Drugs: how the war was lost

Like many other countries, Malta appears to be slowly coming round to the idea that its own national drug strategy, based on the American ‘war on drugs’ model, is just not working.

At a recent seminar on the European Year for Poverty and Social Exclusion, Dr George Grech – clinical director of Malta’s agency for drug and alcohol dependency (Sedqa) – argued that a discussion on decriminalisation of drugs (previously resisted by everyone, including Dr Grech himself) has now become ‘urgent’.

To substantiate his new position, he pointed towards Malta’s burgeoning prison population, as well as the now undeniable fact that drugs are just as easily obtainable inside prison than out.

“Prison is not giving results,” he said. “It’s no secret there are drugs in prison, and we have come to learn that incarceration does not work (with) people who are purely drug addicts.”

If this was Dr Grech’s only argument, it would be compelling enough to at least kick-start a debate... as indeed similar debates are under way in other countries such as the United Kingdom, where former national drugs policy Professor David Nutt has made a similar case for decriminalisation.

But there was more to come. At the same seminar, Dr Grech also complained that Malta’s drug system – unlike virtually any European equivalent – makes no effort to distinguish between different drugs, despite the fact that (in the Sedqa director’s own words), “it is one thing to use heroin, and another to use cannabis.”

Unlike the UK, where different drugs are classified according to health risk and social repercussions (the more drugs dangerous are Class A, going down to Class B, etc.) Malta’s legal framework makes no such distinction. This in turns leaves individual magistrates to use their own discretion: a fact which sometimes results in visible discrepancies when it comes to convictions and sentencing for possession cases. (Emphasis on ‘possession’, as Dr Grech had already made it abundantly he was not referring to drug trafficking, but only drug use).

Changing trends

All this stands in stark contrast to other Western democracies. Presenting the case for decriminalisation, Dr Grech pointed towards the experience of other European countries including Portugal: where decriminalisation of all drugs, including heroin and cocaine, led to a noticeable drop in the number of substance abusers.

Malta’s experience appears to be the clean opposite. Dr George Grech confirmed that, while alcohol remains the biggest ‘problem substance’, Sedqa had seen a considerable increase in people using cocaine, among other illicit substances, in recent years.

Elsewhere, private psychologists have independently concurred with this view. In a recent interview with MaltaToday, psychotherapist Anna Grech, who specialises in drug addiction therapy, referred to today’s “typical” drug users as ‘ACCE’ – Alcohol, Cocaine, Cannabis and Ecstasy – pointing out that people tend to use a concoction of these substances. 

“People requesting therapy tend to be ‘poly-drug users’. They do have a preferred substance of choice; however throughout their drug using career they tend to mix a wide variety of drugs: even pills, prescribed or not.”

Even the type of person seeking treatment has changed, and is no longer limited to the stereotype of young, unemployed and overwhelmingly male: mostly from underprivileged socio-economic groups, or coming from severely dysfunctional family backgrounds.

“We are now seeing more female users than before. And it’s no longer the case that problem drug users come mostly from low socio-economic brackets. I would say there is a mix out there: drugs touch people from all sorts of social and family backgrounds, from the very poor to the very well off. Drug addiction crosses all social classes...”

Politics and policy

Does all this point towards a crashing failure of Malta’s declared ‘zero-tolerance’ policy? Not according to the Justice Minister Dr Carm Mifsud Bonnici, who bluntly rejected Dr Grech’s call for a discussion with the words: “the decriminalisation of drug use in Malta is not on the table”… (Though he did concede at least “the possibility of introducing other changes to the relevant laws.”)

Earlier administrations of government, both Nationalist and Labour, had similarly argued against any perceived softening of Malta’s stringent drug laws. Former Labour leader Dr Alfred Sant had argued that decriminalisation would “send the wrong message” to society, and had openly supported Fenech Adami’s ‘zero tolerance’ policy.

Fenech Adami himself had insisted on an ill-fated law which would make prison mandatory for anyone caught with any illegal substance, regardless of type or amount of drugs. 

This resulted in numerous convictions for negligible amounts of cannabis – the most embarrassing case being that of 16-year-old Swiss national Gisela Feuz, jailed for less than 8 grammes of hash – while seasoned drug traffickers such as Brazilian runner Francisco Assis de Queiroz, who had imported over 3kg of cocaine, benefited from a Presidential pardon at roughly the same time.

In fact, drug policy is about the only area where the two parties have traditionally concurred, despite the apparent lack of any positive results. And this is by no means limited to Malta: in the UK, Prof. Nutt’s proposals were similarly rejected by Gordon Brown’s Labour government, and the incoming Con-Dem coalition under David Cameron has so far shown no sign of changing tack.

It appears that politics often gets the better of policy-making, and a nation’s drug strategy is not always dictated by scientific advice of experts on the ground… but rather, by the popular perception of such issues by a largely uninformed public.

Back to Malta, and the same public opinion is arguably divided on the issue of decriminalisation, though it is a safe bet that a clear majority shares both Mifsud Bonnici and Sant’s scepticism.

Not even Dr George Grech’s repeated assurances that ‘decriminalisation’ is not the same thing as ‘legalisation’ – and that all the illicit substances (and trafficking thereof) would remain strictly illegal – have succeeded in drumming up any popular support, and the situation is unlikely to change in the coming year.

Demand and supply

And yet, the economics of the local drug situation appear to strongly argue the case for a change in approach. Figures recently released by the police’s intelligence unit, and reported in MaltaToday, revealed that the street price of cocaine has dropped by €15 a gramme in the past year, while corresponding prices for mephedrone (a synthetic amphetamine), heroin and ecstasy have all remained stable.

Over the same period, the price of cannabis resin (hash) increased from €10 to €15 a gramme. When compared to statistics gathered annually by Europe’s drug monitoring agency (EMCDDA), this suggests that Malta is among the most expensive EU states for cannabis: a reflection of an apparent decrease in supply, possibly coupled with changing preferences among regular drug users.

The same cannot be said for the more harmful cocaine. At €70 a gramme, the local price remains a far cry from the average of €107 one would expect to spend on the same amount in Latvia (by far the most expensive country in Europe, at least when it comes to ‘Charlie’).

What does the discrepancy mean in practice? According to the basic law of economics, a drop in price of any commodity can be accounted for either by a corresponding decrease in demand, or alternatively by an increase in supply.

As the number of persons currently seeking treatment at Sedqa for cocaine addiction is clearly increasing – as attested by Dr Grech, above – the marked 17.7% percent drop in price can only be explained by a considerable increase in supply.

One psychotherapist in fact argues that it is now “easier than ever before” to buy cocaine in Malta: pointing towards a clear failure, not only to deal with the demand, but also to control the supply.

Accounting for the demand side of the equation, psychotherapist Mariella Dimech (a colleague of Anna Grech who also specialises in drug addiction problems) argues that there has been a shift in perception regarding cocaine among both young and older adults.

“Cocaine is a partying drug abused by people from all levels of the social strata. Its use and abuse, together with alcohol, have become normalised within many Maltese social circles… The number of people I come into professional contact with who would binge on alcohol and cocaine over weekends has clearly increased over the past few years.”

Ms Dimech describes the availability of cocaine in Malta as having reached ‘alarming’ levels in recent months and years.

“I am surprised that the media don’t take more of an interest in this sort of thing. Usually they report on drugs only when there are drug busts and people are arraigned in court. This happens a lot, but generally such busts involve drugs other than cocaine – for instance, heroin. You rarely hear about big cocaine busts, though they do happen from time to time. Even so, if you pay close attention it is often the same category of pusher who ends up in court.”

Encouraging hard drugs

While the over-supply in cocaine points towards a systemic inability to discourage hard drug use, the corresponding drop in cannabis use suggests that the lack of a classification system may be having the opposite effect.

Cannabis is almost universally classed as a less harmful drug than cocaine: in the UK, for instance, it is Class B material – recently classified upwards from ‘C’, after a series of studies linked the drug to different mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder and schizophrenia – while cocaine, heroin and ecstasy are all Class A.

The difference is also reflected in the severity of penalties for trafficking in these two illegal substances… at least, in the UK and countries with similar systems.

In Malta, where is no difference in legally stipulated penalties for trafficking these different drugs, the evidence suggests that harder drugs – being the more lucrative – are ‘pushed’ more than the less harmful (and less profitable) softer drugs.

One reformed drug addict who spoke to this newspaper anonymously said that he was not at all surprised that cocaine is now significantly easier to procure than hash in Malta.

“Considering that the risk factor in selling cannabis is virtually the same as with heroin or cocaine, but the profit margin so much higher, it is inevitable that pushers will eventually try and move the higher yielding drug rather than the lower.”