Drugs Policy

Debate between Caroline Lucas and Andrew Griffiths

Thursday 16th December 2010 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Griffiths]

My hon. Friend is well intentioned. I do not know whether he thinks that no one considers these things. I do not know whether he thinks that despite the thousands of people involved and the millions—indeed, billions—of pounds that are spent on trying to find a solution to the drug addiction problem in our country, someone has not at some stage sat down and considered whether legalisation would be a good idea, but I can assure him that they have. I do not want to send a message to young people that drug taking is an okay thing to do. The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion can tut, but in my constituency I have seen families who have been devastated by drug deaths. I have seen people young and old who are living with addiction. I am sure that the hon. Lady has, too.

[Caroline Lucas]

I apologise for tutting, but the reason why I was tutting is that I do not think that any hon. Member is suggesting that we want to give a message that drugs are okay. One of the things that hinder the debate is attributing to one another positions that we do not actually espouse. We all start from the point of saying that drugs are causing harm in society. The question is this: how do we best reduce that harm? It is fairer to accept that all of us are driving towards that aim.

[Andrew Griffiths]

I absolutely accept that the hon. Lady is well intentioned, but the right hon. Member for Coventry North East this morning advocated licensing or prescription of heroin and cocaine. What does a parent say when they see a senior politician saying, “We should license these drugs”? The nuances of the argument about a debate and a discussion are lost on young people, who may this very weekend be thinking about whether to try drugs for the first time.

[Caroline Lucas]

What confuses young people is mixed messages given out by Governments, people obviously being hypocritical about drug use and so on. We should not underestimate young people’s ability to understand this debate, and they will have a much better chance of understanding it if we are all straight with one another, rather than hiding behind positions that none of us is really espousing.

[Andrew Griffiths]

I could not agree with the hon. Lady more. We talk about mixed messages. The right hon. Gentleman asked about the assertions that I made about the impact of downgrading cannabis. I point him to Hansard for 1 April 2009 and the answer to a question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker), with the reference number 267674. It shows that the number of patients treated by the NHS for cannabis use in 2004-05 was 13,408 and that three years later, that had increased to 26,287.

I think that we need to move on and talk about the impact of the approach that the right hon. Gentleman advocates. He advocates prescription for heroin or for cocaine. Of course there is already the prescription of methadone and similar heroin substitutes, and I think that we all accept that that has been a complete failure. The aims were good, and I recognise the need to minimise harm and stabilise people. That is very important, which is why it remains a key part of the drugs strategy as outlined by my hon. Friend the Minister. However, the public think that our drugs strategy should be fundamentally about getting people free from drugs—getting them off their addiction. We are misleading the public when we say that it is okay to take drugs. It is true that, as was said, some people live a long life as a heroin addict. Some people live for 20 or 30 years on methadone, as I said was the case with my constituent. However, that is not something that I would want for a member of my family or for a friend or colleague. Stabilisation—harm minimisation—should have an impact in the short-term, but we all have to be more ambitious about moving to recovery thereafter.