Let’s Not Have an ‘Evidence Based’ Drugs Policy
Anybody who has ever smoked a spliff will have been feeling rather righteous this week. Professor David Nutt was forced to resign following his comments suggsting that certain illegal drugs were less dangerous than alcohol and tobacco. In the aftermath there has been a great deal of public acrimony between scientists and politicians, largely presented in terms vituous scientists dutifully drawing conclusions from the evidence, ranged up against politicians who have been contaminating the issue with, um politics.
The watchword throughout this all has been ‘evidence based policy’. For people who have long believed in legalising soft and/or hard drugs it is an appealing rallying cry, quite simply because the evidence of hazard for a number of substances is somewhat thin on the ground. Indeed in the past few days a full 6k or so people have joined a facebook group calling for Professor Nutt’s reinstatement and for an ‘evidence based policy’ on drugs.
Meanwhile the governments failure to follow the advice of scientists over the reclassifiction of cannabis several years ago has once again been brought to the fore. Nutt was quoted in the Telegraph as saying:
“Gordon Brown’s government is the first in the ACMD’s 37-year history to ignore our advice. Have we got worse scientists? No, in fact we are more rigorous than ever, which means there must be something else happening and it is a political decision.”
A political decision? Heaven forbid. You could be forgiven for thinking, from Nutt’s deep aggrevation that the government had ignored scientific advice for the first time in 37 years, that the scientists themselves had stood for office and been elected by the people.
Indeed, while I would support drug legalisation, I have always seen the notion of ‘evidence based policy’ as rather silly. Of course one can talk about ‘evidence backed policy. One might suggest that where the government wishes to achieve particular aims they might look to evidence to see if those aims should be achieved. But the idea that policy can be ‘based’ on evidence – especially in the way this idea has been articulated regarding the drugs debate – goes a step further. It suggests that we approach the science and the empirical data as though it were a magic 8 ball that can give us a yes/no on the case for legalising certain drugs. Quite simply, you cannot get an ought from an is.
Those who, like me, support drug liberalisation, but who have jumped on the ‘evidence based’ bandwagon would do well to ask themseles a coupe of questions.
A) When I first decided weed should be legal, had I studiously considered the empirical evidence?
B) If data did demonstrate a substantial health risk would I switch my support to criminalisation?
In my case the answer would be no to both. And this is because I support liberalisation on grounds of personal Liberty. Central to the question of drug legalisation is the role that the state, and the role of criminal law within society. To pretend – now that the evidence is on our side – that legalisation is simply a matter of good science, is a cowardly flight from politics.
Reader Comments
Good argument, but I think the most salient point here is not allowing ultra moralistic concerns to trump hard fact. Drug policy has always been a political decision which has bent to public/tabloid opinion. It has used evidence when it’s been found to be supportive and turned its back on it when it hasn’t. You’re right that we shouldn’t fall into the same trap. But that doesn’t mean we should ignore evidence-based policy entirely. Stem cell research is an excellent example where evidence-based policy has to take precedence over public opinion and political convenience.
“It suggests that we approach the science and the empirical data as though it were a magic 8 ball that can give us a yes/no on the case for legalising certain drugs. Quite simply, you cannot get an ought from an is.”
Nail. Head. Alan Johnson’s actions did leave a bad taste in one’s mouth, but, while, from an empirical perspective, Nutt was right and did his scientific duty, from a policy perspective this is always going to be about more than what the stats say. Critics of this have fallen for that old empiricist trap that data is normative, when it isn’t. It merely presents options.
I have to disagree. Your characterisation of “evidence-based policy” is, at least for some of us, a strawman. I obviously recognise that you can’t derive an ought from an is, but the question is more subtle than this. If the government openly said “Well, we’ve heard the thorough scientific evidence that Ecstasy is not particularly dangerous, but due to our moral concerns we choose to ignore that and retain it as a class A drug” then this would be legit. Absurd, and stupid, but legit.
But what is happening is that successive governments have engaged in active denialism over the scientific evidence. They have repeated clear falsehoods, such as the “ooh, well cannabis isn’t what it was in our day” bullshit, and contradicted scientifically established knowledge in defence of policies which have been shown to make little sense and to be actively harmful in some cases. This is comparable in nature to the Bush administration denying the evidence on man-made climate change, rather than acknowledging its existence but saying that they were ideologically opposed to interference in the market in response.
Also, while I support legalisation, in the interim I would at least like to see a less irrational use of the drug classification scale. This is a system which should clearly be based on a rational assessment of harm – yet we have absurd situations like cannabis being reclassified to B for no real reason other than a tabloid generated skunk scare, and ecstasy being rated as on a par with crack cocaine and heroin.
i agree with your general argument. i do believe that govt has a role in alerting people to the dangers of drugs, not criminalising them though. therefore, the professors argument about the relative harms of different drugs is an important evidence based piece of research that should inform govt. in that role. so the govt. should be banging on about the harms of alcohol and only if they have enough time and money left should they bother about cannabis.
“A) When I first decided weed should be legal, had I studiously considered the empirical evidence?
B) If data did demonstrate a substantial health risk would I switch my support to criminalisation?”
Yes, and yes.
The first yes is qualified. On the basis of the data that has come my way, I have not been convinced that there are good health reasons to keep cannabis illegal, and obviously my default position is not to ban things. If I wanted to become directly involved in campaigning for legalisation, I would feel obliged to examine the evidence in more detail, NOT just in order to win arguments better, but to ensure that I actually agreed with the position I was taking.
The second yes I would have thought was obvious.
“The second yes I would have thought was obvious.”
Not necessarily obvious. I and many others support drug legalisation for a variety of reasons, some of which – such as sovereignty over one’s body and a belief that prohibition is futile and drives violence and corruption – are independent of the health risks of individual types of drug.
I share the second of those reasons, and would view the current legal position on cannabis as inadvisable in almost any situation.
I would like to alter the question slightly to replace “criminalisation” with “government attempts to keep the amount of cannabis consumed in the uk at a minimum, keeping in mind the multitude of problems associated with prohibition”.
Reuben seemed to be making a personal liberties argument. I think the change keeps that aspect of the question the same, whilst removing the other factor that the current government policy is useless in terms of reducing consumption, as well as all its other side effects.
It is the personal liberties argument I have a problem with. Basically, whilst I take a default position of granting as many personal liberties as possible, I don’t see what is so sacred about them that they can’t come as a second priority to other factors. A reasonable comparison (in the hypothetical case of cannabis having a substantial health cost and the government having a sensible method for reducing its consumption) is the legally enforced wearing of seatbelts (with the small flaw that there is nothing particularly desirable about not wearing a seatbelt). No one else would be endangered by my not wearing a seatbelt, except arguably through proporgation of a culture of non seatbelt wearing, but I also know that state enforcement of seatbelt wearing will save lives in general. At this point my argument becomes unavoidably subjective – I don’t care that much about my own, or anybody else’s, personal liberties, and I am perfectly happy for the state to remove them if needed.
I would agree with Michael but not on the grounds that personal liberties should take a backseat to health. Rather, personal liberties should take a backseat to the common good etc, and obviously debates over what that is have been going on since JS Mill and beyond.
Put simply though, I support decriminalisation of cannabis on the basis of BOTH the evidence and personal liberty. I don’t support decriminalisation of harder drugs* because I fear it would damage the common good (public health, safety on streets etc), though I may be wrong on this.
W/e your reasons for supporting Dr Nutt and decriminalisation the important thing is to unite and put pressure on government to sort it out – it is here that there may be progress if both the Lib Dems and SNP hold the balance of power next May (let’s hope to God!).
*At least atm – haven’t looked at this in much detail at all, because it won’t happen in my life in this country.
Sorry for takng s long to get back to y’all.
Cherers Tedai:) – I knew the reference to Is and Ought would make you cream.
Ben Towse – you have a point this is a bit of a straw man yet it is congruent with what has been said both in the media and on facebook etc.
And Michael it is not obvious at all. Just because soemthing is potentially harmful does not make its consumption an irrational decision. People may determine that the pleasure theygain out of doing something is sufficient to justify the risks to their health. THis is about sovereignty over one’s own body.