UK - New guideline for drug offences: Effective changes or 'rearranging the deck....

[edgarshade]

New guideline for drug offences: Effective changes or 'rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic'?

Mancunian Matters

Posted Monday, February 27, 2012 - 12:09
By Mihaela Ivantcheva

New guidelines for dealing with drug offences, released by the Sentencing Council, came into force today.

According to the final document, coercion into drug dealing, vulnerability and exploitation will now be taken into account when sentencing drug offenders. ‘Drug mules’ might be given community sentences depending on the role they played in the supply chain.

But while many see this as a step forward, critics regarded it as a missed opportunity for a wider revision of the criminal justice system.

Michael Linnell from Manchester-based Lifeline Project questions the very fundaments of the system: “Trying to look sensibly at something that is fundamentally flawed is the problem. While I can understand the principle behind giving someone who has a smaller amount of drugs lesser prison sentence, I believe that the whole principle of dealing with the law, dealing with drugs through the law, is fundamentally flawed.”

“I think the whole position of the drug law is fundamentally flawed. It does not work. It does not work successfully as a deterrent. If you stop one drug in supply, another one pops up. The situation is really a crisis,” Mr Linnell said.

Despite its appreciation for certain aspects of the new guidelines, DrugScope also joins Mr Linnell in questioning whether using the criminal justice system is an apt approach to reducing drug-related harm to individuals.

http://mancunianmatters.co.uk/conte...ve-changes-or-rearranging-deck-chairs-titanic

 

[twato]

Mr Linnell sounds like a really reasonable person. I wish the drug debate was progressing over here as strongly as it is in the UK. In Germany, law and order prevails of course