‘Women use drugs too’: Why reforming our drug laws will reduce harm for all of us

The use of drugs is embedded in the human experience – both now and historically – yet it’s arguably one of the most socially controversial human habits. In the UK, controlling drug use has become a key policy issue for every government since the 1960s. 

However, there is a growing consensus that the current approach has failed, with the Home Office’s own evidence demonstrating intense criminalisation of drug use and a crackdown on those that grow or distribute drugs is not reducing drug use nor addressing the harms that the criminal market creates. In fact, it is making things worse. 

That is why we’re incredibly concerned by the Home Secretary’s previous comments on drugs. Not only has Suella Braverman continued her predecessor’s vendetta against “middle-class” recreational drug users, but she has apparently also gone further by supporting the reclassification of cannabis from a class B to a class A drug (via The Sunday Times). While No. 10 Downing St has since distanced itself from these reports, it’s still concerning that the laws around drug use in the UK show little sign of reform. 

Here, we explain why the UK’s criminalisation of drug use will most likely increase harm for those already stigmatised within society, including women who are particularly vulnerable to tough drug policies. 

It is true that men generally use drugs at much higher rates than women: the latest Crime Survey for England and Wales highlights how around 7% of women used drugs in the last year, compared to 12% of men. Men are also usually more vulnerable to health problems arising from drug use due to more extensive and heavier drug use. 

However, what’s particularly worrying is the increase in drug-related deaths for women: from 2010 to 2020, the drug-related mortality rate for women in England and Wales has increased faster for women than for men, with a 62% increase in a decade. 

“An effective drug policy should, at its foundational level, aim to reduce harm, not increase it.” 

Similarly, rising rates have been seen across Scotland and Northern Ireland. Such an increase in harms are important to focus on, as an effective drug policy should, at its foundational level, aim to reduce harm, not increase it.

Women, like men, use drugs for various reasons: to have fun, unwind, explore their creativity, or many other non-problematic reasons. In fact, global UN research has shown how only 1 in 10 people who use drugs worldwide will develop a problem from their drug use. 

However, people who do develop drug dependency often do so as a way of self-medicating trauma; this can be as a result of physical or sexual violence as a child or adult. Women who have experienced domestic abuse have been found to be eight times more likely to develop an issue with drugs than those who haven’t. Their exposure to drug-related harms, as well as the lack of treatment services geared towards their needs, has meant that women are feeling the harms of harsh drug policies in increasingly specific and difficult ways. 

Often, government policy will generalise that all drug use is criminal, that drugs destroy lives, and should therefore be punished with harsh sentences. The reality is much more nuanced and fails to reflect that tens of thousands of people use illegal drugs daily, often with no health or social issues.