DRUG POLICIES AND SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE Chair: Krysztof Krajewski Chair: Krysztof Krajewski

1.15 DRUG POLICIES AND SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE

59 0056 - MITIGATION OF CRIMINAL REPRESSION AGAINST DRUG USERS BY THE NEW CZECH PENAL CODE

Michaela Stefunkova (Czech Republic)¹

1 - Institute of Criminology and Social Prevention

The adoption of the new Penal Code no. 40/2009 Coll., which came into force on 1.1. 2010, is undoubtedly one of the most significant events in the field of Czech criminal law in the recent years. Among many other changes it also modified the regulation of drug offences. Although the new regulation is based on previous one, it also contains some important differences. One of the lawmaker's declared objectives of the new legislation was the mitigation of criminal repression against drug users, particularly cannabis users. To achieve this aim new offence of unlawful cultivation of plants containing narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances was introduced into the new Penal Code. The introduction of a more lenient punishment for possession of cannabis for personal use compared to other drugs was also motivated by this aim. The presentation is focused on the partial results of the research carried out by the Institute of Criminology and Social Prevention in Prague - "Detection and prosecution of drug crime after the adoption of the new Penal Code". The author tries to assess of the impact of the new legislation on detection and prosecution of drug crime with the special emphasis on the impact to drug users.

0057 - TO CONTROL OR NOT TO CONTROL, AND IF TO CONTROL HOW TO DO IT? THE CHALLENGE OF ‘LEGAL HIGHS’ AND NEW PSYCHOACTIVE SUBSTANCES IN POLAND AND IN EUROPE.

Krzysztof Krajewski (Poland)¹ 1 - Jagiellonian University

Since several years the so called ‘legal highs’ and new psychoactive substances pose a serious challenge to national and international systems of controlling illicit drugs. On the one hand, those substances, mostly of synthetic character, pose often serious public health problems. It is so not necessarily primarily because of their potential to create addiction but because of their toxicity, and potential to create serious negative health consequences. On the other hand molecular formulas of those substances are very easy to manipulate and change in a way, which makes them legal. Legislation is often unable to catch up quickly enough with such inventions of chemists and is unable to put such new substances on the lists of controlled substances quickly enough. The problem is known throughout entire Europe, mainly because such substances are usually sold primarily via Internet, what makes their control even more difficult. In some countries, especially in Ireland and in Poland, for some time large chains of the so called ‘smart shops’ were also operating, selling those substances in a supposedly legal way. The main problem about controlling those substances is the question whether all of them

deserve really to be controlled. If so, the question remains how to do this. Should they be subject to international and national illicit drug control system, like heroin, cocaine or amphetamine? This brings some serious consequences including practically limitless broadening of the scope of criminalization of psychoactive substances. Or does it make sense to try to find some third road, between legalization and prohibition? In that case some control by market mechanism, product safety and consumer protection regulations may come into question. Nevertheless Poland belongs to countries seeking such third road. This may be seen in major changes in the law introduced in 2010, as well as in the recent draft legislation seeking possibility for quick and effective control of such substances and those who produce or sell them, but without indulging in full scale criminalization. Same direction seem to take recent drafts of the new European legislation, attempting differentiation between low risk substances no subject to any restrictions, moderate risk substances subject to permanent consumer market restrictions, and severe risk substances subject to permanent restrictions.

Only last group of substances would be subject to full scale prohibition with all resulting consequences.

0058 - DRUG POLICY, RESEARCH METHODS AND ONTOLOGICAL POLITICS Joseph Ritchie (United Kingdom)¹

1 - University of Manchester

Drug policy, and particularly to the extent that it frequently remains a matter considered appropriate for criminal law enforcement, is a highly contested area in society at large. There are few comparable examples from within criminal law where there are such large constituencies pressing for law reform. The disputes over drug policy can be understood, in part, as disagreements about what sorts of objects drugs are and how they are rendered interpretable by research methods. For example, the competing answers to the question of best to respond to drug addiction can be analysed partly in terms of the different sorts of data produced by different methods and which dimensions of the phenomena are considered important. These perspectives can draw on a range of evidence bases from social constructivism to moralism to welfare oriented approaches in making their competing claims.

The importance of methods and ontological assumptions is also true for more abstract questions about the effects of drugs and their potential harms. The importance of methods in defining drugs as particular types of objects is examined in relation to recent harm assessments. These assessments address whether or not the drugs in question are harmful and thus appropriate for control and have been produced in relation to various novel psychoactive substance in the UK and Europe. This paper presents an analysis of the deployment of scientific research in these assessments, focusing on mephedrone and methoxetamine, both recently prohibited substances. This will demonstrate how ‘objectivity’ is performed in these

61 policy, as distinct to the more familiar critiques of 'irrational' policy making and, more importantly, helps open up the question of how we might otherwise assess these substances.

A critical dimension of how these reports render drugs appears to be the exclusion of the subjective and social value attached to them by users as relevant while simultaneously constructing the harms in inadequate ways. The paper will engage with what the limitations of this are for making policy which both minimizes the harms of recreational intoxication and understanding the dynamics of the current drugs market. The analysis concludes by discussing the trepidations and potential of engaging with pleasure and subjective value in terms of methods and the implications this may have for understanding both the history of the social control of intoxication and how better policies might be designed from this data.

1.16 WHITE COLLAR, ECONOMIC AND ORGANIZED CRIME: CONTROL AND