Drugs

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Thursday 17th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, when the EU Committee’s sub-committee on home affairs, which I have the honour to chair, reported 18 months ago on the European Union’s future drugs strategy, one of our most important findings was to note the paucity and the poverty of the public debate on drugs issues, including the way that such debate as there was tended to be dominated by raucous tabloid press scare stories and governmental knee-jerk reactions. One of our central recommendations was that the Government and the EU institutions should aim to stimulate an EU-wide debate on drugs policies. That finding remains as valid today as the day we made it and that recommendation remains largely ignored by both the Government and the EU’s institutions. It is in that context that I warmly welcome today’s debate and the tireless efforts of my noble friend Lady Meacher to fill that lacuna. I hope that the Government’s contribution to this debate, and other statements to be made by the Government in the months ahead, will help to serve the same purpose.

One striking consequence of this lack of informed debate is the astonishingly confused and confusing public terminology for some of the main issues at stake. It is not uncommon to read newspaper articles which actually equate decriminalisation of a limited number of drugs offences with the legalisation of trade in drugs as if the two terms were synonymous, yet there is a world of difference between them. To decriminalise the possession and use of small quantities of drugs but not their trafficking, as Portugal has done, is a completely different approach from that being followed in Uruguay, and possibly being prepared in two American states, where these commodities are being legalised. That, in turn, is quite different from the attempt being made in New Zealand to regulate legally what are called “legal highs”. If we are to have a sensible debate in this country about these matters we need to pay greater heed to these distinctions, and we need to be a lot better informed about the successes or failures of these policies in the increasing number of countries where they are being tried.

It is not surprising that such innovations are being tried since the not very wisely named “war on drugs” has fallen a long way short of being a complete success. Not only are our already overcrowded prisons, particularly in this country and the US, being filled with drug offenders, but many countries in Latin America, west Africa and Asia are being devastated by the collateral effects of that war, and of the trade in drugs, which our inability to control the demand for in our developed economies is continuing to stimulate. That certainly does not prove that all those policy innovations make good sense or should be replicated here, but it does show why a policy of simply standing pat on existing measures and refusing even to contemplate or to discuss any changes is such an inadequate one and so unlikely to be successful.

One remedy which seems to be gaining wider support and acceptance here and elsewhere in Europe is to put greater emphasis on harm reduction and on trying to treat drug users in the community rather than in prison. When we conducted our inquiry into the EU drugs strategy we came across small but encouraging signs that in this country such an approach was gaining ground, often encouraged by the devoted work of voluntary organisations. However, it is still desperately underresourced and, in terms of government policy, this seems to be something that does not dare to speak its name. Perhaps the Minister will address that concern when he replies to the debate.

I am not sufficiently expert, or perhaps sufficiently foolhardy, to put forward any ideas for specific changes in policy or the law. I am sure that all of them bristle with difficulties and drawbacks, but one of those difficulties, surely, is the political toxicity for any party or coalition of parties of changing even the smallest measure. Yet, if you come to think of it, this should not be an issue where party politics are involved at all. We should not allow such debate as there is to be dominated by a competition in demonstrating toughness towards anything to do with drugs. There is surely a good case for doing as the Government have done over airport capacity and setting up a non-political body to assess the whole field of drugs policy, including particularly the innovations taking place elsewhere in Europe and in the wider world, with a remit to report back early in the next Parliament in the hope—even the expectation—that such an approach could lead to cross-party policy-making and a shift away from the very unsatisfactory status quo. I would very much welcome the views of the Minister on this suggestion.