Pubdate: Thu, 30 Oct 2014
Source: Guardian, The (UK)
Copyright: 2014 Guardian News and Media Limited
Contact:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardian/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/175
Author: Alan Travis, Home affairs editor
Page: 1

PUNITIVE DRUG LAWS ARE FAILING, SAYS MINISTER

Home Office Study Finds No Evidence That Harsh Sentencing Curbs Illegal Use

There is no evidence that tough enforcement of the drug laws on 
personal possession leads to lower levels of drug use, according to 
the government's first evidence-based study.

Examining international drug laws, the groundbreaking Home Office 
document published today brings to an end 40 years of almost unbroken 
official political rhetoric that only harsher penalties can tackle 
the problem caused by the likes of heroin, cocaine or cannabis.

It is signed off by the Conservative home secretary, Theresa May, and 
the Liberal Democrat minister Norman Baker and will be published 
alongside an official expert report calling for a general ban on the 
sale and trade in legal highs.

Baker said the international comparisons demonstrated that "banging 
people up and increasing sentences does not stop drug use". He said 
the last 40 years had seen a drugs debate in Britain based on the 
"lazy assumption in the rightwing press that if you have harsher 
penalties it will reduce drug use, but there is no evidence for that at all".

Baker added: "If anything the evidence is to the contrary."

The minister added that wider societal factors, such as a more risk- 
averse generation of young people, who suffered fewer alcohol 
problems and were healthier, contributed to the general downward 
trend in drug use.

It documents in detail the successes of the health-led approach in 
Portugal combining decriminalisation with other policies, and shows 
reductions in all types of drug use alongside falls in drug-related 
HIV and Aids cases.

The Home Office international research paper on the use of illegal 
drugs, which redeems a Lib Dem 2010 election pledge for a royal 
commission to examine the alternatives to the current drug laws, also 
leaves the door open on the legalisation experiments in the American 
states of Washington and Colorado, and in Uruguay. It says that "it 
is too early to know how they will play out but we will monitor the 
impacts of these new policies in the years to come".

Regarding legal highs, Baker said the government would look at the 
feasibility of a blanket ban on new compounds of psychoactive drugs 
that focused on dealers and the "head shops" that sell tobacco 
paraphernalia rather than users.

"The head shops could be left with nothing to sell but Rizla papers," 
Baker said. "The approach of a general ban had a dramatic effect on 
their availability when it was introduced in Ireland, but we must 
ensure that it will work here."

A ban would apply to head shops and websites. Legal highs are 
currently banned on a temporary 12-month basis as each new substance 
arrives on the market. Legislation is possible before the election 
but not certain.

The new blanket or "generic" ban would not be accompanied by a ban on 
the possession or use of the new psychoactive substances, which often 
mimic the effects of traditional drugs. This would remain legal.

It is expected the expert report on legal highs will recommend a 
threshold for substances to be banned so that those with minimal 
psychoactive effects such as alcohol, tobacco, tea and coffee would 
not be caught by the proposed new ban.

The report firmly rejects a New Zealand style-approach of regulating 
head shops and other sales outlets for legal highs.

Publication of both reports has been held up for months as 
interminable negotiations between the two coalition parties have gone 
on over every detailed issue.

Baker has repeatedly warned of the dangers of legal highs, citing 
evidence that some cannabinoids synthesised in chemical labs are 100 
times more powerful than traditional strains of cannabis.

The expert report says there were 60 deaths related to new 
psychoactive substances in 2013  up from 52 the year before.

It also considers basing future controls of the effect on the brain 
rather than the current test of their chemical structure.

Frontline health staff are also urged to receive strengthened 
training to deal with their effects.

Danny Kushlik, of the Transform drugs charity - which campaigns for 
drug legalisation, said the international report represented a 
landmark in British drugs policy since the introduction of the 1971 
Misuse of Drugs Act that is still in force today.

"This is a historic moment in the development of UK drug policy. For 
the first time in over 40 years the Home Office has admitted that 
enforcing tough drug laws doesn't necessarily reduce levels of drug 
use," said Kushlik.

"It has also acknowledged that decriminalising the possession of 
drugs doesn't increase levels of use. Even more, the department in 
charge of drugs prohibition says it will take account of the 
experiments in the legal regulation of cannabis in Washington, 
Colorado and Uruguay.

"Pragmatic reform will only happen if there is crossparty support for 
change and we can assume now that the Labour party can engage 
constructively on this previously toxic issue."

A Home Office spokesperson, responding to the evidence of the 
international report, said: "This government has absolutely no 
intention of decriminalising drugs. Our drugs strategy is working and 
there is a long-term downward trend in drug misuse in the UK.

"It is right that we look at drugs policies in other countries and 
today's report summarises a number of these international approaches."

Earlier this year the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, pledged to 
abolish prison sentences for the possession of drugs for personal use 
- - including class-A substances such as heroin and cocaine. He urged 
David Cameron to look at issues such as decriminalisation or 
legalisation of drugs.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom