Drug policies are more dangerous than drugs

Somewhere in that online ocean of Internet memes, there is one that captures the absurdity of the  so-called ‘war on drugs’ with almost military precision.

The picture is of a typically American cop (that’s the only flaw in an otherwise perfect statement: the message applies to other countries apart from the USA) with the words:

“DRUGS RUIN YOUR LIFE… so if I catch you with them, I’m sending you to jail and ruining your life.”

There: it really is that simple. And the beauty is that the statement is equally true in both its claims. ‘Drugs ruin your life’ – no one is even contesting that statement; it is a self-evident fact. But it is equally self-evident that the justice system we rely on to protect us from that danger, is every bit as dangerous itself. Arguably more dangerous, in fact… because the law deals its own particular brand of damage in the name of ‘justice’.

The equivalent in the field of medicine would be a drug that ‘cures your illness’ by replacing it with an even more harmful and debilitating ailment instead. Yeah, sure, you’re not going to complain too much about that runny nose… if both your legs have just been needlessly amputated in the meantime, or you’ve been accidentally infected with the Ebola virus. But that’s not exactly a ‘cure’, now, is it?

The same could be said for Malta’s drug policy (and, to be fair, drug policies in most other countries, too). We have a “Dangerous Drugs Ordinance” which actually wreaks more havoc – both to the individual concerned, and to society at large – than all the world’s dangerous drugs put together. And just to compound this spectacular failure… Malta’s drug problem keeps getting larger and more unmanageable with each passing year, as attested by annual reports by all the drug agencies involved.

So not only has our national anti-drug effort failed to contain (still less control) the drug problem… it added heaps of other unnecessary problems to contend with, too. Hard to conceive of a more total and utter fiasco than that… 

And yet, this is precisely why the predicament is so utterly bizarre. The above paradox is visible not only to the sort of Internet geek who would generate that meme; everyone else can see it, too. That includes governments… even the ones who doggedly stick to the same failed policies, regardless of the insurmountable evidence of their failure.

And they even echo the same sentiments themselves. The same conclusion that ‘the war on drugs has failed’ has been reached by practically all the world’s drug monitoring agencies – which regularly confirm that neither supply nor demand for illegal drugs has in any way been affected by the ‘war’; that criminalising drug users only creates more social problems than it solves, while not actually helping the drug user one tiny bit… and the same conclusion even formed the main thrust of the 2012 Global Drugs Report, which urged a worldwide policy rethink. 

In a nutshell, everyone and his drug dealer seem to agree that the ‘war on drugs’ has been lost. So… why the heck are we still fighting it?

Here in Malta – where we always seem to cultivate and nurture such absurdities to grotesque levels – the irony is multiplied exponentially in all directions. Malta’s Labour government can see the same paradox, just like everyone else. It likewise voices the opinion that our drug laws are ineffective; that prison sentences are no way to rehabilitate drug users; that problem drug users in particular need medical help, not punitive judicial measures… and last April, it even launched a reform of the drug laws which was supposed to translate all those principles into legislation.

Justice Minister Owen Bonnici said at the time that the new law (supposedly in force today) “sought to strengthen the fight against trafficking while offering support to addicts”.

Among the provisos were that the police would no longer be able to prosecute cases of simple possession… though they would retain the power to detain and interrogate people caught in possession of small amounts. Mandatory prison was removed for cannabis cultivation, allowances made for medical marijuana… repeat offenders were to be brought before a tribunal instead of the Criminal Court, where they would face reasonable fines (50 to 160 euros) if found guilty.

A Commission was also set up to ensure uniformity in sentencing policy for drug-related crimes… and, most important of all, the new law (on paper) recognised drug dependency to be a medical, not a judicial issue.

Significantly, there was cross-party consensus on that last point. This is from a 2014 report (when the bill was being debated in Parliament): “The three political parties believe victims of drug abuse should not be treated as criminals but as people who need help, a seminar organised by the Nationalist Party Youth Movement (MZPN) heard yesterday…

“.. [Justice Minister Dr Bonnici] referred to a former drug user who, during the debate, said he had been jailed for eight years after he had reformed. ‘What did society get out of sending him to prison?’, he asked…

“… The element of offering support was also echoed by Opposition Leader Simon Busuttil, as he pointed out that the experience of other countries ‘which tried to harshly address the drug problem shows that imprisoning drug users is counterproductive’.”

So… what happened, folks? Here we are, over eight months since this wonderful reform was supposed to be enacted with unanimous Parliamentary approval… and we’re still treating drug users as criminals; we’re still arresting and detaining people caught with small amounts of drugs for personal use… we are still, in a word, ruining these people’s lives more than the drugs we are trying to save them from.

Let’s take the most recent – and tragic – example. Last week, a German national was found dead in a lock-up cell at the Police depot in Floriana. It was later established that he had committed suicide: this makes him the second victim of drug-related suicide in police custody in the space of six weeks. 

In October, another man (Maltese, this time) was likewise discovered dead under almost identical circumstances. The only difference was that the first victim died hours before being arraigned on serious drug trafficking charges, involving an 11kg heroin haul worth hundreds of thousands of euros.

This puts a slightly different colour on proceedings. A magisterial inquiry is supposedly under way; I trust it will instinctively know the circumstances look very suspicious indeed, and that no scenario can realistically be excluded.

It is the second case, however, that illustrates the failure of the much-touted drug reform. Addressing the press, Police Commissioner Michael Cassar informed us that the victim, on this occasion, was a “homeless, unemployed drug addict who had been living in Malta for three months”. 

He had been arrested for suspicious behaviour at 6pm in Marsa, and was due to be arraigned for “attempted theft” and – wait for it – “drug possession” the following day. Not trafficking, please note; possession, which was supposed to have been ‘decriminalised’ last April.

Morover, this man was initially taken to hospital to undergo methadone treatment for heroin addiction… before being returned to the depot and locked up in a cell. This also means that the police who arrested him were in a position to fully confirm that the man in question was indeed a problem drug user, of the kind they are supposed to be ‘helping’ not ‘punishing’. 

From their own experience, they should also know that problem drug users are statistically the likeliest category to attempt suicide or self-harm while in police custody. 

This time, I won’t go into the evident, glaring shortcomings within a police custodial system that has somehow managed to kill two people in two months. We’ve already been over this last October. What I will say is this: I can’t think of a single country, anywhere in the civilised world, where two men would die under suspicious circumstances in police custody like that… without precipitating a crisis for the local justice system.

But no matter: it seems we are so inured to such things, that we now expect nothing less than for people to emerge from police custody in body-bags.

The question to ask here, however, is another: what was that man even doing in custody in the first place? In his press conference, Cassar alluded to charges of ‘attempted theft’. Press reports indicated that the man was apprehended on a private roof, and had not committed any theft as yet. 

As far as I can see, that makes the crime ‘trespassing with possible intent’ – which is not quite the same thing as ‘attempted theft’, in that the ‘intent’ is not confirmed. 

Should he have been detained on those grounds? Perhaps, under ordinary circumstances. But circumstances were not ordinary. The man needed medical help. He was on methadone. Even without the high risk of suicide, his place was very clearly in a hospital bed. That, at least, is what Malta’s recently-reformed drug laws decree on paper.

But no: inexplicably, he was detained in order to be charged for simple possession, over and above the ‘attempted theft’. This leaves us with two, equally worrying possibilities. Either the drug law reform announced last August was a hoax, and we were all conned – or it wasn’t a hoax, and the police were breaking the law by arraigning a man over something which is not even a criminal offence.

The one scenario we can all safely rule out is that the reform was genuine, and is in fact being implemented. Like the failure of the war on drugs, this is a reality we can all see with our own eyes. The situation facing drug users on the ground has not changed at all since April 2015. They are still treated like criminals; the State still pursues a policy which is archaic, pointless, counterproductive… and, in at least this particular case, also deadly.

All of which takes us back to the original meme: failed drug policies are infinitely more harmful than drugs. So can we have a real drug reform now, please, before anyone else gets hurt?