THE REGULATION OF DRUG & DRUGS USE

 This Research paper deals with The Regulation of Drugs and Drug Use and this research paper is written by Mr. Himanshu bhardwaj BBA-LLB STUDENT

Introduction

Throughout history, drug use has grown alongside other cultural norms and behaviours. The regulatory frameworks that have arisen to manage drug demand, supply, and usage, as well as the harms associated with drugs themselves, must be understood in a sociocultural context. A difficult equilibrium between public health and law enforcement measures can be seen in today's drug policy. The regulatory methods that stem from this split are hampered by unnecessary complexity and unforeseen consequences. Science and evidence, ethics, public opinion, and the socioeconomic and political backdrop are just few of the factors that need to be considered for effective drug control and regulation.

Perspective from the Past

Drug Use: Its Social Context

Tobacco, cannabis, alcohol, opium, coca, psilocybin, and peyote are only a few examples of naturally occurring psychoactive drugs that have been used by humans from ancient times and which may have served vital cultural, spiritual, medical, and economic functions. Although in certain nations taxes on psychoactive substances constituted a significant source of government money that predated income taxation systems, the distribution and use of psychoactive substances was not historically regulated by the State in the manner that is observed today.

Beginning in 1606 with commerce ships chartered by Elizabeth I, opium was brought from India to the UK. It was common practise for North American colonists in the seventeenth and eighteenth century to cultivate hemp for the purpose of making rope and sails. Opium, morphine, and cocaine were frequently utilised in various home medicines and tonics in numerous countries. Manufacture of novel pharmaceuticals for therapeutic and other uses, combined with the development of sophisticated toxicology in the early nineteenth century, has resulted in a continually expanding palette of psychoactive substances.

What People Do When They See Drug Use

The history of the legal approach to regulating the distribution and consumption of drugs is too extensive to be covered in this study (for a detailed history refer to Courtwright, 2001; MacCoun and Reuter, 2001; Davenport-Hines, 2004). This article provides a brief review of a number of significant events and societal shifts that highlight the trend toward more comprehensive State regulation and control of drugs, along with stricter punishments for drug use, supply, and manufacture.

International drug control conventions and treaties, together with related jurisdictional legislation, evolved in response to a number of significant socioeconomic and political changes. International politics, business interests, and moral consensus on drugs all came into conflict during the Opium Wars of 1839–42 and 1856–80. The tensions arose as a result of the Dutch, Portuguese, English, and British India's continued supply of opium to China after the import embargo was enacted in 1729 and again in 1799.

A moral panic around drug usage emerged as a major post-industrial subject as people grew more mobile. This bolstered bigotry against those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and immigrant communities because of their perceived drug use and racial/cultural differences. This was first noticeable in several countries during the gold rush era of the nineteenth century in relation to Chinese immigration and their use of opium, leading to fears for social order and legislation outlawing opium smoking geared at the Chinese opium dens (Goode and Ben-Yehuda, 1994).

The Pharmacy Act of 1868 in England marked the beginning of state intervention to reduce health risks associated with drug use. This was sparked by the working classes' recreational use of opiates and chloral hydrate. The early roots of an international drug control system can be traced back to worries about the necessity for regulation of the patent medicine sector via State legislation.

The 1912 Hague Opium Convention sought to curb opiate production, distribution, and consumption; limit its use for legitimate medical purposes; and enact domestic legislation to prevent drugs misuse. Since then, efforts to reduce drug use have expanded and hardened in both scope and severity (for a description of development of international conventions on drugs, see Courtwright, 2001; MacCoun and Reuter, 2001; Davenport-Hines, 2004).

The growth of the Temperance Movement in the United Kingdom and the United States was also a significant event, as it paved the way for the implementation of prohibition in both nations and others. In the context of industrialization, urbanisation, population growth, immigration, and other factors that disrupted social order, prohibition gained widespread support as a means of enforcing law and order. The prohibition movement took a harsh moral stance against drug usage and addicts, originally targeting alcohol but eventually expanding to opium and other substances as well. This paved the way for the paternalistic responses of law enforcement and public health to drug abuse, which viewed drug use as an indicator of personal weakness and lack of agency and necessitated a paternalistic response from each sector (Berridge, 1980).

The search for euphoria through intoxicating substances is as old as humanity itself, but the public and state's shifting perspective on this practice's acceptability can be traced back to the Enlightenment's emphasis on reason and rationality as the foundations of the perfect society in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

The Current Drug Crisis and its Consequences

Sociocultural, economic, and political shifts continue to impact drug use patterns and the resulting individual and societal damage. Estimates reveal that cigarette and alcohol use are common in most societies, leading to the majority of drug-related death and morbidity despite the fact that obtaining comparable statistics across nations is challenging.

Approximately 2 billion individuals around the world drink alcohol regularly, while 1.3 billion people smoke cigarettes or other tobacco products (Shafey et al., 2003; World Health Organization, 2004). While industrialised nations bear the brunt of alcohol-related problems, certain emerging nations are seeing an uptick in alcohol-related problems as a result of economic interests establishing alcohol beverage markets. Roughly 76 million people around the world have a problem with alcohol that can be properly diagnosed. Twenty to thirty percent of all cases of esophageal cancer, liver cancer, cirrhosis of the liver, homicides, epileptic seizures, and car accidents are linked to alcohol consumption (World Health Organization, 2004: 1).

Like alcohol, tobacco use is a leading cause of death and illness in industrialised countries, and it is also a growing problem in emerging countries, as rising prosperity is linked to rising prevalence of use and associated health consequences. Around the world in the year 2000, smoking was responsible for an estimated 4.9 million premature deaths. Over 9 million deaths a year are projected for the world by the year 2020, with 7 million of those deaths occurring in low-income regions (Shafey, 2003: 7).

In 2016, it was projected that 200 million people aged 15–64 (or 5% of the global population) used illegal drugs at least once in the previous year. Of these, 25 million people (or 0.6% of the global population) had problematic drug use (United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime, 2006). Cannabis is the most common illegal substance, followed by amfetamine-type stimulants (including ecstasy and amfetamines) then cocaine and opiates. Though the trend is changing, the highest rates of illicit drug usage have historically been seen in industrialised nations. Asians are the most likely to seek help for substance abuse problems, including those associated with amfetamine-type stimulants (United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime, 2006: 9).

Which Should Be the Focus of Modern Drug Policy: Public Safety or Criminal Justice?

The separation of drug use and its consequences into public health and social issues and law enforcement and criminal justice issues is an important historical trend that has mainly coincided with the 'legal' and 'illegal' classification of substances. The relative focus of various regulatory strategies reflects this duality. How much weight is given to the correlation between drug usage and criminal activity will influence the policy priorities of a given jurisdiction.

As a result of drug prohibitionist policy frameworks, public health initiatives are typically funded less and play a secondary role to law enforcement in most jurisdictions. Others have pointed out that public health interventions have been hampered by the emphasis on law enforcement, and that there are unanticipated negative implications of policies that have emphasised law enforcement (Kerr et al., 2005).

Varieties of Existing Legal Responses

To prevent and punish those whose actions go against social norms, it is generally expected that the State will establish mechanisms of control and sanction. Law enforcement today treats a wide variety of drug-related conduct as criminal offences. Punishments for these actions range from community service to the death penalty, but civil regulatory actions and other punishments are also possible (e.g., civil commitment, court-ordered treatment, and diversion-to-treatment programs, or compulsory drug treatment to avoid loss of social assistance, welfare benefits, or child custody).

Use, possession, trafficking, and production of addictive substances account for the vast majority of all criminal offences. However, in recent times, supply control and regulatory measures have expanded to include counterfeit drugs and online trafficking as well as the diversion and nonmedical use of prescription pharmaceuticals, the diversion from legitimate commerce of precursor chemicals (such as methamphetamine manufacture), the regulation of alcohol and public smoking, and the control of public consumption of tobacco products (see Monitoring the Future Survey; Makkai and McAllister, 1998; EUROPHEN, 2004).

The public's perception of a link between drugs and criminal activity is a significant driver of expectations regarding the control of illegal drugs. Drug addicts and their drug usage have been demonised in the public eye, which has paved the way for politicians to regulate narcotics through the legal system. This evolved historically in response to the state's need to regulate immigrant and minority populations that were seen as a security risk. Nonetheless, the internationalisation of this control through binding legal frameworks has established drug use as a conduct deserving of legal control and censure. This rationale rests on the controversial notion that drug usage causes criminal behaviour and on the hope that drug abuse can be controlled or eliminated through control of the drug supply.

Numerous theoretical frameworks have been developed over the years to help explain the correlations between drug abuse, addiction, and criminal behaviour (e.g., see Makkai, 2002 for a discussion of models of enslavement, criminality, escalation, psychopharmacology, economic compulsive, and systemic violence). There is a strong correlation between drug use and criminal behaviour, and those who engage in drug usage are more likely to be arrested and have a greater rate of criminal activity than the general population (Lipton and Johnson, 1998; Deitch et al., 2000; Stevens et al., 2003). To better comprehend the connection between drugs and crime, modern studies incorporate transdisciplinary evaluation of inequalities in environmental factors such poverty, education, and unemployment.

Incorporating a Diverse Selection of Public Health Measures

The presence or lack of personal responsibility has been the focal point of most public health discourse on the topic of drugs and dependency or addiction. Some theories on addiction treat addicts as helpless victims, while others treat addiction as a sickness. It is argued that a lack of autonomy or agency is at the root of addiction, which can be caused by anything from psychological and social causes to inherited traits (see Kellehear and Cvetkovski, 2004). Given this lack of control, it is argued that public health measures rather than law enforcement responses should be prioritised in regulatory efforts.

However, arguments that downplay individual responsibility for drug use on the grounds of addiction can be refuted on the grounds that they extrapolate from a small sample of problematic drug users to general drug use trends. Proponents of drug prohibition and abstinence respond to concerns about addicts' loss of agency by saying that it is ultimately the user's duty to abstain from substance abuse.

There is a broad spectrum of possible interventions within the fields of public health and law enforcement. Legalization, supply reduction, border and domestic interdiction, street saturation policing, cautioning, and court and police diversion of criminals are only some of the legal and law enforcement tactics that have been implemented. A variety of demand reduction measures, including primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention, with or without health promotion, and human rights approaches and plans for drug law change, are at the disposal of public health practitioners interested in harm reduction and minimization.

Some places prioritise public health damage reduction and minimization, whereas others prioritise legal enforcement. This perspective is reflected in the asymmetrical deployment and operation of measures like needle and syringe programmes (NSP), supervised injecting facilities (SIF), and law enforcement. Surprisingly, neither the frequency of drug-related harms nor the strength of the evidence supporting certain therapies can be used as predictors of their actual usage. In spite of the widespread acceptance of evidence demonstrating the efficacy of NSPs in preventing the transmission of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) in Australia and Europe, where they have been in operation for over two decades, NSPs are still prohibited in many American states and are relatively new additions in parts of Asia and other developing countries where HIV and HCV are most established. However, there is variation in results between jurisdictions and even within countries that have attempted to adopt SIF studies (e.g., in Australia establishment of a SIF trial in Sydney and failed attempts in Melbourne and Canberra).

Finally, there are hybrid strategies in which new forms of law enforcement are viewed by some as essential to a successful response aimed at minimising harm (e.g., community policing, drug courts, court diversion to treatment schemes, decriminalisation of possession, cannabis normalisation and nonenforcement policy, drug and driving programs).

International drug control mechanisms are failing on multiple fronts and causing unintended effects, according to those who argue against placing a premium on law enforcement actions. There are direct and indirect costs associated with the war on drugs, including the failure to reduce the illicit market supply of heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, and cannabis; the additional negative social impact of law enforcement approaches; the deemphasis on drug-related harms such as HCV and HIV/AIDS; the lack of evidence regarding the efficacy of law enforcement policies and programmes in reducing drug use and associated health and social problems; and the undermining of the operation of existing petty criminal justice systems (see Kerr et al., 2005; Rhodes et al., 2005). Increased consensus is being reached around the critical understanding that the risk environment in which drug users operate is shaped by the laws as they are drafted and implemented (Burris et al., 2004).

Concerns Up for Discussion

Modern drug usage and the ills associated with it, as well as the regulatory frameworks created to address them, are intricately intertwined with the socioeconomic and political settings; so, it is vital to take context into account when addressing drug use and related consequences. Regulation is the bedrock of public health and law enforcement, regardless of one's perspective on the various methods. Neither the relative importance of public health nor law enforcement measures should be allowed to obscure the examination of their broader context. The State as the site of competition between alternative techniques to control and protect citizens from drug use and its harms, the role of science and the status of evidence, and ethical problems relating to these dimensions must all be taken into account.

Evidence of the importance of context may be seen in the divergent outcomes of arguments over supervised injecting facilities (SIFs) across jurisdictions. Some cases have been halted because opposition groups have too much economic and political weight in the local government. These factions employed a wide range of tactics, from debating the topic in the media to actively seeking legislative change. Proponents and detractors of SIFs both used the available scientific evidence, either to bolster their arguments or to find flaws in the opposition's reasoning. Drug users were excluded from important decision-making processes and given little voice in this climate. When discussions centred on the false dichotomy of drug users as either powerless and helpless victims of their addiction or criminals in control of their own lives, it was difficult to address more nuanced ethical questions.

Successful implementation of regulatory interventions like SIFs (viewed as politically progressive by proponents) may not result in the replacement of more punitive measures but rather their incorporation into the general governance of drug users, drug use, and the accompanying harms. According to Fischer and coworkers (2004), "little attention has been paid to their implications as a substantial shift from the punitive repression of injection drug use (IDU) to the government of drug use as a form of regulated risk consumption and sociospatial ordering under the guise of public health." This is in reference to SIFs. (p. 357). The unintended consequence could be harsher punishment for drug users who fail to comply with new laws and regulations (e.g., saturation policing around new SIFs).

SIFs are an example of how the socioeconomic and political climate can have a lasting impact on drug policy, leading to the entrenchment of a false dichotomy between public health and law enforcement. Politics are swayed by influential lobby groups that influence public discourse. Strategic and technical considerations, or oversimplified moral and punitive responses, can dominate decision making. Strategies for public health and law enforcement regulation are crucial, but we need to look at them in the broader context of society, economy, and politics if we want to understand the positive and negative effects they may have.

Conclusion

Legal and illegal drug policies are subject to alterations in state authority that reflect the prevailing sociopolitical climate. Most historically-documented psychoactive drugs have, at various moments, been widely available without restriction. From the earliest use of epidemiologic methods to illustrate the prevalence of drug use and associated mortality and morbidity in the population to the regulatory frameworks (legislative and taxation) governing the manufacture, distribution, and sale of pharmaceuticals to the controls of the licit drugs of highest consumption, tobacco and alcohol, public health has historically played a role in the justification of drug control alongside law enforcement.

Within their increasingly stringent prohibition regimes, many nations have implemented realistic drug control programmes (e.g., cannabis normalization, diamorphine prescription, supervised drug consumption facilities). However, public health approaches to regulating drug use and hazards are not stable and assured, and neither is a prohibitionist approach to drug regulation and control. Current drug law reformers call for a nuanced approach to drug regulation that goes beyond simple prohibition and includes alternative drug control models such as medical prescribing and government oversight. Consideration of the international human rights legal framework as a means of achieving a balanced approach to drug policy is another important theme gaining traction in the debate about drugs and legal issues. This framework emphasises human dignity, enforceable limits on State actions, remedies for mistreatment, and State public health obligations.

Public health must be adaptable and resourceful in its pursuit of a middle ground between harm reduction and law enforcement strategies in response to the shifting cultural context of drugs. To do so, it may be helpful to examine drug use and the ethical, health, and legal issues it raises in the broader economic, political, and cultural setting in which they exist. It may also call for more in-depth consideration of disagreements over the validity of particular pieces of data, or how to conceptualise the connection between drug abuse and addiction in relation to people's rights and freedoms.