Relaxing our misguided drug laws would save lives, money, and London’s nightlife
The first time I came to London, I was shocked at how the city failed to come alive at night.
Sure, it had restaurants, gigs and plays, but those are evening activities. After-hours events, nights out where you didn’t break the bank trying to get home, not so much.
We’ve only recently opened up the tube on Fridays and Saturday nights, and Sadiq Khan’s war against Uber threatens to hit consumers in the wallet.
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If you do get out and head to a club, it’s likely that you drink, and it’s also likely you’ll come across someone who’s taken some other substance.
When you’re buying a drink, you know what’s in it – you know it’s safe, often inspected, and its quality is linked heavily to reputation, increasing consistency. When bars water down their drinks, they are prosecuted and they lose custom.
We have spent the past few decades putting labels on everything, from nut packets that inform buyers they “might contain nuts”, to minute nutritional information on protein content. Yet people put pills in their mouths and snort powders when they have no idea what they’re made of – save what they’re told they’ve been sold.
The risk is taken by the individual, but legal culpability for their safety lies on clubs and bars. As Fiona Measham, professor of criminology at Durham, said on Monday, “clubs risk closure if there is a drug-related death, but they also risk closure if they attempt to introduce harm reduction measures.”
People have tried to find workarounds. Sacha Lord Marchionne, founder of Warehouse Project, has worked with drug testers once a month for half a decade to ensure that people in their club are using drugs that are not going to cause them undue harm. But even he has risked being shut down for doing this.
Losing your licence is a very real fear for owners and investors in clubs and bars. Landmark closures, like Fabric (albeit temporarily), have left venues obliged to harden their “zero tolerance” rhetoric towards drugs.
But it’s not working: 63 people died from ecstasy-related incidents in England and Wales in 2016 – deaths that could have been prevented if they’d known better what they were taking.
Club owners and bouncers aren’t stupid – they know that people take drugs despite zero tolerance approaches, and they’re sick of the harm that the duplicity of our legislation causes. Club staff want people to come to their businesses, and they want them to be safe while they’re there.
This could change though.
A report out this week shows the force of will behind the legalisation debate. The think tank Volteface, charity The Loop, Durham University, and the APPG on Drug Policy Reform make up a broad coalition – and it is broad coalitions that lead to breakthroughs on intractable debates.
It needs to get even wider though. Whether you want to relax drug laws in order to increase freedom of individuals, for the business opportunity, to curtail the power of the black market, or to reduce harm on the most vulnerable, you should make your voice heard.
More voices could mean brighter nights and richer pockets for investors in the night-time economy. Let’s make London a beacon for nights out everywhere.
Read more: The UK’s failed drug strategy causes misery and costs lives