Balancing Rights and Harm in Criminalization Policy : A Case Study Analysis of Durg Decriminalizationin the Uinted Kingdom

Abstract

This research study explores normative basis and legal-political structures on which the criminalisation of drugs in the United Kingdom is founded, with particular emphasis on the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 and its modern uses. The study is based on normative legal theory and informed by empirical policy analysis and questions the degree to which UK drug policy conforms to major ethical theories, namely the harm principle, Kantian rights theory and the theory of reciprocal constraints. The study employs qualitative case study method, where it analyses a wide variety of sources such as statutory documents, parliamentary debates, government white papers, judicial decisions, academic sources, and non-governmental organisation reports are used. The research presents a discourse and documentary analysis of the contradictions between obvious aims of promoting public health and the long-term persistence of punitive enforcement approaches to UK drug policy. The results indicate a great disconnection between the justificatory rhetoric of harm prevention and the real structure and results of drug law enforcement. It is found that the criminalisation of personal drug use is not compatible with normative standards of proportionality, autonomy and rights-respect. Racial inequity, the use of users as instruments of deterrence, and the political opposition to reform are all part of a larger trend of overcriminalisation, in which acts that are not themselves wrong are over- and unevenly punished. In this dissertation it has been argued that the UK drug policy needs a principled review. It offers a transition to a rights-based, harm-reduction model that reduces the excesses of criminal law and protects the freedom of individuals and community health. By doing so, the research will add to an accumulating literature base, which argues in favour of ethically consistent and evidence-based drug reform.