The powers that want a drug liberal development in Western Europe, have based their work on common tactics. Some branches of the movement have chosen the tactic consciously, other parts are not so conscious about it, but their work support the others, as if there were a delibetrate , coordinated political movement.
The tactics have some main guidelines:
- The first step is usually the wish to start a debate on the topic.
- Next step is usually a study visit, often to Amsterdam, Liverpool or Zurich.
- Then one takes part in conferences, where different drug political alternatives are debated, and one can also arrange ones own conferances.
- One of the early tactical lines, is to "medicalize" the drug problem, trying to make it just a medical problem.
- One of the first main goals is to get acceptance for the notion that drug use is here to stay.
- The different organizations, debaters and representatives for cities and regions, go out on "missions travels", to convince other countries, cities and organizations.
- Furthermore they try to make politicians and decision makers to take small steps, one at a time, in drug liberal direction (the "Step by step" tactic).
-They are deliberately working to achieve that many drug policy decisions can be made at regional and local level.
-They make tactical use of "spearheads", who argument for and demand radical and extreme legalizing propositions. This way they seek to make the decision makers accept small drug liberal steps, and at the same time feel that they have resisted and been standfast against the most extreme propositions.
- Lastly, but not least, the drug liberals are constantly labelling their adversaries arch conservative and oldfashioned.
Let us have a look at the different tactics:
Starting a debate
Many representatives from cities, regions and countries which have changed their drug policy during the last years, can tell that it started with a study tour to Liverpool, Amsterdam and Zurich. There they became convinced that these cities had a better drug policy model than the one they were working along themselves.
Several of them have since "imported" specialists from these cities, to help introducing liberal Legal Prescription Programmes in their city or region, and to teach the police in the same areas how to handle decriminalizing programmes etc. On many occasions this have been methods they earlier have found hard to introduce, because the local docters, social workers and police have refused.
Conferences
Conferences are used as an important part of the drug liberal opinion policy. The conference programmes look grand, with many lecturers of high standing and long experience. So who can refuse a politician or a civil servant to attend to conferences, which give insight and knowledge about the drug liberal development and the drug debate, especially when the conferences is so well prepared and the lecturers of such high standard?
Sooner or later one wants to arrange a conference in one's own city or area. One proposes a comprehensive programme, and asks qualified lecturers from both sides to take part. And then one trusts that the drug liberal lecturers will be more convincing than the sceptical ones.
"Medicalizing"
One of the early parts of the drug liberal tactic, is to make drugs a health problem issue. One shifts the focus from the social side to the health side. And as it becomes a health problem, one should put the problems of administration and handling into the hands of doctors and other people who know about treatment. They are the real experts. This way the drug liberals make social policy and public society politics an unimportant background.
Acceptance
On the study tours and the conferences, one learns that "War on Drugs" is a failiure, and that repressive measures alone are unable to lead to any drug policy improvement. The only "realistic" thing to do, is therefore to accept that the drugs have come to stay, and that drug use has become a part of our modern culture which is impossible to remove or reduce.
If we "accept" this, it will be easier to implement a realistic policy, administrating the existing problem in a wise way, so it will cost the society as little as possible, and in a way so one can reduce the user's harm an worry. Drug liberals are campaigning to introduce the successful methods from Liverpool, Amsterdam and Zurich. The slogan is: "For an accepting drug policy!" This slogan is in use in many European countries. In Germany the largest of the drug liberal organizations is called "Akzept".
Missionary travels
An important part of the drug liberal strategy is to go on missionary travels to other regions and countries, and try to convince them about the wisdom of the drug liberal ideas. Especially many representatives from Liverpool and Amsterdam have visited a lot of other cities and countries, to teach them their "harm reduction" model.
The big city movement for legalizing drugs has carried through such a missionary travel to the U.S.A. The International Antiprohibitionist League have done missionary travels into East Europe.
In addition lots of single representatives are constantly out on travels, to do propaganda for a drug liberal policy.
Step by step
Those who want legalizing find it unwise to scare people by proposing too radical measures, like proposals on legal prescription of heroin, decriminalizing of trafficking with large quantities of "hard drugs", or propositions on legalizing. It is impossible to make the decision maker accept all this in one step.
It is, however, possible to make them take certain small steps, for instance to liberalize the rules for legal prescription. The decision makers will then still be able to say that they are against legalizing, but are willing to consider other, smaller changes.
For tactical reasons the drug liberals are often satisfied with only a small change at a time.
The expression "step by step" are used more and more frequently. This expression was used in one of the documents that was passed at the party congress of the German Social Democrats in Wiesbaden, november 1993.
The expression is often used in debates in the EU Parliament and different international Parliaments, and by the Big City Movement for Legalizing Drugs, representatives for International Antiprohibitionist League, national drug liberal organizations, writers and debaters and lecturers at "harm reduction" conferences etc.
Local perspective
The drug liberal movement are often staking a lot on each city or region being able to make their own decisions about the rules on legal prescription and decriminalizing. One starts with an engagement for letting the regions make their own decisions. This is tactically smart, because usually it will be harder to make the national Parliament pass drug liberal decisions. It is easier to carry such proposals in a local government. Very often the effort is aimed at certain big cities. One starts up with a limited number of regions or cities, and escalate the work gradually. Here also one can see the "step by step" doctrine in work.
One aims to win more and more regional or local decision makers over, and in the end one expects to convince so many, that there will be such pressure from the outside, that the national government also accepts the drug liberal proposals.
The local tactic depends on, of course, whether the national government is willing to delegate certain decisions, like legal prescription or decriminalizing to the local authorities, or not. The national Parliaments are still deciding the legislation, but decisions about the practical interpretation of the laws are delegated to the regions and cities.
These decisions can be, for instance, the content and size of Legal Precription Programmes, syringe exchange programmes, regulations of order and other questions concerning rules and limits of the work of the police and the courts. For the police it may be rules on how they shall tacle interference, confiscation and reporting in cases where smaller amounts of drugs are implicated. On the legal side it may concern practical guidelines for prosecution and the court about when to decide withdrawal of the charge, and court proceedings concerning small amounts of drugs.
In countries where regional interpretation of the legislature is allowed, one may find different rules in different parts of the country. This is the case both in Germany and Holland, and also in other West European countries.
Spearheads
The drug liberals are often using the method of "spearheads". That means that they back up a person or a group, which loudly and publickly demand radical drug liberal changes. Changes that they do not really believe will be possible achieve at the time. But by making these proposals, one can push the sceptics into accepting some far smaller steps in drug liberal direction.
In the EU Parliament Marco Panella proposed legalizing all drugs. On that background, the proposition from Marco Tarradesh and the majority of the Committee on Civil Rights to decriminalize small amounts of drugs for personal use, looked very small and realistic. This way one could make some Parliament members, who were against a major drug liberal change, to accept decriminalizing in the belief that they had stopped the real danger: A radical legalizing of all drugs.
The spearhead method is quite common in national parliaments, in regional and local governments and city councils, in parties and organizations, and during conferences, seminars and symposiums. At the annual conference of the "Frankfurt movement" in nov./dec. 1993, the criminologist Sebastian Scheerer was used as such a spearhead. He spoke warmly for legalizing cocaine, as "... cocaine is neither harmful, nor creates dependency". He pushed this issue so hard, that it became much easier to make the participants of the conference accept "only" decriminalizing and legalizing cannabis.
Branding opponents as "conservative"
"The drug situation is untenable! We have got to do something to change it. The policy up to now has proved a failiure, and must be changed. We are representing change and renewal", claim the drug liberalists. "The ones hanging on to the old way of using police and authorities are arch conservative, and want to continue using old and unsuccessful methods."
In Western Europe the drug liberal ideas are gaining support from the left side, The "green" ones, the new liberals and the extreme liberals. Restrictive or repressive ideas are primarily supported by conservatives, Christian democrats, nationalists and fascists.
It is therefore easy for the drug liberals to succeed in their branding of the adversaries to a drug liberal development, as a result of utter conservative and old fashioned thinking.