Drugs Policy
Debate between Caroline Lucas and Bob Ainsworth(14 years ago)
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Mr Ainsworth
The hon. Gentleman needs to listen to what I am saying. I am not advocating kiosks on street corners where young people can buy heroin, for heaven’s sake. I am a parent and a grandparent, and I want to make my children and my grandchildren safer. I do not want them to experiment with dangerous drugs. [Interruption.] I have said that it is about time that we had a reasonable debate, but the hon. Gentleman cannot help this yah-boo nonsense. He has asked a question and I will give him an answer—and after today we will give him a load more as well, because there are lots of them.
I am advocating the replacement of the dealer, who has a ready market with addicts putting money in his pocket and who is, in his totally and utterly irresponsible way, prepared to sell heroin to children and anybody else to extend his market, to the extent that we can do so—perfection does not exist—with a doctor. I want to get people into clinics and give them prescriptions and remove the dealer’s market, thereby removing at least some dealers.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
I want to cite a couple of people who support the right hon. Gentleman’s position. Sir Ian Gilmore, the former president of the Royal College of Physicians, argues that decriminalising illicit use could
“drastically reduce crime and improve health.”
The chairman of the Bar Council, Nicholas Green, QC, says:
“A growing body of comparative evidence suggests that decriminalising personal use can have positive consequences. It can free up huge amounts of police resources, reduce crime and recidivism and improve public health. All of this can be achieved without any overall increase in drug usage.”
We are not short of any allies on this side of the Chamber.
Mr Ainsworth
I have been helped in preparing this speech, and in my thinking on this matter, by an organisation called Transform, which is often accused of being a libertarian organisation, although it is not; it proposes good, solid, readily available, well-funded treatment, while saving a fortune and many lives in the process.