Pubdate: Sun, 23 Jan 2000
Source: Observer, The (UK)
Copyright: Guardian Media Group plc. 2000
Contact:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/
Author: Patrick Wintour

BRITAIN GETS HIGH WHILE THE CABINET FEUDS OVER CANNABIS

The Government's strategy is a palpable failure, reports Patrick Wintour :
Mowlam and Straw must sink their differences on cannabis and get more cash
from the Treasury

Mo Mowlam last week became the first Cabinet Minister in history to admit
breaking the law on smoking cannabis. She admitted that she had tried
marijuana, did not like it, but - unlike President Clinton - had inhaled.
Her apparently casual confession put her among the one in three of the UK
population who have used illegal drugs.

Mowlam, newly responsible for government drugs policy, might have been
thought to be reflecting a new softer government line on cannabis,
particularly when Home Secretary Jack Straw appeared to offer his support:
'Good for Mo in making this clear!' But the apparently relaxed united front
masks deep rifts in the Cabinet - not just on whether some uses of cannabis
should be decriminalised but who is in charge of a drugs policy which is
palpably failing.

Britain has one of the highest prevalences of drug use in Europe and the
Government is losing the fight against serious drug abuse. The price of key
drugs such as heroin is falling on the streets, suggesting availability is
as good as ever. Official figures for the latest recorded six-month period
show that 30,000 new users reported to drug centres for treatment. At the
same time the number of residential drug treatment centres is falling.

Inside Whitehall, a turf war is raging over who is responsible for fighting
drugs.

All sides agree the extra pounds 217 million put aside in the Comprehensive
Spending Review to fight drugs for this year and the next two years looks
paltry, given the scale of the problem in Britain.

Moreover, the Government agreed more than a year ago to shift resources from
prosecution to prevention, but there is little sign that anything
fundamental has happened. The number of drug treatment centres, already
woefully inadequate, seems to be falling. Indeed, waiting lists for drug
addicts in some places is longer than six months, according to the Standing
Advisory Committee on Drugs.

The Whitehall battle is not just over policy, however, but on the
co-ordination of it. As we report today, Mowlam would like to adopt a more
liberal policy on cannabis use as medicine, and she would probably like to
stop seeing possession of cannabis as an imprisonable offence, the likely
recommendation of an imminent Police Foundation report, chaired by Lady
Runciman.

Mowlam is being blocked by Straw and Downing Street who see any move in this
area as the tip of an iceberg leading to the decriminalisation of cannabis.

But the big issue in Whitehall is the debate on how to slow the use of hard
drugs and how best to marshall limited resources to break the cycle of drug
abuse and crime.

Doubts are starting to be raised about whether Keith Hellawell, the
so-called drugs tsar, appointed with much fanfare by Tony Blair and now in
the second year of his three-year contract, is the man for the job. His
critics do not blame the former West Yorkshire Chief Constable for losing
the drugs war, an intractable international problem, but they question
whether he is right for the job. One senior critic said: 'He has the
mentality of a former policeman - slightly tunnel vision and very
methodical.' Another Hellawell sceptic questioned his staying power. Greater
warmth is expressed towards his deputy, Mike Trace.

The Hellawell problem, however, may be code for a deeper malaise in
Whitehall about the lack of co-ordination in the fight against hard drugs.
Apart from Hellawell, Mowlam, as Minister for the Cabinet Office, is also
overseeing the review of policy for this summer's three-year spending
review.

At the Home Office, the impressive Charles Clarke is trying to break the
link between crime and drugs. The Department for Education also holds a
sizeable interest through combating the drugs culture in schools. The
Department of Health monitors general drug abuse and funds drug treatment
centres. Throw in the probation service and the police, and you have a
recipe for chaos. Poor Hellawell, by contrast, is armed with virtually no
budget and few powers, save persuasion.

The Hellawell critics say that Whitehall, in the current jargon, is all
about addressing 'cross-cutting issues', subjects such as drugs or child
poverty that span more than one department.

This requires someone intimate with Whitehall, such as Moira Wallace, the
livewire head of the Social Exclusion Unit, or someone with political clout,
such as Mowlam, to stop the Whitehall fiefdoms hoarding their information,
budgets and time.

A Cabinet Office report, prepared by the Performance and Innovation Unit and
smuggled out last month, in effect acknowledged that Hellawell was still not
getting the co-operation he had been appointed to secure.

The unit, much favoured by Blair, recommended the anti-drugs work of
Department of Health and Home Office should be merged and 'as a first and
very early step' their separate teams should be put under one roof.

It also proposed Hellawell be given his own budget so he could showcase his
favoured projects. Hellawell and the Number 10 Policy Unit needed to clarify
lines of responsibility, the report said, so local Drug Action Teams, the
bodies bringing local agencies together on the ground, did not receive mixed
signals from the centre. Ian Robinson, deputy director of the drugs advice
centre Release and a former action team worker, echoes this. He says:
'Trying to get co-operation at local level is one of the worst jobs in the
world. You are hardly likely to get co-ordination if the co-operation at the
centre is poor.'

The Cabinet Office report also pointed out that some of the performance
targets set by Hellawell in his first annual report in May were meaningless.
The report pointed out that a key Hellawell target - reducing the level of
repeat offending among drug users by 50 per cent by 2008 - was immeasurable
since there are no incontestable data on crime committed due to drug taking.

One Minister admitted the quality of much data on drugs in Britain was
patchy. The Standing Advisory Committee on Drugs, the Government's official
body, also admitted the information on treatment centres, NHS, voluntary and
private, was poor. A spokeswoman said they believed there were 560 such
centres in the NHS, but the last full survey was undertaken in 1992.

A Department of Health funded survey for the committee also found
unacceptable waiting times. It took 14 weeks to get an assessment, another
four weeks to get into rehabilitation and at least four months to secure a
slot for NHS detoxification as an inpatient. It all looks like a false
economy. One survey suggested 700 people committed crimes while waiting for
treatment.

A separate five-year survey for the Department of Health, published last
June, found treatment centres were worth every penny. For every one pound
spent on drug treatment more than pounds 3 is saved on the costs of crime.
Even two years after attendance at a drug treatment centre, the likelihood
of a drug user committing a crime is greatly reduced. Since some government
studies suggest about 50 per cent of crime is committed to feed a drug
habit, treatment centres look like a real investment for government.

The Home Office has grasped this insight. It has launched two drives. First,
it is piloting Drug Treatment and Testing Orders. Instead of sending a drug
addict to jail - like sending an alcoholic to a brewery, some observers have
said - magistrates are being asked to dispatch criminals to a treatment
centre.

Three pilot studies in Gloucestershire, Merseyside and Croydon suggest the
orders are not a panacea. A large number of addicts are breaching their
order by failing to attend the centre. In Merseyside half the orders have
been revoked due to breaches. This is not due to an over-zealous approach by
magistrates. In some cases, the order is still not being revoked until three
warnings.

In the Government's second initiative, Ministers are promising to set up
arrest referral schemes in every police station by 2001: pounds 20m was set
aside to advise people on treatment available.

The Home Office's Drug Prevention Advisory Service praised the idea of drug
referral units. In a report, Doing Justice to Treatment, it said: 'For most
of those involved, drug use got out of control in their early twenties, long
after their criminal careers were established. The majority then embarked on
lengthy parallel drug and crime careers. Though they were often in trouble
with the law, they got little or no effective help for their drug problems.'

The report warned: 'If drug agencies are already fully stretched and lack
capacity to absorb extra clients, setting up criminal justice referral
mechanisms, such as drug referral units, will simply reallocate available
treatment among problem users.

Underlining the scale of the funding, the study told the story of one man
arrested and immediately referred for treatment. He then served five months
for shoplifting, came out and still found himself fortieth in the waiting
list for treatment. Yet Hellawell, in his first annual report last spring,
said he wanted to get waiting times down to four weeks. He is a million
miles from achieving this aim.

So far, most new money has been pumped into the rapid expansion of drug
treatment services inside prisons. Mowlam and Straw, if they can sink their
differences over cannabis, need to co-ordinate their line and bid for extra
cash from the Treasury.

Otherwise, the drugs tsars will go the way of other tsars, and tens of
thousands of children will continue down the one-way street of poverty,
drugs, crime and prison.
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