I am on LBC's political panel again this evening from 8pm

I will be on LBC again from 8pm this evening as part of Petrie Hoskin's political panel along with a couple of other politicos. I may also get the chance to talk about the drugs poll that I blogged about on Friday which shows 70% of people in the UK think cannabis should be legalised.

You can listen to it on 97.3 if you're in or near London or via this link online if you aren't. You can even call in to join in the debate on 0845 60 60 973 from 8pm.

Case that sparked mephedrone panic didn't involve mephedrone

It is now being reported that in the tragic case of Louis Wainwright and Nicholas Smith, two teenagers who died back in March, neither of them had taken the now banned (but then legal) drug mephedrone.

The case kicked off a media panic about the drug when it was rumoured that they had taken it. The political furore that then ensued ultimately led to the banning of the drug just before the General Election.

There have also been other cases where initial reports have suggested the drug was involved only for it later to turn out not to have been the case. This is one of the reasons why many at the time were pleading for more time for the ACMD to reach its decision about the drug - they needed more and more accurate information.

Eric Carlin, a former member of the ACMD who resigned in protest at how political pressure was being applied regarding mephedrone has said that the decision to ban the drug should be "revisited" in light of the findings, and the "public health consequences" of the ban needed to be considered. he went on to say:

"The fact these two people died and it's not actually connected with mephedrone just emphasises the fact that we were under a lot of pressure to ban this drug and these cases were actually cited as being examples of why that was necessary."

In fact there has only been one case so far in the UK where mephedrone has been established as the cause of death.

This latest revelation about the March cases underlines how important it is for government policy to be based on evidence and not media panic stories.

We can but hope that the new administration is more circumspect in its approach the next time there are a rush of unproven stories about one particular drug.

Bravo to Nigel Farage on drugs policy

I listened to this week's Any Questions on Radio 4 earlier today and the question of the resignation of Eric Carlin from the ACMD (that I blogged about yesterday) came up.

Former UKIP leader Nigel Farage made a brave and very sensible contribution where he said that current policy is clearly not working, advocated a Royal Commission on drugs and said that all options including potential decriminalisation should be on the table. All the other panelists (Peter Hain, Nick Herbert and Susan Kramer) dismissed the idea that decriminalisation should be considered. I was particularly disgusted with Hain's response. He said in a condescending tone "There you have it folks, vote UKIP and get a free for all on drugs" which of course is not what Farage was saying at all. I am paraphrasing but that was basically how Hain responded. When pressed he insisted that if he tried to pursue a policy like that his electors in Neath would not stand for it.

What absolute brazen political cowardice from Hain. He is essentially admitting that the reason he is not willing to go down this road is because of his fear of the response of the electorate. And yet it is precisely his response to Farage where he instantly tried to caricature his position and scaremongering that leads us to the position whereby most politicians are too scared to engage with this issue properly. He himself is part of the problem he is complaining about.

It was disappointing not to hear Susan Kramer back Farage's calls. There are lots of people within the Lib Dems who agree with him on this. I am afraid her response that essentially what the government did in banning mephedrone in such a knee-jerk way was correct and "erring on the side of caution" does not represent my views at all. If anything it makes the drug more dangerous gifting it to the criminal gangs.

Fair play to Nigel Farage for being brave enough to advocate what he did. He is fighting a very difficult seat at the general election, Buckingham in the heart of "Middle England". You can hardly accuse him of saying what he said for politically calculated reasons so close to an election.

I hope other senior politicians who privately agree with Farage on this might start to feel a little bit more emboldened to speak more openly on this.

UPDATE: I think I might have misrepresented Susan Kramer's views slightly here. I meant she did not agree with Farage's suggestion that decriminalisation is a viable option. She did however agree that a Royal Commission should be set up.

Also, I forgot to mention that I was very heartened to hear on Any Answers later that Jonathan Dimbleby made it clear that a large majority of respondents agreed with Farage's suggestion.

Another ACMD member quits with outspoken attack on Johnson

Another member has quit the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. Eric Carlin announced his resignation earlier today.

Having read his resignation letter, I am struck by how much sense he makes and how closely his views accord with my own. It is clear that he thinks criminalising people (predominantly young people) for using drugs is very damaging and distracting from what the real focus should be - harm reduction. Given all the other resignations (7 so far) on a similar basis from the body since the enforced resignation of its former Chair Professor David Nutt last year it is clear that many senior government advisors think that their policy is illogical, goes against the evidence of what works and is actually causing more harm. I interviewed Professor Nutt about this very issue back in January.

I have reproduced Mr Carlin's resignation letter to Home Secretary Alan Johnson below (which he published himself on his blog) and highlighted the parts that I think are most damaging to the government and its increasingly discredited policy:

Dear Home Secretary

Resignation from Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs

With regret and sadness, I am tendering my resignation as a member of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs.

I was honoured to be appointed to this position and I had hoped that my substantial experience of managing drug prevention and treatment services might help influence the Committee, and thereby the Government, to think about drugs as more of a Public Health issue rather than focussing narrowly on the Criminal Justice aspects. This has not been the case.

My main interest and competence is in the field of prevention and early intervention with young people. I have grown increasingly disillusioned not only with the lack of attention paid to this by politicians and the media but also by the ACMD’s apparent lack of interest in the subject (with a few individual exceptions). At our meeting earlier this week, the update report on ‘Pathways to Problems’, published on the same day, received scant attention. Indeed, there was no time for questions on the report due to the haste with which we were being pushed to make a decision about classifying Mephedrone; this so that the Chair could come to meet with you later in the day and you could do a round of press announcements.

Re-Mephedrone; we had little or no discussion about how our recommendation to classify this drug would be likely to impact on young people’s behaviour. Our decision was unduly based on media and political pressure. The report was tabled to the whole Council for the first time on Monday; the Chair came to brief you before the whole Council had even discussed all of the report. In fact, I still haven’t seen the final version.

When, as Home Secretary, David Blunkett (note – should be Charles Clarke) announced that the entire classification system would be reviewed, I welcomed it and was disappointed when the idea was shelved. This needs urgently to be revisited. We need to review our entire approach to drugs, dumping the idea that legally-sanctioned punishments for drug users should constitute a main part of the armoury in helping to solve our country’s drug problems. We need to stop harming people who need help and support.

At the end of last year, I decided not to resign over the sacking of David Nutt, preferring instead to see how things panned out and to hope that the ACMD could develop a work programme which would help prevent and reduce harm, particularly to young people. I have no confidence that this will now happen, largely though not totally due to the lack of logic of the context within which the Council is constrained to operate by the Misuse of Drugs Act. As well as being extremely unhappy with how the ACMD operates, I am not prepared to continue to be part of a body which, as its main activity, works to facilitate the potential criminalisation of increasing numbers of young people.

Yours sincerely

Eric Carlin

I wonder how many more eminently sensible and public spirited people like Mr Carlin will eventually conclude that the government is not interested in evidence, only in placating newspaper editors whipping up the latest moral panic.

Jock Coats also has an interesting piece today where he argues that far from a general election being the time to shut up about a more liberal approach to drugs policy, it is precisely the time to set out our stall and argue our case.