Pubdate: Wed, 22 May 2002
Source: Independent  (UK)
Copyright: 2002 Independent Newspapers (UK) Ltd.
Contact:  http://www.independent.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/209
Author: Ian Burrell
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)

REPORT AMOUNTS TO PUBLIC INQUIRY WHICH PULLS APART THE GOVERNMENT'S STRATEGY

When David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, called for Britain to have an 
"adult, intelligent debate" on drugs last July he was not anticipating a 
10-month inquiry, held in public, into the Government's track record on the 
subject by one of Parliament's most powerful committees.

Published today - under the combative title The Government's Drugs Policy: 
Is It Working? - the Home Affairs Select Committee's 100-page report pulls 
apart Labour's strategy and calls for "a major shake-up".

Based on evidence from 45 witnesses, ranging from the Home Secretary to 
radical reformers, drugs workers and families of addicts, it makes 24 
recommendations for change.

The report was backed by 10 MPs from the 11-member committee, with only 
Angela Watkinson, a Tory, rejecting its findings. Its main finding are:

Legalisation Debate

Committee: "While acknowledging that there may come a day when the balance 
may tip in favour of legalising and regulating some types of presently 
illegal drugs, we decline to recommend this drastic step. We accept that to 
decriminalise possession of drugs for personal use would send the wrong 
message to the majority of young people ... and that it would inevitably 
lead to an increase in drug abuse. We, therefore, reject decriminalisation. 
We recommend that the Government initiates a discussion within the 
Commission on Narcotic Drugs of alternative ways - including the 
possibility of legalisation and regulation - to tackle the global drugs 
dilemma."

The committee was unconvinced by more radical thinkers, such as the charity 
Transform, which told it that "drugs prohibition effectively hands the 
trade over to organised crime". The MPs acknowledged that there were "some 
attractive arguments" in favour of legalisation but that it would be "a 
step into the unknown".

Supplying to Friends

Committee: "We recommend that a new offence is created of 'supply for 
gain', which would be used to prosecute large-scale commercial suppliers. 
We are not persuaded that an intent to supply should be presumed on the 
basis of amounts of drugs found; we therefore recommend that the offences 
of simple possession and possession with intent to supply should be retained."

The MPs took a more hardline approach than an earlier Police Foundation 
report to those who supply drugs to friends. The foundation had said such 
people should only be charged with possession. The committee said social 
dealers should "not escape prosecution for this offence" but that an even 
harsher penalty should be introduced for major drugs criminals operating on 
a commercial basis.

Reclassification

Committee: "We believe that drugs policy should primarily be addressed to 
dealing with the 250,000 problematic drug users. We support ... the Home 
Secretary's proposal to reclassify cannabis from class B to class C. We ... 
recommend that ecstasy is reclassified as a class B drug."

The recommendation to reclassify cannabis is the final vote of approval 
sought by Mr Blunkett after his earlier proposal to make possession of the 
drug a non-arrestable offence. A change to the law is now imminent. But he 
is fiercely opposed to any softening of the law on ecstasy.

Cocaine

Committee: "We recommend that the number of treatment places for cocaine 
users is substantially increased. We recommend that resources are 
channelled into researching and piloting innovative treatment 
interventions. We consider that the risks posed by cocaine to the user and 
to other people merit it remaining a class A drug. We recommend that more 
treatment places are created for crack users and that resources be 
channelled into researching and piloting more effective treatments. We 
further recommend that in the meantime efforts are redoubled to extinguish 
supply of crack cocaine."

MPs were alarmed by the growing prevalence of cocaine and particularly 
crack, the high-purity crystalline form of the drug. The Home Office 
minister Robert Ainsworth told the MPs of the "massive damage [crack] is 
doing to certain communities and inner-city areas". The committee said: 
"Where crack is concerned we see no prospect for compromise."

Heroin

Committee: "We recommend that the Government substantially increases the 
funding for treatment for heroin addicts and ensure that methadone 
treatments and complementary therapies are universally available to those 
who need them. We recommend that appropriate treatment forms a mandatory 
part of custodial sentences and that offenders have access to consistent 
treatment approaches within the prison estate as well as outside it. This 
should include strictly supervised methadone treatment in the first 
instance. We recommend that a proper evaluation is conducted of diamorphine 
prescribing for heroin addiction in the UK ... as compared with methadone 
prescribing regimes. We recommend that the guidance and training provided 
to practitioners prescribing diamorphine to heroin addicts is strengthened."

In the UK there has been a long-established tradition of limited 
prescribing of diamorphine (clinical heroin) by a small number of licensed 
doctors. The Home Secretary has already said that he would be prepared for 
the number of such doctors to increase from 300 to 1,500.

Shooting Galleries

Committee: "We recommend that an evaluated pilot programme of safe 
injecting houses for heroin users is established without delay and that if 
... this is successful, the programme is extended across the country. We 
conclude that the Dutch and Swiss evidence provides a strong basis on which 
to conduct a pilot here in Britain of highly structured heroin prescribing 
to addicts."

The Home Office was quick to point out yesterday that the Government had no 
plans to open shooting galleries.

Education and Doctors

Committee: "We believe that all drugs education material should be based on 
the premise that any drug use can be harmful, and should be discouraged. We 
conclude that general practitioners are, for the most part, inadequately 
trained to deal with drug misuse. We recommend that training in substance 
misuse is embedded in the undergraduate medical curriculum and postgraduate 
general practice curriculum."

The MPs were shocked that medical students received only 30 minutes of drug 
training in a five-year course. The committee applauded the Government's 
Safer Clubbing guide but called for education of young people by "credible" 
people such as recovered addicts.

Treatment Agencies and the Law

Committee: "We recommend that the Government reviews Section 9A of the 
Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, with a view to repealing it, to allow for the 
provision of drugs paraphernalia which reduces the harm caused by drugs. We 
recommend that Section 8 of the Act is amended to ensure that drugs 
agencies can conduct harm reduction work and provide safe injecting areas 
for users without fear of being prosecuted. We recommend that the Home 
Office and Department of Health urgently review the current legal framework 
on the dispensation of controlled drugs by community pharmacists. We 
recommend that Drug Abstinence Orders are amended to carry the requirement 
of access to treatment."

Drugs workers have been alarmed at the prospect of being jailed because of 
drug-taking on their premises, after the conviction in 1999 of two managers 
of a Cambridge charity hostel that was the scene of heroin use.

'I Silently Screamed For Help, But No One Was There'

the short walk from his prison cell to the rehabilitation room at HMP 
Channings Wood, Devon, was running the gauntlet for Brian, a hardened 
crack, heroin and amphetamine user.

Not every inmate nor officer was sympathetic to his drug addiction or the 
need for rehabilitation. "Some thought it was soft to give us treatment and 
that addicts should just be banged up," the 34-year-old from Manchester, 
who was serving a sentence for theft, said.

Brian, who was sexually abused in his teens, began taking drugs at the age 
of 17 and has been in eight different prisons. He welcomed the call to 
introduce compulsory treatment for all prisoners, something he claims 
helped him defeat his addiction. But the intensive therapeutic community 
programme with Addaction, the largest drug and alcohol charity service in 
Britain, was no soft option, he said.

"I will remember that time as the hardest time in my life. I used to break 
down when I talked about my life. We all lived and breathed the treatment 
and it was how I recovered. I had been silently screaming out for help 
before that but I felt there was no one there for me," he said.

Emma Vickers, a heroin user at the age of 15, felt neglected by the system 
in her fight against drugs and says she was particularly let down by her GP.

"I applied to go into rehabilitation and was rejected because they thought 
my habit was not bad enough. I was not a prostitute and I wasn't 
injecting," said Ms Vickers, 18, from Teesside.

She said she did not feel supported by GPs in the early stages of her 
addiction and believes that more training could have helped her overcome 
her problem much earlier. "I had problems getting methadone. I was on 25ml 
and it was not enough but my doctor would not increase it and I went back 
on heroin. Another GP finally put it up to 50ml which helped me recover."

For Faye, 21, a heroin and crack cocaine user who was addicted by the age 
of 18, the drugs treatment centre she attended in north London was her only 
refuge and something of a second home.

Her parents were heroin addicts and she watched them buy and sell drugs and 
then became involved in petty theft to fund their habits.

Faye welcomed the emphasis on rehabilitation and believes she was lucky to 
be treated at one of the few specialised clinics for young addicts.

Although experts were generally supportive of yesterday's report, there 
were reservations about some recommendations. Rosie Brocklehurst, of 
Addaction, said the charity would not endorse the proposal to downgrade 
ecstasy to class B because not enough research had been undertaken into its 
impact on health. And she warned that injecting houses for heroin addicts 
should only be used in conjunction with various therapies and not in isolation.

"While we would not endorse every one of the recommendations, we welcome 
the report which covered most of what is needed most, she said. "We are 
highly under-resourced but I think the Government is well aware of that and 
has taken some initiatives on board already to tackle the problem of drugs."
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