A secret Downing Street report on crack and heroin, suppressed by ministers, has discovered that the government's war on drugs has failed. The document, seen by The Observer, was one of several papers on key areas of government policy prepared by the strategy unit at the Cabinet Office and overseen by policy tsar Lord Birt. Researchers found that stamping down on hard drugs through the police and courts had little effect on production and found no evidence that attacking drug supply had any impact on the harm caused by heroin and crack users. The full report provides a powerful argument for legalising drugs so they are not controlled by criminals. [continues 404 words]
Charity Calls For Rethink On Treatment Of Female Addicts Caught In Cycle Of Violence Women who leave prison with drug problems should be relocated to another part of the country, with access to all-female treatment to give them the best chance of a new life and rehabilitation. These are the radical findings of a report to be published tomorrow by Drugscope, amid growing concerns for the safety of women with drug and mental health problems in Britain's overcrowded jails. Last year, 13 women killed themselves in prison and this month, 26-year-old Victoria Robinson, hanged herself at New Hall prison near Wakefield. Two-thirds of those who commit suicide in prison have drug problems. [continues 751 words]
Police Hit Out After Cannabis Hauls Demand for cannabis has exploded in the wake of the relaxation of drugs laws, according to senior Scotland Yard officers. A series of massive seizures in south-east England in recent weeks have alarmed law enforcement officials, who believe criminal gangs are trafficking large quantities of cannabis because they believe police 'have taken their eye off the ball'. Cannabis was reclassified from a Class B to a Class C drug in January 2004. The move was intended to enable forces around the country to focus on the trade in heroin and cocaine. But senior police at Scotland Yard believe this move has sent out the wrong message to the gangs, who are now switching their attention to the softer drug. [continues 635 words]
The United Nations agency responsible for the global fight against drugs has been forced to abandon its campaign to reduce Aids infection by giving clean needles to heroin addicts after threats by America to end its funding, The Observer can reveal. The Bush administration opposes any programme that appears to condone the continued use of drugs, and wants the UN to seek abstention by users, combined with an end to narcotics production. Drug experts believe that if the UN shelved its so-called 'harm reduction' strategy in favour of an outright war on drugs, it could contribute to a rise in the rate of infection with HIV/Aids through shared needles and unsafe sex, as well as increasing the number of addicts. [continues 340 words]
The United Nations agency responsible for the global fight against drugs has been forced to abandon its campaign to reduce Aids infection by giving clean needles to heroin addicts after threats by America to end its funding, The Observer can reveal. The Bush administration opposes any programme that appears to condone the continued use of drugs, and wants the UN to seek abstention by users, combined with an end to narcotics production. Drug experts believe that if the UN shelved its so-called 'harm reduction' strategy in favour of an outright war on drugs, it could contribute to a rise in the rate of infection with HIV/Aids through shared needles and unsafe sex, as well as increasing the number of addicts. [continues 341 words]
Government Plans To Let More Doctors Prescribe Drug Were 'Abandoned' Drugs charities have accused the government of abandoning plans to set up a network of doctors prescribing pure heroin to addicts. Two years ago, the Home Secretary, David Blunkett, announced that the number of licences issued to GPs entitled to prescribe heroin should be increased from less than 50 to 1,500 in an attempt to take the supply of the drug out of the hands of criminals. The move was applauded by drugs organisations, which said the use of medical heroin - known as diamorphine - would help addicts control their chaotic lifestyle and stop them being sucked into crime to support their habit. [continues 384 words]
Tory leader-in-waiting asked to explain decision as Home Secretary to free 18m smuggling pair? The Tory leader-in-waiting, Michael Howard, was under pressure last night to explain his role in obtaining a royal pardon for two of Britain's most notorious drug barons. John Haase and Paul Bennett were released in July 1996 when Howard was Home Secretary, after serving just 11 months of their 18-year sentences. Haase is now serving 13 years in jail for money-laundering and supplying guns to Glasgow gangsters and there is a warrant out for Bennett's arrest on drug-smuggling charges. [continues 703 words]
The family of an unarmed man shot dead by police at point-blank range in a bungled drugs raid will receive a formal apology this week, more than five years after the killing. The Chief Constable of Sussex, Ken Jones, will travel to Liverpool on Thursday to apologise to relatives of James Ashley, who was killed by a police marksman at his flat in St Leonards, near Hastings, in January 1998. The controversy surrounding the shooting led to the resignation in 2001 of Jones's predecessor, Paul Whitehouse, after Home Secretary David Blunkett intervened to say he should be sacked. [continues 402 words]
UN Report Warns of Risk to Smugglers A UN report will this week claim that one in 10 of all passengers on flights from Jamaica is smuggling drugs. Publication of the report follows similar figures released last year by British police and Customs officials, which estimated that around 20 people on each flight from Jamaica were 'drug mules'. Phil Sinkinson, the British Deputy High Commissioner in Kingston, has said that the figures were probably an underestimate. Each mule, most of whom are women, is paid as much as UKP1,500 a trip and swallows up to half a kilogram of cocaine in tiny packages. [continues 338 words]
(The Observer) The use of of Class A drugs such as heroin, crack and cocaine costs the nation almost 320 billion UKP a year, according to new research to be published this week. The study estimates that serious addicts account for 99 per cent of the total social and economic costs of drugs. The report will be published to coincide with the release of the Government's Drugs Strategy, which will prioritise the treatment of addicts and the fight against hard drugs. The University of York study estimates the annual economic costs to the health service and the criminal justice and benefits systems at between 33.7bn and 36.8bn UKP. The social costs of crime to victims boost the figure to between 310.9bn and 318.8bn UKP. [continues 221 words]
Children Behind Bars: As 12-Year-Old 'Bail Bandits' Are Sent Into Custody, Martin Bright Launches The Observer's Campaign With The Children's Society The teenager made it clear what would happen to Robert Bentley if the two boys were forced to share a cell. 'If you don't give me my own cell, I'm going to beat him up,' he spat at police. Bentley had been on remand at the notorious Feltham Young Offenders Institution and was due to appear on a burglary charge for stealing 1,000 cigarettes. The 17-year-old was taken to the police cells before a court hearing in Slough four months ago. He never made it. Instead he was taken to hospital with blood streaming from his broken jaw after his cellmate carried out his threat. The blow's force was so great his bottom jaw was knocked out of alignment and doctors later fitted a steel plate to hold his face together. For the three days Bentley spent in hospital, he was chained to a prison officer. [continues 776 words]
CAN YOU KICK IT? Perhaps. While Some Experts Talk Of An Addictive Personality And Others Argue Addiction Is A Myth, Caroline, Naomi And Giles Tell Us Of Their Struggle To Beat The Habit Caroline opens her hands and pushes them towards me, palms up. They have a strange, orange glow. 'You know what I do now. Carrots. My hands have gone orange. Look.' She and a group of four fellow substance-abusers in recovery are sitting around a table discussing the nature of addiction. [continues 2547 words]
Users Would Take Drug In 'Shooting Galleries' To Reduce Need To Steal Britain's top police officers have called for the mass prescription of heroin to addicts on the NHS in a move that will be seen as the decriminalisation of the drug. The officers believe this radical approach will break the link between addicts and property crime, and allow the police to concentrate on combating major drugs dealers and organised criminals. The Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), which represents chief constables in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, will announce its revolutionary shift in policy in January. Under the proposals, addicts will no longer be treated as criminals if they agree to register and inject prescribed heroin in strictly controlled 'shooting galleries' under medical supervision. [continues 568 words]
Senior Officers Are At Loggerheads, Should They Pursue Users Or Switch To Softly-Softly? Brian Paddick, the progressive head of Lambeth police, knew he was in trouble when he was called to a meeting at Scotland Yard at half past seven last Wednesday morning. The commander of one of the most testing boroughs in the capital had been summoned to see Assistant Commissioner Mike Todd, the tough-talking head of the Metropolitan Police's street policing operations and told to explain the extraordinary comments he had made in the House of Commons the previous day. Paddick had told the Home Affairs Select Committee inquiry into drugs that he did not see the recreational weekend use of cannabis or even cocaine and ecstasy as a priority for his force, and argued that police time was better spent catching serious criminals further up the narcotics chain. [continues 1263 words]
The Government's drug tsar, Keith Hellawell, has called for a liberalisation of the law on cannabis in a radical overhaul of the way the criminal justice system deals with drug offenders. In an exclusive interview with The Observer , he said the Government and the police should concentrate on the fight against heroin and cocaine use and stop being distracted by cannabis. His comments, which were last night attacked as being 'defeatist', follow calls from the Liberal Democrats for a Royal Commission on decriminalising cannabis use. Mo Mowlam, the Cabinet Minister who has admitted smoking cannabis in her youth, is thought to be sympathetic to a softening of the law. [continues 295 words]
It is the story that won't leave Al Gore alone. Thirteen years after he admitted 'rare and infrequent' use of soft drugs in his youth, the dope smoke is still lingering around the Vice-President. This weekend it is threatening to engulf his campaign for the Democratic nomination for the presidency. In an ominous re-run of the Monica Lewinsky affair, Gore's trouble began with a spiked magazine article. A chapter of a new biography, Inventing Al Gore by reporter Bill Turque, was due to appear in the latest edition of Newsweek , but was pulled just before publication. Editors thought it made too much of Gore's past drug use. [continues 631 words]
Drugs do not suck people into a life of crime, according to a report to be published by the Home Office tomorrow. The findings contradict the traditional view that taking cocaine, crack and heroin causes criminal behaviour. The report shows that the overwhelming majority of offenders involved in drug-related offences started their criminal careers long before their habits got out of control. A third of all property crime is thought to be drug-related but in many cases it was found that shoplifting and burglary provided criminals with the means to start their drug habit in the first place. [continues 417 words]
