Drugs and Crime

Baroness Afshar Excerpts

Tuesday 15th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Afshar]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Meacher for placing this debate on the agenda. I strongly support her position of decriminalising drugs, and that of the UN. I would also like to disclose my membership of the UK Drug Policy Commission, as a commissioner. However, everything I say here is entirely my view and does not express the view of the commission in any way.

I would like to begin with what would happen if we thought the unthinkable and decriminalised drugs at the point of production. Coming from Iran and being familiar with the Middle East, I can assure the House that decriminalisation of drugs in general, and poppies in particular, would have an enormous impact on the conflict in Afghanistan, and in particular on the support given by farmers to the Taliban. Although during the Taliban era poppy production was banned, it gradually began to seep back in and has taken huge momentum since the departure of the Taliban, for the simple reason that these people live on arid land with very little water. About the only two things worth growing are poppies and cotton. Any economist in his right mind would know that growing poppies might actually ensure survival when growing cotton is very unlikely to do so. In simple economic terms, there is not very much choice for these farmers.

What can be done is to recognise that poppies can be used for medicinal purposes and that they can be contracted to produce poppies for pharmaceutical reasons. That has been done in India and Turkey. In the 1970s, when I was a member of the Iranian Co-operative and Rural Affairs Ministry, it was done in Iran. We found that legalising poppy production helped pharmaceuticals and did not increase the numbers of addicts in the country. Recently there has been a similar agreement between pharmaceutical companies and farmers in Didcot, with Macfarlan Smith. Clearly, as my noble friend indicated, that has not resulted in a marked increase in addicts, but it has increased the number of happy farmers in this country. Legalising production of drugs would help us internationally. As for the national economy, it would be hard to do better than as presented in my noble friend’s explanation with regard to cost-benefit analysis.

My personal experience of working with young people shows that, unavoidably, most dabble with drugs in their early years. I must admit that, although I do not drink, I certainly did smoke pot in the 1960s. It was great fun. I did not do anything to anybody when I was high; I danced a lot and listened to music. I lived to tell the tale, and I assure noble Lords that I am not a criminal. Criminalising drugs “otherises” a whole category of people, many of them young people with a bright future in front of them. The difficulty of being labelled as a criminal, even for those who do not actually go to prison—though many do—is that once you are regarded as an addict to heroin or crack you are no longer employable. A great deal of evidence suggests that only those who are well supported by their families and have a context of support, healthcare and pathways to employment survive their occasional experimentation and possible addiction. It is a great loss of opportunity for improvement. Prisons are universities for drug-dealing and those who come out of prison—and even those who go in—come out with absolutely no alternative but to join the black market. It is a costly alternative. Surely it would make sense to see drugs as a problem exactly like alcohol and others and to treat those people rather than criminalise them.