GATEWAY NOT THE WAY

By Andria Efthimiou, 'Coalition for Just & Effective Drug Policy' (ENCOD), editor 'Users’ Voice'.

ENCOD is a European NGO representing most European countries, and over 100 drug policy reform organisations; we recently took part in a drug policy Hearing in the European Parliament, where we presented the head of the European Comisssion's anti-drug unit a peace-pipe.

I have come here to offer some words of solidarity today. I am not a great cannabophile; in fact, I rarely take it. Cannabis just don’t seem to agree with me! The plant that I loved was Opium, and after some time using heroin, I became dependent on it. Thankfully that ended over a decade ago.

One of the reasons politicians site for criminalising users of cannabis is that the use of cannabis leads to addiction to other drugs, e.g. heroin!... The so-called gateway theory.

This, I can tell you, is at the very least misguided misinformation, if not an outright lie...

Holland is country which proves this point, with it's own research and evidence-base. (Usually, arguing our case is tricky given that there is little evidence-based research that shows what loosening up drug laws would result in.)

However in this case, we can look to Holland to prove our point. Holland has had de facto non-criminalised availability of cannabis through the coffee-shops for almost thirty years. During that time, the numbers of younger people who became introduced to injection heroin-use went down. New recruits to the heroin injecting community were effectively reduced. Though we cannot prove a direct correlation there, we should at least be willing to look at this more honestly; something, which particularly U.S drug warriors have been absolutely unprepared to do.

Other drug policy commentators say that there has, however, been an increase in the numbers of cannabis users in Holland, though the evidence for that is in dispute. Even if that were true, from the harm reduction point of view, that would NOT necessarily be an issue, as the numbers of injectors have gone down, and therefore the numbers of people at risk of fatal blood borne diseases that hurt injectors and their loved ones.

Also let me say in all honesty that I have no doubt that one of the factors that made drugs irresistible for me as a child was their illegality. The reason that I speak about this issue at all, is because I am convinced by the belief that the most vulnerable kids will be attracted to the forbidden fruit, and those that are even more vulnerable will stick with illegal drugs when the vast majority of young cannabis 'experimenters' will get more interested in other things. [I often wonder how it would have been for me to not have been institutionalised for the use of other drugs in my early years. I got a strong feeling that had I not been labelled and institutionalised at such a young age for using illegal drugs, my interest in them would eventually have diminished..]

So I come here to do to ask us all to ditch the old nonsense about the 'Gateway Theory'. Cannabis is not what leads to drug-dependency, but a whole heap of things that many of us already know about intuitively.

Stop the war on plants and our fellow citizen drug users!

Andria Efthimiou, ENCOD, editor 'Users’ Voice'.