Letter to the Editor

Published: The ‘Gibraltar Chronicle’

20 December 2016

Sir,

Regulation is up-front – not down some alley!

We all knew it before, but it can be no more evident now than in your pages that there is much hurt and fear in our community around the issue of drugs. It’s been a long-unattended wound. Too many lives have been destroyed by too many substances – not least those of innocent family and friends, helpless spectators to tragedy. But help must be forthcoming! And that’s why the honest, but very difficult, debate so many of us are currently engaged in is (ironic and regrettable as it is) nonetheless satisfying. We must, all of us, acknowledge the inconsolable despair many have felt. We must none of us brush aside the fear which accompanies this question. It is devastating.

The way forward, however, is in looking at the situation objectively. It is not because drugs are safe but because they can be dangerous that we must do so. We must look at the facts straight in the eye, and pragmatically; to actually see and to learn where things have gone wrong. Evidence shouldn’t be based on policy. It’s the other way round: policy must be based on evidence. Approaching this very complex and, at times, highly technical area with science rather than with pre-set ideological or other views is what’s needed to take us to a better place.

Significant percentages of taxpayer’s money go each year to dealing with all the costs of addiction – whether it be on the medical or law enforcement side. In the UK, it’s £1,000 per person per annum that keeps the medical services, the courts and the prisons funded for this social problem alone. I doubt if the economics work much differently in Gibraltar. Yet this is the crude reality after many, many decades of a prohibitionist approach: the problems have got worse and worse, not better.

And no wonder: the illegal drugs business is second only to oil worldwide! It’s far from being in the interests of the traffickers to have that lucrative trade taken away from them, and to see the authorities regulate the supply, the distribution, the quality, the venues and other marketing elements which they, for too long, have had a free-for-all in. Some say that this will turn Government into a drug dealer – seemingly ignoring regulation of alcohol (by far the greatest people killer with over 3 million directly attributable annual deaths) or tobacco (‘Big Tobacco’ already owns the major trademarks on cannabis!) More people die routinely of an ‘innocent drink’ than of Aids, Malaria or Tuberculosis each year.

And yes, that means that, under Regulation, unless we resort to President Duterte’s methods, it is important and significant harm reduction all round that is realistic to expect. That much is already proven to occur in countries where such systems have been introduced (according to a WHO 2014 Report, drug death indices in the UK are eight times higher than in Portugal!) But we must be prepared for organised crime to re-‘organise’; and that is why Regulation, unlike simple decriminalisation or legalisation, is important: because on-going monitoring and adjustment is necessary in order to deliver continuous and continuing effectiveness.

Regulation, in fact, is about taking control. Regulation is, precisely as Minister Costa has expressed (with the kind of clarity few in public life are willing to show), the means by which to reduce the influence of big-time criminals over a social situation that has got very sadly out of hand, and in their favour.

It’s inevitable that people such as Minister Costa, Damian Broton or myself will be, at best, publicly challenged or, at worst, insulted, slurred or demonised. It happens. It’s what you’re up against when fronting important social change. However, in addition to maintaining a courteous, respectful and rational discourse at all times, the priority must lie in acknowledging, listening, and taking on board concerns on all sides. And that is why, regardless of emotion or insult, ERG and ‘Stay Clean’ will continue pressing for not only an open debate, but also a cautious, studied and reasoned analysis which will take us beyond the present situation and forwards towards better results for our Community.

The economic, human and social costs of alcohol, tobacco and other psychoactives oblige us to commit to this, as we have; and to do it right. And doing it right means speaking with clarity and insisting that proper debate and consultation takes place.

And with that same clarity we say that Regulation is what we at ‘Connected Health’, stand for. Because Regulation is up-front – not down some alley!

Felix Alvarez

Chairman, Equality Rights Group