Prohibition

In the first part of this book, I want to begin with prohibition, which is the major policy of choice in the UK, and in almost all other countries. A workmanlike definition, useful at this stage, is the imposition of legal restrictions on the use of selected substances. Prohibition restricts production and possession, and makes unlawful the distribution of certain substances without proper authority. Under the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act, the major piece of legislation, drugs are classified according to the extent of harms they present, there being three classes; Class A providing the maximum penalties, and Class C the minimum. Of course, prohibition in the UK is more complicated than this, involving numerous policies and programmes, some of which include the ideal types described in Chapter One, but many do not. The drugs controlled under the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act represent a small proportion of all the drugs sold as proprietary medicines or prescribed for medical purposes, all of which fall within the prohibition remit. The former are given prominence, the latter ignored. To concentrate on selected drugs such as heroin or cocaine distorts the picture, yet these have dominated the discussion, and for these purposes the 1971 Act will be the focus of the debate.

Prohibition derives from the 1961 UN Single Convention, the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances and the 1988 Convention against the Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs, and is in part justified because the UK is a signatory to these conventions. The requirements of the conventions are to control the manufacture, possession and import of certain drugs, although each country has some latitude as to how it goes about things. I do not want to make too much of this, but it remains a point worth noting. It would be extremely difficult, but not impossible, for the UK to unravel its international obligations, although Richard Stevenson (1994, p 60) says that ‘It is unlikely the UK would remain alone for long.’ Since 1912, the problem of drug addiction has been seen to require an international response, and that position remains. (See Bean, 1974, for a discussion on how drugs such as cannabis were first included under the 1920 Dangerous Drugs Act.