The drugs debate

BACK in 1971, US President Richard "Tricky Dicky" Nixon was launching his vote-winning "war on drugs" and I was discovering that the road to Hell was paved with all sorts of juicy temptations.

Our parents all warned us to stay off "soft" drugs like cannabis, because they were the slippery slope that led on to the hard stuff. Actual examples of people who had slipped were rare in our circle, though.

Well I'm still here, and so are millions of others who put a foot on that primrose path and then took it off – and so is the war on drugs.

And now there would be no shortage of bad examples, because it seems the more we do to solve the drugs problem, the worse it gets.

In 1972, the US Food and Drug Administration published the results of a study into heroin abuse that concluded, controversially, that the drug caused little physical harm and the biggest danger came from addicts neglecting themselves in their quest to get another expensive fix. No-one was listening.

Instead, governments around the world jumped on Nixon's bandwagon. Today it is a requirement of United Nations membership that they sign up to the prohibition of Class A drugs.

Over the years, anyone who called for the ban to be lifted was dismissed as a dangerous crank, at best.

The latest expert to weigh in with a plea for another look is Julian Critchley, former director of the Government's anti-drugs unit, no less.

Critchley said this week that legalisation would do less harm than the current strategy – and he claimed to have the agreement of most professionals in the field. Among them is Gary Wallace, manager of the Plymouth Drug and Alcohol Action Team.

"About three per cent of users have a major problem with drugs – and they tend to be people who have problems with life anyway," Wallace told me.

"Prohibition of drugs is a significant factor in the crimes they commit and their ill health."

Since feeding a heroin habit can cost up to £100-a-day, that's no surprise. Most of us would have trouble funding a habit like that without turning to crime.

Even the Home Office admits: "There is evidence that some types of crime are carried out in order to feed drug habits, or would not have been carried out if the individuals were not under the influence of drugs."

Danny Kushlick, director of Transform Drug Policy Foundation, reckons Britain's prisons are twice as full as they would be without prohibition, and the cost of drug-related crime is £16 billion a year.

But for years, the decision-makers have turned a deaf ear to the evidence, and wasted billions in fighting the drugs barons. On Wednesday, more than 60 Plymouth police carried out a series of raids aimed at tackling the use and supply of heroin in the Devonport area. Multiply that cost by all the police forces across the country and you begin to get a feel for the scale of the problem.

Add to it the cost to Britain and the United States of keeping warships on permanent patrol in the Caribbean to catch drug smugglers, the Customs officers who maintain a vigil on our shores and the millions that are spent on rehabilitating users.

Worse yet, the "war on drugs" is undermining the "war on terror" – and it's doing absolutely nothing to keep drugs off the streets of our city.

Helmand province in Afghanistan is the source of most of then eroin on British streets. Yet our commanders on the ground warn American-led attempts to eradicate the poppy crop without providing another income for the Afghans will wreck the battle for hearts and minds and increase support for the Taliban.

Meanwhile, the Taliban fund their own war effort by taxing the poppy farmers. Antonio Maria Costa, head of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, says that last year the Taliban earned about £50 million from the opium business.

Professor David Salter, a Conservative Plymouth City Council Cabinet member, admitted the issue was a "political hot potato", but said he would like to have a proper debate.

"The social and economic impacts [of drug prohibition] are tremendous," he said. "There is a temptation for some people – from all kinds of backgrounds – to make a dishonest living through dealing in drugs.

"It's a complicated issue, and deserves a greater degree of debate than it's getting."

Mr Wallace, not constrained by the need to win votes, is clearer: he wants to see drugs legalised – though he is not in favour of a free-for-all.

"Legalisation means regulation," he said. "At the moment it's only regulated by gangs."

Because drugs are so variable in their effects and dangers, he said the regulations should be tailored.

Some drugs might be available on the high street, in the same way as alcohol and cigarettes. Others might be available only on prescription through doctor and pharmacy.

Wallace doesn't actually blame the politicians for their inaction. "Governments will often call for a national debate, but there is so much moral baggage that people tend to ignore even very persuasive evidence," he said.

In an ideal world, class A drugs would be illegal and no-one would touch them. The world we have to deal with is far from ideal.

I'd like to hear what you think.