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Hard News: Spectacular but useless

Posted at 9:14AM on 24 Jun 08. Permalink.

The Herald has had two bites at the new New Zealand Drug Harm Index developed by Berl for the New Zealand Police.

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The Herald has had two bites at the new New Zealand Drug Harm Index developed by Berl for the New Zealand Police.

The first is a fairly plain NZPA story that appeared yesterday on the paper's website. The second is the one headed $1.3b drugs bill we're all paying that takes the front page this morning.

As you might expect, the vanilla version, based on a story in the police Ten One magazine, is closer to the truth. It quotes National Crime Manager Detective Superintendent Win van der Velde as saying the index "will help reinforce the value of police enforcement activity and the work with our partner agencies."

The front-page version, on the other hand, is a torrent of scary numbers.

The idea of a drug harm index isn't necessarily a bad one. In Britain, the Drug Harm Index does actually seek to measure social harm caused by illicit drug use -- and to assess harm reduction measures. Its harms "include drug-related crime, community perceptions of drug problems, drug nuisance, and the various health consequences that arise from drug abuse." It is actually possible to measure -- and, on the evidence, improve -- policy outcomes with the British model.

Indeed, the British index is specifically geared towards harm reduction targets laid out in 2004:

• Reduce the harm caused by illegal drugs (as measured by the Drug Harm Index encompassing measures of the availability of Class A drugs and drug-related crime) including substantially increasing the number of drug-misusing offenders entering treatment through the criminal justice system.

• Increase the participation of problem drug users in drug treatment programmes by 100 per cent by 2008 and increase year-on-year the proportion of users successfully sustaining or completing treatment programmes.

• Reduce the use of Class A drugs and the frequent use of any illicit drug among all young people under the age of 25, especially by the most vulnerable young people.

Unfortunately, Berl has followed the Australian model, which is more or less explicitly, a public relations tool for police. (As the Aussies put it: "The index represents the dollar value of harm that would have ensued had the seized drugs reached the community. In the five years from 1998-99 to 2002-2003, the AFP and its partners saved the Australian community approximately $3.1 billion in harm through its disruption of illicit drug importations.")

Harms as very widely defined in this model include the costs of policing drug laws by the police and Customs. So if we were to follow the urgings of Mike Sabin and throw huge additional resources into stamping out drugs, the Drug Harm Index would go up. And every drug seizure made by police would be accounted as preventing harm to an even greater value. The more money they spent, the more money they'd save us. Cool, huh?

As you might expect, no attempt is made model the harm caused by the fact of drugs being illegal; or, to phrase it another way, to assess the relative harm generated by different policy approaches. This is, after all, a report created for the police rather than as an measure for heath or social policy.

The model also coughs up some spectacular, and meaningless, figures: "The most damaging drug per kilogram was LSD, which cost more than $1.05 billion a kg," reports the Herald story. (To be fair to Berl, its report does acknowledge the pointlessness of this figure.)

The other thing that makes the Drug Harm Index fairly useless is that it specifically excludes the legal but harmful drugs alcohol and tobacco. The shortcoming was identified in a meeting of the Inter-Agency Committee on Drugs last April. From the minutes:

9. DEVELOPMENT OF A DRUG HARM INDEX

The MCDP Chair had raised the question, on why the drug harm index did not include tobacco and alcohol, at the MCDP meeting held on 14 March 2007. Police commented that with a lack of resources this is as far as they can take it. It was also discussed amongst the Committee that a more useful approach would be to ensure that the on-line drug information database was structured to collect and present information on alcohol and drug related harm.

Action:

Committee agreed to rename the index the “Illegal Drug Harm Index.”

Neither the name change or the proposed "more useful approach" have come to pass. The index also misses a huge opportunity to shed light in not modelling the economic and social costs of legal "party pills" alongside illicit drugs.

And we're left with an index that is spectacular but fairly useless in policy terms. Jim Anderton is proud of it.

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Ross Bell
From: Wellington, NZ
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 17

Posted at 9:14AM on 24 Jun 08. Permalink.

Yep, and using seizure data is always problematic

Craig Ranapia
From: North Shore, Auckland
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 4375

Posted at 9:15AM on 24 Jun 08. Permalink.

And we're left with an index that is spectacular but fairly useless in policy terms.

Would I be far too cynical in suggesting that there's an event that has to happen on one Saturday before the middle of November that might be marginally more pertinent here? And God only knows that the Police need some positive PR...

Paul Campbell
From: Dunedin
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 599

Posted at 9:25AM on 24 Jun 08. Permalink.

Those headlines 'police raid discovers $N million worth of drugs' have always seemed bogus to me - I mean is there a part of StatisticsNZ that does a monthly street price survey? - I kind of imagine a Beavis&Butthead "nyuck nycuk nycuk - I sold that guy a tinny of oregano for $500, he was so obviously a nark man"

Michael Hogan
From: Waiheke Island
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 24

Posted at 9:50AM on 24 Jun 08. Permalink.

Yes, pointless waffle really in terms of any real social benefit. The police are definitely in need of positive PR, and this will provide stats to that effect that can be used to buy some more votes.

Any drug harm index that does not include alcohol and tobacco is useless, but does not serve the purpose here, and would not be allowed by respective lobby groups. $12K worth of harm per kg of cannabis? Gimme a break..

The more money they spend, the more they save us...
From ourselves!

If that isn't politically driven socialist crap nothing is.

Mikaere Curtis
From: Tamaki Makaurau
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 173

Posted at 10:09AM on 24 Jun 08. Permalink.

If that isn't politically driven socialist crap nothing is.

I don't think socialists have a monopoly on this kind of authoritarianism, just look at the US War on Drugs.

I am really disappointed with the police. Given the stats that they themselves declare - circa 80% of violent crime is related to alcohol - I can only conclude that the knowingly set the brief for this report clearly with PR in mind.

Paul Campbell
From: Dunedin
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 599

Posted at 10:15AM on 24 Jun 08. Permalink.

In fact I think that alcohol and tobacco being ignored when considering drug harm probably has more to do with capitalism than socialism

horse
From: Palmerston North
Since: Feb 2007
Posts: 11

Posted at 10:16AM on 24 Jun 08. Permalink.

On a quick browse through the report, it seems pretty cynical. For example, "stimulants" includes Methamphetamine AND Ecstasy, and nowhere are harm figures broken down between the two.

Tom Semmens
From: Auckland
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 546

Posted at 10:20AM on 24 Jun 08. Permalink.

I noticed on the news the other night that the police allowed TVNZ journalists "behind the scenes" on one of their murder investigations, with a view of the operations room and the timeline storyboard, etc etc. Definetely part of a PR campaign by the police. And not before time in my view. Constant attacks on the credibility of the police have consequences, not the least of which is having to listen to the hot headed and foolish comments of Peter Lowe in the media. His comments came perilously close to incitement in my view. I notice Mr. Lowe appears to be being primed and fired by the Sensible Sentencing Trust, whose recent antics seem to veering more and more to encouraging an extra-judicial lynch mob mentality.

Zippy Gonzales
From: Wellington
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 74

Posted at 10:30AM on 24 Jun 08. Permalink.

And on the Mazengarb Delinquency Harm Index all those years ago, homosexuality was deemed the most damaging harm, 8 shillings more harmful per kilo than milkbars.

Russell Brown
From: Auckland
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 5336
Moderator

Posted at 10:34AM on 24 Jun 08. Permalink.

I can only conclude that the knowingly set the brief for this report clearly with PR in mind.

I think that is the correct conclusion, unfortunately.

Matthew Poole
From: Auckland
Since: Mar 2007
Posts: 588

Posted at 10:49AM on 24 Jun 08. Permalink.

homosexuality was deemed the most damaging harm, 8 shillings more harmful per kilo than milkbars.

What's that converted into grams of well-aged Stilton?

Matthew Poole
From: Auckland
Since: Mar 2007
Posts: 588

Posted at 10:52AM on 24 Jun 08. Permalink.

includes Methamphetamine AND Ecstasy, and nowhere are harm figures broken down between the two.

I haven't read the Herald yet (it's my lunchtime reading material), but the headline and opening line on the website caught my eye. Apparently E is a hard-core drug, and was listed alongside a bunch of class A narcotics. The only class B in the list, in fact. Obviously it's just under-classified.

From all the reading I've done about E, the only harm I've been able to find is in chronic users where it can totally fuck with one's serotonin production/uptake systems. That's it. Oh, and the idiots who drown themselves but that's not directly E's fault.

dc_red
From: Waitakere City
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 443

Posted at 10:55AM on 24 Jun 08. Permalink.

It's a shame that they didn't run a parallel headline about Transmission Gully. Along the lines of:

"Road no one will be able to afford to use cost NZ society $1.025 billion, study shows"

Craig Ranapia
From: North Shore, Auckland
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 4375

Posted at 11:02AM on 24 Jun 08. Permalink.

I am really disappointed with the police. Given the stats that they themselves declare - circa 80% of violent crime is related to alcohol - I can only conclude that the knowingly set the brief for this report clearly with PR in mind.

Mikaere: Rightly or wrongly (possibly the latter, bugger), I'll err very slightly on the side of generosity and say I don't think it's quite that simple. But I sure as hell do think this has the awful whiff of nudging your methodology towards a desired outcome.

OTOH, after the taser trail report debacle I'd seriously propose an independent Keith Nig-style bullshit detector be seconded to the Commissioner's Office, with absolute veto powers over every scrap of paper that goes out on Police letterhead with a statistic in it. There's a line between 'open to debate' and 'utter, dishonest bullshit', and the Police can't afford to be on the wrong side of it when making allegedly serious public policy arguments or effectively lobbying for legislation.

dc_red
From: Waitakere City
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 443

Posted at 11:06AM on 24 Jun 08. Permalink.

There's a line between 'open to debate' and 'utter, dishonest bullshit', and the Police can't afford to be on the wrong side of it when making allegedly serious public policy arguments or effectively lobbying for legislation.

Surely though that's their modus operandi?

Matthew Poole
From: Auckland
Since: Mar 2007
Posts: 588

Posted at 11:06AM on 24 Jun 08. Permalink.

after the taser trail report debacle

Oh, oh, scandal? Didn't hear about that one. Or are you just talking about how it was pretty much a foregone conclusion that they would be recommended, and the trial was mostly a façade?

Russell Brown
From: Auckland
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 5336
Moderator

Posted at 11:18AM on 24 Jun 08. Permalink.

after the taser trail report debacle
Oh, oh, scandal? Didn't hear about that one. Or are you just talking about how it was pretty much a foregone conclusion that they would be recommended, and the trial was mostly a façade?

The Ombudsman gave the police a serious lashing for cherry-picking trial data and "sanitising" their final report:

http://norightturn.blogspot.com/2008/06/sanitised.html

Quite dishonest, actually.

Steve Barnes
From: A:\Kland\3Kings\My Office\My Documents\Random.thinx
Since: Dec 2006
Posts: 736

Posted at 11:19AM on 24 Jun 08. Permalink.

The fact that this report was put together by "Economists" rang alarm bells with me. The police can now say "see, we are not wasting money on chasing pot heads, we are saving you money"
That the report does not include tobacco and alcohol says to me that, maybe, the report contained these figures originally but when you looked at the figures the police could only say "See, we are wasting your money chasing pot heads, we have far bigger problems to deal with"
Complete waste of time and money. You may as well ask "How much do economists cost the country?"

Rich of Observationz
From: Beautiful Downtown Wellington
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 1178

Posted at 11:19AM on 24 Jun 08. Permalink.

I haven't fisked the whole thing yet, but if you take the costs of prohibition out of their numbers, they reduce hugely. If you add in revenue loss from not taxing currently illegal drugs (something that was advocated by the party pill industry) then it's conceivable that legalisation would make recreational drug use a net fiscal positive.

I'd also point out that it's by no means certain that the problems of those presenting medically or being convicted as a "result" of drug use are actually wholly or partly due to drug use. People with existing psychiatric issues are more likely to have drug problems, and defending counsel will always produce any mitigation they can.

Russell Brown
From: Auckland
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 5336
Moderator

Posted at 11:24AM on 24 Jun 08. Permalink.

That the report does not include tobacco and alcohol says to me that, maybe, the report contained these figures originally but when you looked at the figures the police could only say "See, we are wasting your money chasing pot heads, we have far bigger problems to deal with"

When you look at the figures in the index for drug-related crime, without alcohol, they actually seem quite low (although, comfortingly, 100% of drug offences were drug-related).

Including alcohol would have created just the effect you suggest.

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