ANGELA BURNS AM
COLUMNIST
NEWSFLASH: The “war on drugs” isn’t working. It never was.
A total of 192 people died of drug misuse in Wales last year – up 69% since 2014. Many of these deaths could have been prevented with effective intervention. Demographically speaking, drug-users are getting older, the drugs they take are increasingly diverse and potent, and cuts have been made to drug treatment budgets. It’s a perfect storm.
But the other reason progress isn’t being made is because of the way our society frames the problem.
Addiction is a public health and a mental health issue, not a criminal one. Addicts are by and large victims, not criminals.
We need to ask why society offers sympathy to alcoholics and gambling addicts, while demonising drug addicts. And we must be prepared to embrace radical solutions.
Tabloid caricatures don’t help. They trivialise a serious problem and create a popular villain without offering meaningful solutions.
Take heroin addiction, for example. Related crimes such as theft, robbery and, in serious cases, prostitution are a by-product of addiction – not an indication of the type of person who finds themselves addicted to powerful narcotics like heroin.
And this is society’s problem, too. Deaths from drug misuse tend to be at their highest in the most deprived parts of the UK – Blackpool, Neath Port Talbot, Middlesbrough, Burnley and Gosport make up the top five.
What do they have in common? High deprivation, poverty and unemployment.
In 2008, Labour ministers launched a 10-year plan to tackle the problems of drugs and alcohol consumption in Wales. With just a year left to run, drug-related deaths remain proportionally much higher in Wales than in England, and there has been no meaningful change in the number of deaths by alcohol.
The strategy costs around £50m a year to deliver, yet deaths by legal highs are spiralling and deaths by heroin have doubled since 2012.
My colleague Andrew RT Davies recently accused the Welsh Government of “lethal complacency”. He is right, but we are all guilty of burying our heads in the sand. Our approach to dealing with drug abuse stigmatises victims of addiction who, in many cases, aren’t getting the treatment they need.
Welsh Government stats show that just one in 10 people attending drug and alcohol treatment services are successfully completing their treatment. And to make matters worse – as if addiction itself wasn’t a hard enough barrier to overcome – we still slap many addicts with a criminal record.
Radical solutions are the way forward, and a complete rethink of the way we view drug addiction is vital. The real criminals are the dealers who prey on users.
The Welsh Government must provide ongoing financial support to the many organisations and charities on the front line in the so-called war on drugs. Their efforts are consistent and valiant, but the money all too often dries up.
Controversial solutions have been broached, including ways to protect addicts from dangerous street drugs.
Such ideas provoke a fierce response from traditionalists, but the current situation, where addicts openly use drugs on the street, is dangerous for all concerned.
There is no question that things are getting worse. We need to be prepared to act.