poledriver
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Jul 21, 2005
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Treat addicts, don't lock them up: MPs pave way to legalise drugs as they admit prison sentences are failing to deter offenders
Britain is losing the war on drugs and should consider the radical option of legalisation, a powerful committee of MPs will argue this week.
In a controversial move which could lead to yet another Coalition rift, the influential Commons Home Affairs Committee is expected to put pressure on David Cameron to establish a Royal Commission to draw up changes to the law.
The MPs have concluded that prison sentences – which can be up to life for dealers of heroin and cocaine – are failing to deter drugs barons, and may even be encouraging a crime-riddled black market in the substances.
Despite a youthful flirtation with the idea of drugs liberalisation when he first became an MP, the Prime Minister is now opposed to the idea – as is the majority of his party.
But a number of senior Liberal Democrats recently backed reforms under which drug users would receive treatment rather than be classed as criminals.
Last night, an MP on the Home Affairs Committee – which took evidence from dozens of witnesses, including comedian and reformed addict Russell Brand – told The Mail on Sunday that current laws were no longer ‘fit for purpose’.
The MP said: ‘The general view [of the committee] was that the drug laws in Britain are all a bit out-dated. We have a Drugs Act that’s really outlived its usefulness and that really belongs in the 1960s and 1970s.
'It seems to deal with the drugs world as a fairly simple market with a relatively small number of controlled substances out there. But that’s not the case.’
The MP added that, although the committee ‘had not reached a settled view’ on the decriminalisation of drugs, its members agreed Britain was ‘fighting a losing battle over drugs policy’.
Details of the report will not be revealed until its publication tomorrow, but it is understood that it will call on the Prime Minister to establish a Royal Commission on drugs to report in time for the next General Election in 2015.
Although the conclusions of such commissions are not binding on Governments, they have such clout that it is politically difficult for Prime Ministers to reject their findings out of hand.
The MPs are not expected to specify which drugs could be subject to the relaxation.
But their report follows the controversial decision by two American states, Washington and Colorado, to decriminalise cannabis – a move expected to be copied widely throughout the US.
The committee also studied the situation in Portugal where, for the past decade, it has only been an ‘administrative offence’, not a criminal, one to possess small amounts of any drug.
As a result, say supporters, criminal offences such as robbery have fallen, as have HIV infections from dirty needles used to inject heroin.
continued at -
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...prison-sentences-failing-deter-offenders.html
Britain is losing the war on drugs and should consider the radical option of legalisation, a powerful committee of MPs will argue this week.
In a controversial move which could lead to yet another Coalition rift, the influential Commons Home Affairs Committee is expected to put pressure on David Cameron to establish a Royal Commission to draw up changes to the law.
The MPs have concluded that prison sentences – which can be up to life for dealers of heroin and cocaine – are failing to deter drugs barons, and may even be encouraging a crime-riddled black market in the substances.
Despite a youthful flirtation with the idea of drugs liberalisation when he first became an MP, the Prime Minister is now opposed to the idea – as is the majority of his party.
But a number of senior Liberal Democrats recently backed reforms under which drug users would receive treatment rather than be classed as criminals.
Last night, an MP on the Home Affairs Committee – which took evidence from dozens of witnesses, including comedian and reformed addict Russell Brand – told The Mail on Sunday that current laws were no longer ‘fit for purpose’.
The MP said: ‘The general view [of the committee] was that the drug laws in Britain are all a bit out-dated. We have a Drugs Act that’s really outlived its usefulness and that really belongs in the 1960s and 1970s.
'It seems to deal with the drugs world as a fairly simple market with a relatively small number of controlled substances out there. But that’s not the case.’
The MP added that, although the committee ‘had not reached a settled view’ on the decriminalisation of drugs, its members agreed Britain was ‘fighting a losing battle over drugs policy’.
Details of the report will not be revealed until its publication tomorrow, but it is understood that it will call on the Prime Minister to establish a Royal Commission on drugs to report in time for the next General Election in 2015.
Although the conclusions of such commissions are not binding on Governments, they have such clout that it is politically difficult for Prime Ministers to reject their findings out of hand.
The MPs are not expected to specify which drugs could be subject to the relaxation.
But their report follows the controversial decision by two American states, Washington and Colorado, to decriminalise cannabis – a move expected to be copied widely throughout the US.
The committee also studied the situation in Portugal where, for the past decade, it has only been an ‘administrative offence’, not a criminal, one to possess small amounts of any drug.
As a result, say supporters, criminal offences such as robbery have fallen, as have HIV infections from dirty needles used to inject heroin.
continued at -
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...prison-sentences-failing-deter-offenders.html
