Centre For Policy Studies argues enforcement must come before harm reduction

The government’s anti-drug strategy has been criticised as a “phoney war” in a new report by the Centre For Policy Studies (CPS).

The study by the right-wing think-tank describes the UK’s drug problem as “the worst in Europe” and accuses Labour of focusing too much on “harm reduction” among addicts rather than prevention and law enforcement.

The Phoney War on Drugs argues that the government has progressively shifted resources towards treatment of addicts, leaving just £380 million a year-or 28% of the total drugs budget-spent on enforcement.

The author of the report, Kate Gyngell, writes: “Labour’s war on drugs has not, despite the rhetoric to the contrary, been fought. It has been a Phoney War and an expensive failure.”

But a Home Office spokesman said the study “inaccurately portrays the impact of the government's drug strategy”.

Gyngell, who chairs the Prisons and Addictions Forum at the CPS, claimed that a threefold increase in spending on methadone between 2003 and 2008 had trapped 147,000 people in “state-sponsored” addiction.

Rather than managing addiction, she suggests the government should develop treatment programmes aimed at abstinence.

“Current policy is based on the premise that drug harms can be reduced without reducing drug use. This is a false premise.”

Gyngell argues that by tackling the symptoms of drug abuse rather than the causes, the government has failed to prevent a dramatic rise in Class A consumption and the spread of drug use to rural areas.

Figures included in the study suggest that 10% of 11-year-olds and 41% of 15-year-olds have taken drugs.

The report argues that the UK should emulate Sweden and the Netherlands who devote more resources to prevention and enforcement.

It says that the view of the Netherlands as a haven of liberal drugs policy is outdated, with coffee shops now more tightly regulated and a third closed down in recent years. It notes that while the UK has ten drug addicts per 1,000 of the adult population, Sweden and the Netherlands have only 4.5 and 3.2 respectively.

The report says: “It is the UK, not the Netherlands, that is in the vanguard of the liberal movement to normalise drug use. Our attempt to target its harms alone …. has shaped approaches to enforcement and protection making for hopelessly confused policy and practice.”

According to the CPS, the quantity of heroin, cocaine and cannabis that has been seized entering the UK has fallen 68 per cent, 16 per cent and 34 per cent respectively since 2002.

However, the Home Office pointed to figures showing that in 2007/8 police made 216,792 seizures of drugs, the highest amount since 1973.

Post your comment

Please note: you will need to login or register before you can comment on the website