Government’s revised drug strategy (Drugs: Protecting Families and Communities, 2008 -2018 Strategy,

Who could fail to disagree with the sentiments behind the government’s revised drug strategy (Drugs: Protecting Families and Communities, 2008 -2018 Strategy, Home Office, 27 February 2008)? Strengthening communities, working together, “a clear commitment to meet the needs of all our diverse communities”, and “preventing harm to children, young people and families affected by drug misuse” are hardly controversial. But does this report avoid controversy because, like its predecessors, it lacks direction, critical reflection, and a fundamental understanding of the complex problem at hand?
In fact this new strategy is even more all-encompassing, woolly and vague. Instead of challenging the incompatibility of addicts’ wants – of their aspirations for normalcy along with continuing drug dependency (whether on licit or illicit drugs) – the Government continues to ask us to suspend disbelief and to muddy the waters of policy by asserting that it has met, is meeting and managing this incompatible demand.
Unsurprisingly then the strategy document fails to look critically at the treatment system of its own creation, one that is overburdened by bureaucracy but undermanned in terms of real skill and knowledge in relation to treatment.