THE war on drugs hasn't succeeded and we need fresh ideas on how to tackle the problem. But that's not to say we should legalise drugs such as cannabis, cocaine and heroin. That would be foolish and dangerous. David Cameron is right to say that decriminalising recreational drugs would send out the wrong message to our children. Drugs leave a trail of misery wherever they are found. If anything, there should be stiffer penalties for convicted drug dealers and users. Nick Clegg is naive to call for laws to be relaxed. James Clark, Bristol [end]
TONY BLAIR'S drug czar has made a daring proposal that cabinet ministers should be subjected to random drug tests. Keith Hellawell wants to see testing for narcotic substances become more widely used in the workplace, including Whitehall departments. Even Tony Blair might be asked to take a blood test or give a urine sample in his capacity as head of the civil service. The system would be similar to the one which required the Duke of York, as a naval officer, to give a sample last year. [continues 356 words]
EVERY person flying into Britain faces having their air tickets tested for traces of drugs under ambitious plans being considered by Keith Hellawell, the government's "drug tsar". The plan, which is certain to lead to protests from civil liberties campaigners, follows research which showed that 80% of the banknotes circulating in central London bore traces of cocaine. Hellawell is organising trials of a British invention that in just a few seconds will be able to check tickets for heroin, cocaine, cannabis or ecstasy residue. The government has cleared the machine, known as a boarding pass analyser (BPA), to be set up at a British airport later this year to test for traces of plastic explosives. It is already being used on trial by the Canadian government and the Federal Aviation Administration in America. [continues 460 words]
A BRITISH police officer has been arrested in India and accused of trying to smuggle heroin worth almost UKP 31m into Britain. Shabir Rehman Abdul Mubarak, a constable from Preston, Lancashire, was one of five men held in Bombay by Indian drug squad officers on Friday. He holds both Indian and British passports, although his superiors in the Lancashire force had been unaware of his dual nationality, which usually bars people from serving in the police. Bombay police said the suspects were found with 5 kilograms of "superior-quality heroin" with a street value of UKP950,000. It is alleged that Mubarak used his police warrant card to try to smuggle the drugs onto a flight to Dubai, where the suspects were scheduled to catch a flight to Manchester. [continues 168 words]
UP TO 12,000 people a year - 32 every day - are dying drug-related deaths, a government report is set to reveal. The report, due out in the spring, will reveal for the first time the full scale of the crisis. Current Home Office figures show only about 800 people dying annually as a result of drug use, 15 times fewer than the figure in the report. The research, by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), was ordered by the "drug tsar" Keith Hellawell last year after officials told him available figures were unreliable. [continues 335 words]
BRITAIN'S "drug tsar", Keith Hellawell, has accused cabinet ministers of orchestrating a dirty tricks campaign against him that is undermining the government's drug strategy. The former chief constable, now Tony Blair's most highly paid special adviser, said that constant "sniping and innuendo" in the press had "the potential to undermine what we are all working towards". He said he was "increasingly frustrated" to find the government's 10-year plan to tackle drug abuse praised across the world as the model for other nations, but increasingly trivialised by the actions of some Labour ministers and spin doctors in Britain. [continues 656 words]
