If you don’t work in the drug misuse fields you may think that the sudden closure last month of DrugScope has little to do with you. However, if you care about the quality of life for people with addictions, how we can improve resilience among young people, or how billions of pounds of your taxes continue to be spent on some policies with little evidence as to their effectiveness, then you should be concerned. Because DrugScope – a membership organisation for professionals working to tackle drug and alcohol misuse that represented more than 400 organisations – occupied a unique space in the landscape of public policy making, research, advocacy and service provision in this morally charged area and proved an authoritative and influential contributor to politicians and civil servants.
Formed in 2000, from the merger of the Institute for the Study of Drug Dependency (ISDD) and the Standing Conference on Drug Abuse (Scoda) – themselves born in the heady1960’s – DrugScope was the leading independent source of impartial information and analysis about drug policy and practice. Back in the 60s, ISDD and Scoda provided uncompromising analysis of the then limited evidence about drug policies across the globe. Pressing the case for radical harm reduction schemes to reduce the spread of HIV/Aids among a high-risk injecting population was one of their major achievements. Using evidence to help people with drug problems going through the criminal justice system was another, well before the Blair government latched on to drugs treatment as a means to reduce crime. Latterly, DrugScope forged alliances with mental health and homlessness charities in recognition of the complex needs that many people have.
It has undoubtedly been a casualty of the general funding climate. Intermediate or umbrella bodies are no longer deemed necessary enough for government or charitable foundations to fund them. Campaigning bodies and individuals like Russell Brand or Richard Branson have the platforms, along with wider audiences, to preach to. Much of the agenda carved out of critical analysis and knowledge was embraced by successive governments with the seting up of the Blairite drug czar’s office, the National (drug) Treatment Agency and latterly, Public Health England. All these took ground from under the organisation. But these are fluid institutions and political priorities change. In the end though, the straw that broke the camel’s back was our old nemesis in the charity sector, the historic legacy of pension obligations forged in better times.
So what will DrugScope’s closure mean? As the architcet of the merger 15 years ago I feel sadness. The space for objective and rational analysis of drug policy has been diminished. Vested and polarised interests will dominate. The linking of drug problems to poverty, mental ill-health and homelessness will be weakend. The stigma of addictions will go unchallenged. The risk is that simple moral or pathological perspectives about drug use will come to dominate public and political discourse rather than the more inconvenient nuanced and complex picture that is, in reality, so often the case.
Time I think for a generous benefactor to come to the fore who is genuinely interested in building an informed and objective progressive political, public and professional debate on where next for drug policy.
