Drugs

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

Thursday 17th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I also thank my noble friend Lady Meacher, not just for the debate but particularly for her tireless work on drugs. With any luck, she will make some progress.

I will highlight a matter which has not so far been raised by this House: the connection between drug dealing and human trafficking. There is a clear example in the report Drugs: Breaking the Cycle, at paragraph 52 on page 21:

“In 2011, the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre published a report on people trafficking in which the largest identified trend was the trafficking of Vietnamese children into the UK—37 of the 58 children identified were trafficked into the UK to work in cannabis farms”.

I have said in the Chamber on several occasions how many cannabis farms there are in this country: something in excess of 7,500, of which about 4,000 are in London. They are in rented accommodation. I warn noble Lords who happen to own rented accommodation to be very careful to whom they let it. The traffickers are taking rented houses, pulling them to pieces, subverting the electricity and the water and creating large, successful cannabis farms which are in fact almost entirely run by Vietnamese children. Until recently, those children were treated as offenders when the police raided these farms, and not as victims. It is hugely to the credit of the Court of Appeal criminal division that in a decision in July it was seen and made clear that these Vietnamese children were to be treated as victims and no longer prosecuted. Indeed, the judge who presided over that court was the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, who is in his place today.

Something good has happened there but, of course, if we had a rethink of cannabis it might not be necessary to have all these cannabis farms. I wonder how much cannabis is being imported into this country now, because so much is being grown here. I was interested to hear what the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, was saying about the really horrifying way in which drugs are successful in prisons, and how those who are taking drugs are really not tested on this system. It was an appalling story, and I have no doubt that it was accurate. I wonder whether the Home Office should not think again and much more carefully about looking at addicts who commit relatively minor crimes, but which are of sufficient importance to send them to prison. Should they not be going to residential clinics, which have a short-term cost but a long-term benefit? If they are weaned off drugs they will not be reoffending to fund their drug addiction. It would save a huge amount of money on the costs of keeping individual prisoners.

I finish my brief comments by saying that it is perfectly obvious that there has to be a rethink on drugs in this country. It clearly is not working and the Government should be brave enough to think about how it could be improved.