Photograph by Steve Snodgrass
A group of MPs suggested a royal commission should be established to consider decriminalising illegal drugs, but the idea has been ruled out by Prime Minister David Cameron.
Cameron maintains that the drugs criminalisation policy currently implemented by the UK alongside the majority of other countries around the world was “working”
The Home Affairs Select Committee that recommended considering a new approach to drugs policy highlighted Portugal’s approach, where people found with drugs are not always prosecuted. They also requested that ministers monitor cannabis regulation elsewhere such as in the US where a number of states voted to legalise the drug even though it is still illegal under federal law.
Cameron said
“Drugs use is coming down, the emphasis on treatment is absolutely right, and we need to continue with that to make sure we can really make a difference.”
Drug use in England and Wales is at its lowest rate since 1996 under current measurements according to recent NHS survey statistics, but even the Home Office’s own survey statistics do not quite back up that claim. Moreover, “legal highs”, some of which are now banned such as mephedrone, are not counted in the figures and have seen a rise in deaths linked to their use.
The committee did not support the relaxation of legal sanctions for drug use proposed by the UK Drug Policy Commission in October but called on ministers to investigate the idea. It also did not support the scientific harm approach for drug classification that got Professor David Nutt famously dismissed from his role in the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs in 2009 by the then Home Secretary Alan Johnson. It did, however, call on ministers to investigate the idea.
The idea that the “war on drugs” has failed across the globe is beginning to gain support from various sectors of society, as prisons are continually over capacity holding many of those caught for drugs offences, and the illegality of the substances creating a powerful and well-funded underworld, such as found by the US during the years of alcohol prohibition.
Politicians across the aisle see any talk of the legalisation of drugs as a taboo that would cost them significant votes from the population. With growing popular support for drug legalisation, and even documentaries such as Breaking The Taboo (embedded below) produced to ask questions of the policies, the tide may be turning.
