In this post James Mills reviews government drug policy through history. He finds it odd that MPs today admit they are unable to have an objective debate about drug policy whilst much of this is due to the fact that in the past so many of them have obscured the issues with their personal anxieties and political agendas

Mills, James

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LSE Research Online

blo gs.lse.ac.uk http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/po liticsandpolicy/archives/29290Personal anxieties and political agendas are in the way of anobjective debate on drugs policyIn this post James Mills reviews government drug policy through history. He finds it odd thatMPs today admit they are unable to have an objective debate about drug policy whilst muchof this is due to the fact that in the past so many of them have obscured the issues with theirpersonal anxieties and political agendas.The recent Home Af f airs committee report on drugs policy with the tit le ‘Drugs: Breakingthe Cycle‘ has already provoked strong reactions, with the Prime Minister moving quicklyto reject a key recommendation that a Royal Commission on Drugs Policy be established.Yet tucked away in the report was a statement that seems less eye-catching at f irst, but whichnevertheless seems provocative on f urther ref lection. The committee noted that ‘in a poll carried outbetween May and June 2012, UKDPC f ound that 75% of  MPs f elt that it can be dif f icult to have anobjective debate about the best solution because drug policy is such a controversial issue’.It seems odd that the nation’s elected representatives f ind themselves unable to ref lect objectively on animportant social issue f or f ear of  controversy. It seems odder still when a glance at the history of  thepolit ics of  cannabis suggests that MPs and other polit icians are f ar f rom blameless in creating asituation where objective debate seems unattainable. In f act, f or over a century Brit ish polit icians haveseized on stories about the drug in order to draw broad conclusions that they hoped would supportwider agendas.How else to explain the arrival of  cannabis in parliamentary polit ics as early as the 1890s?  There weref ew domestic consumers of  the drug in the nineteenth-century and preparations of  the plant had f ailedto catch on in Victorian medicine. Yet in 1893 the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission was ordered in theHouse of  Commons and proceeded to produce a report based on two hundred and sixty-six days ofwork that produced eight volumes of  witness statements. It concluded that ‘excessive’ taking of  the drugcould cause health problems, whereas ‘moderate’ consumption seemed unlikely to do so, andrecommended that taxation of  cannabis products be tightened up to discourage immoderate use.The key to understanding this enquiry was its geographical f ocus, India, and the polit ics of  those thatcampaigned f or it. Chief  amongst these was William Caine, who toured south Asia in the 1880s as aresult of  which he declared that cannabis was ‘the most horrible intoxicant the world has yet produced’.Caine was one of  the group of  MPs who were committed anti-opium campaigners and determined tof orce the Brit ish government into a rethink of  colonial policies that saw drugs produced in imperial Indiasold to the Chinese.  Their temperance belief s, Christian evangelism and suspicion of  imperialismensured that they viewed opium trading in Asia as a moral blemish on Britain’s reputation. Havingdiscovered that the colonial administration in India also generated revenue by taxing the local market incannabis, Caine and his allies simply incorporated ref erences to the drug into their wider campaign. Theyassumed that cannabis was much like opium and was theref ore another stick with which to beat theimperial authorit ies. It was clear, however, that they had only a rudimentary grasp of  south Asia’s longhistory of  cannabis consumption f or the purposes of  medication and intoxication and had litt le interestin it. Once they had secured the Royal Opium Commission they quietly f orgot about cannabis and nevermentioned it again.If  Victorian MPs showed no interest in cannabis itself , and instead saw only its value in the business ofpoint-scoring in wider debates about Empire, their successors were usually no more serious about thedrug when it came up f or discussion.  When Parliament f irst f ound itself  considering domestic controlson cannabis in the 1920s f ew showed any concern at all except f or those that worried about theimplications f or the corn-plaster industry.  It transpired that cannabis was an ingredient in the f oot-careproducts of  the period and that wholesalers and retailers f eared f alling f oul of  the decision to classif ycannabis as a poison.  The Minister of  Health, Sir W. Joynson-Hicks, was f orced to make a statement inwhich he assured the House of  Commons ‘that no harsh measures will be taken by the PharmaceuticalSociety in the enf orcement of  the law’.  If  economic interests lay behind this appearance of  cannabis inParliament then it was a more personal story that explains the statements of  Donald Macintosh JohnsonMP on the drug in the 1950s.  Elected Conservative MP f or Carlisle in 1955, he published a study ofcannabis called Indian Hemp: A Social Menace.  He was sure that even small doses could lead to violenceand mental health problems, that cannabis was implicated in the seduction of  white women by men ofother colours and he concluded the book with the question ‘what more ef f ective weapon could there bef or waging the Cold War than by promoting the use and consumption of  noxious drugs within the ranksof  your enemy that will corrupt his youth?’ It transpired that this interest in cannabis lay not in a concernf or the national interest but in his nervous breakdown.  He convinced himself  that an unknown enemyinduced this by poisoning him with cannabis, a tale that f ailed to convince doctors who diagnosed him asa ‘paranoiac’.More recent tales similarly draw attention to the many agendas that lie behind MPs’ publicpronouncements on cannabis.  The suspicion lingers that much of  the attention paid to cannabis of  theearly years of  the New Labour government was down to Tony Blair ’s f irm posit ion that he was not f orchange in the law related to the drug.  Caref ully indicating that an MP was open to ref orm was a saf emeans f or some in the Labour Party to express distance f rom the Prime Minister. At the same time thetopic was not so signif icant that disagreeing on it signalled an irreconcilable polit ical division. In otherwords, dif f ering with Tony Blair on cannabis could be a public gesture of  distance or def iance which atthe same time carried the message that there were no greater disagreement, say on economic or socialpolicy. This alerted the leadership to the option of  drawing the dissident closer by promotion. TonyBanks, Clare Short and Mo Mowlam were among those who publicly discussed the possibility of  changesin the law, and who subsequently f ound themselves in government posts.  It also seems instructive torecall the moment when Shadow Cabinet members f rom the Conservative Party like Oliver Letwin andFrancis Maude rushed to claim that they had smoked cannabis in their youth.  Their declarations inretrospect look more calculated to undermine the leadership bid of  Ann Widdecombe than to bring aboutchange in cannabis legislation.  And it was only when David Blunkett reclassif ied cannabis that theOpposition decided that consuming it was wrong and a symptom of  what they called ‘Broken Britain’, theoutcome of  New Labour rule.Given this history of  MPs and their public opinions of  cannabis, the call by Home Af f airs Committee f or aRoyal Commission seems welcome. While today’s MPs lament the f act that it is ‘dif f icult to  have anobjective debate’ about drugs it seems that, at least in the case of  cannabis, much of  this is due to thef act that in the past so many of  them have obscured the issues with their personal anxieties and polit icalagendas.Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of the British Politics and Policy blog, norof the London School of Economics. Please read our comments policy before posting.About the authorJames Mills is author of Cannabis Nation: Control and consumption in Britain, 1928-2008, published inNovember 2012 by Oxford University Press.  His publications also include Cannabis Britannica: Empire,trade and prohibition, 1800-1928, (Oxford University Press 2003) and (edited with Patricia Barton) Drugsand Empires: Essays in modern imperialism and intoxication, 100-1930, (Palgrave 2007). He is Professor ofModern History at the University of Strathclyde and Director of the Strathclyde hub of the Centre for theSocial History of Health and Healthcare (CSHHH) Glasgow (www.strath.ac.uk/cshhh). You may also be interested in the following posts (automatically generated):1. The distorted measurements of  drugs policy risk harming the community (31.1)2. Book Review: Controversies in Drugs Policy and Practice (30.6)3. Can you bust the media drug myths? (5.4)

Personal anxieties and political agendas are in the way of an objective debate on drugs policy

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