Drug Policy Programme

BRIEFING PAPER TWENTY ONE January 2010 THE BECKLEY FOUNDATION DRUG POLICY PROGRAMME DRUG USE: KNOWLEDGE, CULTURE AND CONTEXT Christopher Hallam and Dave Bewley-Taylor1 The Beckley Foundation Drug Policy Programme (BFDPP) is an initiative dedicated to providing a rigorous independent review of the effectiveness of national and international drug policies. The aim of this programme of research and analysis is to assemble and disseminate material that supports the rational consideration of complex drug policy issues, and leads to more effective management of the widespread use of psychoactive substances in the future. The BFDPP is a member of the International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC), a global network of NGOs and professional networks that specialise in issues related to illegal drug use and government responses to the related problems. The Consortium aims to promote objective debate on the effectiveness, direction and content of drug policies at national and international level. developed by North American and European officials, is equally INTRODUCTION: a reflection of cultural predilection, assuming universality by DRUG USE AND KNOWLEDGE dint of a spurious claim to ‘science.’”2 In a similar vein, as Peter Andreas and Ethan Nadelmann point out, the processes through which the current international drug control regime The topic of data and its strength, range and validity has has evolved must be understood as “a confluence of the acquired considerable prominence in recent debates taking perceptions, interests, and moral notions among dominant place around the conduct of international drug policy. There sectors of the more powerful states.”3 Against this background, has been a growing movement for “evidence-based policy” in the objective of relating policy to evidence is obviously health policy more broadly, and this has permeated drug policy one which is desirable. However, appeals to ‘the evidence’ as part of a gradual, but general, shift in the balance between constitute a starting point rather than an achieved reality, and health and law-enforcement in terms of avowed policy raise some important questions: What counts as evidence, and objectives. A focus on the quality of data was demonstrated at what does not? Who is to decide? How is the evidence to be the 52nd Commission on Narcotic Drugs in March 2009, with a constructed? Who is to interpret the evidence, and according to group of countries tabling a resolution dedicated to improving what criteria? And so on. the tools for the collection, reporting and analysis of data relating to drug use. This resolution spoke directly to the need The evidence assembled and interpreted by the United Nations to enhance the present system in order to provide information drug control system forms an important part of the base on which to build ‘evidence-based policies.’1 which guides the formation and maintenance of drug policies. The annual World Drug Report is regarded as the flagship There is no doubt that such a development is welcome, since publication of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, (UNODC). both national and international drug policy is notorious for the In line with General Assembly resolution 61/183 in March extent to which it has tended to remain evidence-free, being 2007, the Report aims to continue to provide “comprehensive driven instead by a mixture of prejudice, political expediency and balanced information about the world drug problem.” and historical accident. As stated by Axel Klein in the context (Emphasis added.)4 Thus, having synthesized data provided of a discussion of the ways in which religious proscriptions by member states each year it supplies the international on diet were generalized to Mediterranean peoples: “It could policy community with a plethora of information concerning be argued that the current injunction on opiates and coca, as the so-called ‘world drug problem.’ In so doing, the UNODC 1 Christopher Hallam is an associate of the International Drug Policy Consortium, and a PhD candidate at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine Dave Bewley- Taylor is a Senior Lecturer, School of Arts and Humanities, Swansea University, UK, and associate consultant of the International Drug Policy Consortium. 2 presents its global estimates on the number of hectares under QUANTITATIVE KNOWLEDGE AND THE opium, poppy and cannabis cultivation, how many metric CULTURE OF POSITIVISM tons of each of these drugs, as well as Amphetamine Type Stimulants, are produced and the levels of seizures by law It is a striking feature of the UN discourse on drugs that its enforcement authorities. These figures are matched on the ‘evidence base’ is almost wholly quantitative in character The demand side by estimated data concerning global trends in pre-eminence of quantitative data reflects the research culture drug consumption. In an admission of the problematic nature dominant within both the member states and the UN agencies. of data collection within an illicit market, the World Drug As noted above, extensive data is provided on the prevalence Report 2009 moved away from previous point figures to of use around the world, on estimations of metric tonnage introduce ranges of figures for both supply and demand data.5 of various substances produced, and so on. While this data As such, and clearly becoming increasingly sophisticated in has recently been subjected to important critique regarding its approach, the publication is among other things intended its mode of representation, its blind spots, lacunae and other to provide evidence of the prevalence and distribution of problems, these will not concern us here. We do not suggest various drugs and their users, together with a snapshot of the that such data is unimportant or without utility. The point global drugs market and the impact of enforcement policies we are making is rather that, even if all the methodological upon it. However—despite the swathes of quantitative questions are answered and the data perfected according to information concerning the prevalence and distribution of their own criteria of validity, they still say little about why all drug use—research and analysis dealing with the cultural these drugs are being used. In contrast to the sophistication of context of drug use, the meanings and intentions of those its quantitative data sets, for example, the World Drug Report who engage in it, and the roles which drug consumption plays remains very largely silent on the human questions of meaning, in the formation and performance of contemporary identities, culture, experience that the issue of drugs must raise—and at are almost entirely absent from the UN account. least try to answer. Let us examine further this imbalance in the type of information included in the UN’s analysis. This situation results in a number of shortcomings in the evidential foundation in which policy is supposed to be The use of quantitative methods to construct social data grounded. Crucially, while policy-makers and those seeking to dates to the Enlightenment period of state building, when influence them are possessed of copious facts about the spread governments first became conscious of the population as an of drug use around the world, there is little or no attention object of knowledge and intervention. The etymology of the paid to why these people are consuming drugs, what it is they term ‘statistics’ points back to these origins; etymologically, achieve, obtain and communicate by their usage, no hint of statistics is the science of the state or population. The use of the altered states of mind that occur in drug experiences and statistical methods became identified with the 19th century that fascinate, captivate or compel these millions of citizens movement of positivism, which sought to advance human to build the consumption of drugs into their social identities. societies by the application of the scientific method, the This lack of qualitative understanding of drug use as a cultural rationality of the natural scientific method acquiring a quasi- practice formed within a social and historical setting does religious status within this belief system. The word positivism little to assist with the construction of realistic policies dealing is now employed to denote the use of the methods and with such a complex and multifaceted issue. Employing a rationalities of natural science to the study of human beings. predominantly theoretical approach, this briefing paper aims The research methodology of the UNODC is positivist in form to stimulate discussion around the need for a qualitative and style. This is perhaps unsurprising bearing in mind that corrective to complement the currently dominant quantitative Member States, their representatives and functionaries all approach. While leaving some areas of this emergent debate participate in and perpetuate the culture of positivism. Indeed, unexplored, we examine the major causes and effects of the since the UN agencies are the representatives of their clients, relatively impoverished understanding of drug use, and go the international community of nation states, it is with Member on to suggest ways in which the situation can begin to be States that the ultimate responsibility for such an approach addressed and alleviated. lies. This type of research is regarded by many in the field of politics and current affairs as being ‘scientific’, and those politicians and administrators to whom drug policy research is often addressed tend to believe that quantifiable information is more objective, reliable and valid than other knowledges. Quantitative data certainly has its strengths; if one wishes to know the numbers of users in a certain country, the number of reported arrests, of HIV cases and so on, this methodology is eminently suitable. There are a number of further practical 3 advantages in its adoption: statistical data may be readily methods of natural science is neither appropriate not desirable— translated across other domains of governance, such as the and may indeed be argued as unscientific.

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