Despite the irrepressible love that Boris Johnson’s government has shown for illegal parties, it is now taking the opportunity to tighten drug laws on its way out of the door. There is perhaps no more fitting tribute to the hypocrisy of this government than the latest drugs proposal from the Home Office.
“Swift, Certain, Tough: New consequences for drug possession” is a word-salad of a white paper and a last-gasp attempt to codify the Johnson government’s preoccupation with punishing “middle-class coke-heads” and recreational drug users. The only certainty is that the prime minister and home secretary behind the paper will have been evicted from office by the time it progresses through the legislative process.
But we shouldn’t downplay the significance of this attempt to penalise drug users. This style of punitive politics has become increasingly characteristic of the British state, at the same time as our politicians are failing to find answers to the big economic and constitutional questions of the day. While countries such as Georgia, Germany, Uruguay and the US have all been moving away from the failed “war on drugs” strategy forged in the 1970s, which sought to prohibit drugs and criminalise drug users, the Johnson administration has spent much time trying to breathe new life into these discredited policies.
Research shows these policies disproportionately affect the poorest and most vulnerable communities and racial minorities, and contribute to higher rates of imprisonment among these groups. Yet the government has spent the last few years taking every opportunity to insist that drug prohibition would magically work if it instead targeted “middle-class” drug users. The white paper was meant to be the moment when we found out how this new plan would be achieved. Perhaps arresting someone for drug possession would now be followed by a test of their middle-class credentials: could they distinguish the salad fork from the dessert fork? What’s their reaction to Mumford & Sons? In the end, it turns out that the strategy for attacking “recreational users” is just a mix of tough language and overt cruelty wrapped around a tacit recognition that the mass criminalisation of drug users is utterly pointless.
One of the ideas here is to give fixed-penalty notices to first-time offenders, and refer them to drug-awareness courses. There isn’t much difference between this proposal and Sadiq Khan’s plan to pilot “diversion schemes” for cannabis possession in Lewisham, Greenwich and Bexley. Similar schemes are already being run by a number of police forces, including Durham and Avon & Somerset. They allow police officers to divert people from the criminal justice system and towards rehabilitation or counselling programmes. Yet when Khan announced his plans in London, Priti Patel condemned the London mayor and said he “has no powers to legalise drugs” (diversion schemes do nothing of the sort).
The basic argument behind diversion schemes is that it’s impossible for the police and courts to try to criminalise everyone caught in possession of drugs. In the white paper, the government seems to accept this obvious premise. Even so, the paper includes a pointless, punitive directive that people should be made to pay for rehabilitation courses. And just in case anyone mistakenly thought this policy showed compassion towards drug users, the paper even explores the feasibility of setting the payment for rehabilitation courses “above cost”, meaning those attending would be paying more than it costs to run the programme, and the government would be profiting from their misfortune.
These new proposals also include a “three-tier” system of escalating punishment, which echoes the notorious “three strikes” system in the US that resulted in waves of incarceration during the 1990s. This white paper policy is less extreme but nonetheless draconian: if the offender doesn’t pay the fixed-penalty notice or attend the drug-awareness course, they could be prosecuted. If arrested a second time, they’re issued with a caution alongside another drug-awareness course and a period of mandatory drug testing. Finally, if caught a third time, the offender would be charged and, if convicted, subject to new civil court orders that could exclude them from bars, confiscate their passport or driving licence and place them in ankle tags to monitor their blood for drugs. Any failure to comply could result in prison.
This paper is a mess of contradictory objectives: it attempts to increase the punishments imposed on drug users while also diverting drug users from the criminal justice system. It reflects the utterly confused approach that Britain’s politicians show towards drugs. They know the system doesn’t work, but can’t let go of it because they have little to offer voters beyond promises to be “tough on crime”. They want to speak to the persistence of inequality but are unwilling to implement reforms that would reduce the wealth gap so instead proffer an attack on “middle-class” drug users. This is cynical, performative politics: the government has no intention of dealing with the problems afflicting Britain, so instead it produces soundbite policies that play to public fears while leaving the status quo untouched.
In reality, making drug users pay to undertake drug-awareness courses will mean the wealthy dodge the three-strike system, while those without the means to pay will face further punishment. Meanwhile, any rise in stop and search that results from this punitive approach to drug possession will affect poor and minority communities far more than “middle-class” users. In short, if these policies become law, they will lead to the incoherent punishment of a small minority. It’s an appropriate last will and testament for the Johnson regime.
Dr Kojo Koram teaches at the School of Law at Birkbeck, University of London
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