A major new report on the fight against illegal drugs in Britain says many are “harmless” and should no longer be “demonised”.
The two-year study has urged a radical re-think in policy and found that current legislation is a failure, hopelessly out of date, and in parts irrelevant.
And it warns that policy is too often made on the basis of panic, political point-scoring and misplaced moral outrage, instead of pragmatic assessment of what really works.
It says it should be recognised that drinking and smoking can cause more harm.
And it calls for the main focus of drugs education to shift from secondary to primary schools and recommends the introduction of so-called “shooting galleries” – rooms where users can inject drugs.
It argues that Britain’s drugs problem should be treated predominantly as a medical, rather than a criminal, issue.
The Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce http://www.rsa.org.uk/projects/drugs.asp also urges a rethink in the way in which drug treatment is offered.
It says future policy should be aimed at minimising the harm from drug use, rather than attempting the impossible task of eradicating drug use itself.
It says it is “illogical, expensive and inefficient” to offer treatment primarily to those found to be using drugs when they have committed a crime.
Report author Steve Rossell said steps needed to be taken “to avoid the swings between taking a criminal justice agenda line and a public health line and get a broad-based approach to actually tackling drug use”.
Jackie Squibb is a recovering addict who agrees that criminalising drug takers does little to help them beat their addiction.
” I had a little girl, and when you start using crack and heroin, nothing seems to matter,” she said.
“All the problems and everything that you’ve got, and all the troubles… just the way you feel, you can just block everything out by using that kind of drug.
“And that’s what happened for me. It just took all my pain away.”
But Iain Duncan Smith, chair of the Conservative Social Justice Policy Group, called the report “worryingly complacent” and accused the authors of “not doing their homework”.
The RSA Commission report urges an acceptance that drugs are a fact of life. Some four million people use at least one illicit drug each year, according to Home Office figures.
