It is hard not to be ambivalent about the idea of decriminalisation of drugs, or even of relaxing conviction and sentencing guidelines.On the one hand, it is surely obvious that the “war on drugs” is not working. Making drug addicts criminals has increased crime and driven up the value of illicit drugs. That might be worthwhile if there was evidence that drug abuse had fallen as a result. But such evidence is scanty, both in Bermuda and elsewhere.It can also be argued that the current strict Bermuda policy is hurting the Island’s reputation when tourists are arrested and convicted. That is not to say, as some argue, that drugs are not a health risk, or do no harm. They do, and drug abuse needs to be actively reduced. But if the current policy is not working, the alternatives are risky.Some approaches seem to have had the opposite effect. It is worth noting that Amsterdam is now tightening up on its liberal drug regime. Some places that have attempted to replace heroin with methadone or other alternatives have become magnets for drug users.And for Bermuda, there is a further risk. Given the United States government’s own continuing policy against drugs, even with some recent moves to liberalisation, Bermuda risks becoming a pariah state if it moves too quickly to ease its current strict laws. It is worrying that current proposals to change the sentencing framework for “minor” drug possession seems to be based almost entirely around the US Stop List.The textbook example is of a youthful mistake leading to a young person being literally locked up on the island, unable to seek education or medical treatment in the US. That can be harsh. But it is the thin edge of the wedge in terms of the overall harmful effects of the drugs trade. So any proposals for changing the Island’s drugs policy needs to have a much broader and deeper rationale than keeping young people off the Stop List. Examples from other countries need to be looked at. The United States needs to be consulted. Drug experts need to be involved, as do the police, public health experts, corrections officers and so forth.A recent article in The New Yorker looked at the approach to drugs in Portugal, which enacted a liberalisation policy centred around harm reduction a decade ago. In that country, no drug user (as opposed to traffickers) goes to prison. Instead, drugs are treated as a public health problem. As a result, serious drug abuse seems to have fallen, crime has dropped and the number of drug related deaths has dropped.But that does not mean the policy is perfect, or that there are not people who are opposed to it. In particular, addiction has not measurably decreased, in part because there is no deterrent. The New Yorker also notes that prescription drug abuse has risen dramatically in the US and elsewhere, and it’s legal, so decriminalisation is not necessarily the answer. The major point to make is that this is a policy that needs to be seriously and carefully reviewed before changes are made. It should not be done prior to an election, and it should not be done with the Stop List as a primary motivation.What is needed is a full review or commission of inquiry to look seriously at the whole question of drug abuse, and the role that the criminal justice system plays within it.