alone in their attempts to get more progressive positions and more daring strategies agreed.

Although tendencies on the consumption side lean increasingly to a consensus towards harm reduction policies, the one area in which European legislation, both at the national as the communal level, show an opposite tendency, is on the supply side strategies. More and more specialized police units and intelligence systems are being developed across Europe, with the one and only purpose to prevent drugs to enter the markets, cut availability and drive the prices up. In fact, the opposite is happening:

Illegal drugs may be cheaper than ever before in Europe, with prices of heroin slumping 45 percent and cocaine down 22 percent over five years, according to the 2006 annual report of the EMCCDA. The five-year price analysis in the Lisbon-based agency’s report shows that the price of virtually all drugs in Europe, from cannabis to ecstasy, cocaine and heroin slumped from 1999 to 2004. Price is just one of many factors that prompt people to take drugs and there is no simple way of saying it is spurring more drug users, the report also said.

Measurable results on this side of the balanced approach will be expressed in terms of quantities seized, persons arrested and hectares destroyed. Compared to the demand reduction strategy, where finally a more realistic view is integrated, this hard side of drug control needs to be seriously reconsidered.

The EU Action Plan and the Strategy do not in itself constitute the ultimate goal, if the drug problem in our societies is not measurably reduced, so it says. But still, both sides of this balanced approach, demand and supply, are assumed to complement and reinforce each other. The exact form how to balance interventions on both sides of the chain, however, is not a question that receives much attention.

The evaluation of the EU Action Plan 2000-2004 also points out this inherent contradiction. While describing in very positive terms all the advances in supply control measures that have been undertaken in these past five years, in the brief section on the ‘Assessment of the impact on the drug situation’ the evaluation concludes, “the available information does not suggest that the availability of drugs has been reduced substantially”.

While increase in supply side reduction has been met, based on figures of coca and opium fields eradicated, there is no reason to be too optimistic about the disruptive force this might imply, baring in mind how illicit markets have adjusted to new situations before. In the case of coca it is important to point out that so far the international cocaine markets have not yet shown signs of supply shortage, purity is not falling, prices have not risen, consumers do not yet complain about lack of availability. In the Andean region we see some signs of adaptations that might still prove to be capable in coming years to restore a balance in the market: increased yields per hectare, the appearance of production in new regions in Colombia, and some increases in production figures for Bolivia and Peru.

As for the opium/heroin market, the Southeast Asian production decline is likely to have only a regional impact, because European and U.S. markets are almost entirely fed from opium production in Afghanistan and Latin America (Colombia/Mexico).

The European cannabis market shows a different picture: a large share of the cannabis consumed is produced to an increasing extent within the countries themselves. Although the- mainly- Moroccan contribution to consumption in Southern Europe is dominant, in Northern Europe much cannabis is grown locally and traded between countries. Increased interdiction to cannabis growers, even towards small-scale producers, in the case of my country, is leading to different problems.

Let me finalise by talking briefly about the current situation in the Netherlands, where the famous drug policy of controlled sale of cannabis through Coffeeshops still has not reached total political support for it’s useful contributions to harm reduction and market separation. The official policy nowadays is one of de-tolerance, combining active control of the Coffeeshop-sector and going after the growers. Small-scale good quality growers disappear and the heavy guys take over, and the quality goes down. Many shops have closed down, and cases of shortage of cannabis have been reported lately. Some of the trade is going underground, and a figure is mentioned of 60% of all cannabis consumption in the Netherlands bought in the informal circuit. This development will need a political response from the new centre-left government, although it seems to be a non-issue for them. Nowadays the cannabis debate evolves around details, like the distance of these establishments to schools, applied by local authorities by differing standards, and not about how to resolve the so-called backdoor problem. If sale is permitted or tolerated, the next step should envisage production.

Hopefully other European nations will try taking up a leading role in drug law and drug practise reform. Why not Italy?