The government has based its refusal to set up a royal commission on the shaky premise that drug use is falling.
"If it ain't broke, don't fix it" summed up the response from the Home Office, and later David Cameron, to the publication of the home affairs select committee's year-long inquiry into drug policy last week. Why waste time on setting up a royal commission into drug policy (something his coalition partners, in contrast, went on to call for) when our current drug policy is working? The key evidence for this, quoted like a mantra by the government, is falling drug use. But the "falling drug use" plank on which the government is walking is a very shaky one.
For sure, drug use has been falling since its peak in 2002, although that was after a significant rise spread across the previous two decades. According to the British Crime Survey, in 1996 just over 11% of adults had used an illegal drug in the past year. By 2002 it had peaked at just under 12%. In 2012 the figure sits at just under 9%.
However, Britain is not a nation that has simply fallen out of love with illegal drugs. Drug use remains both higher than in 1990 and than in the rest of Europe and by no means are we witnessing a decline in use across the board.
