Ten-Year Drugs Strategy

Duncan Baker Excerpts

Monday 6th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

The hon. Gentleman is refusing to accept any culpability for the financial situation of the country 12 years ago, when a number of Members—certainly on our side of the House—were still teenagers. Notwithstanding his claim, however, we intend to build a world-class treatment system that will require the acquisition of skills and personnel across the country; and, as I have said, we have undertaken to come to the House annually to report on our progress.

[Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con)]

I thank the Minister for paying tribute to the Norfolk constabulary in his opening remarks. They have done a fine job in smashing county lines drug dealing.

Recreational cannabis undeniably causes harm to individuals and society. When I was a much younger man, I was asked to play football—mainly because I was not very good—with a drug rehabilitation group, and I saw at first hand the devastation that drugs had caused those young men. Notwithstanding the arguments that legalisation would eliminate the crime committed by the illicit trade, I feel that it would not. Can the Minister assure me that we will never legalise cannabis, and that this new strategy will ensure that we crack down on illicit drug use and the misery that it causes?

[Kit Malthouse]

I recognise the situation that my hon. Friend has posited. Indeed, if we look around the world at the countries that have gone down the path that he eschews, we see a pattern of impact that is not completely desirable—and of course we do not know what the impact of overuse of that particular substance will be in the long term, particularly the impact on young people’s mental health. We currently have no plans to change the status of cannabis, and I hope that my hon. Friend will participate in the promotion of the White Paper when it appears in order to bring about the change in behaviour that both he and I seek.