UK Drugs Policy

Debate between Keith Vaz and Caroline Lucas

Thursday 30th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Lucas]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention and absolutely agree with him. Reviews take place in many other policy areas to check whether objectives are being met, and it is high time we had such a review of the 1971 Act.

The Government’s drugs strategy is itself subject to review, but that is a self-limiting process. In other words, it intends to look only at value for money and in terms only of whether the amount spent is more or less than the value of the positive outcomes. That review will be carried out in 2015 and it will not consider whether other approaches would be better value for money. Neither will it include the negative outcomes—the presumably unintended consequences—of the policy in its calculations.

I warmly welcome today’s publication of the Government’s international comparators study. I pay tribute to the Minister for Crime Prevention, who is in his place, for the leadership he has shown in the process. The study has been long awaited. It was commissioned on the recommendation of the Home Affairs Committee and is a considered review of the different approaches to drug policy pursued around the world.

The review indicates that introducing an alternative to prohibition would not, contrary to some claims, boost drug use, and it could save millions of pounds if users were treated for addiction rather than jailed. It seems that the evidence for the issue of drug use to be moved to the Department of Health, in order for the focus to be on treating rather than punishing addiction, is overwhelming as well. This is just the first step towards a drugs policy that puts harm reduction first, and I welcome it warmly, but we urgently need to follow up on this comparison of international approaches and learn the lessons from it for our own UK-based legislation. That is why this debate is so important.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

May I also congratulate the hon. Lady, not only on her award, which is well deserved, but on her work on this issue? In respect of following up, I also welcome the report led by the Minister. The Home Affairs Committee, prompted by the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert), will hold a separate session specifically on our last set of recommendations. It will be held in Cambridge, in honour of the hon. Gentleman, and I hope we can persuade the hon. Lady to come along and speak.

[Caroline Lucas]

I pay tribute to the right hon. Gentleman for all his leadership on this issue as Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, and to the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert). I am very happy to take up that kind invitation. To be serious, I am very glad that the Home Affairs Committee is doing that extra piece of very important work.

Such work is important because drug misuse destroys individuals, families and communities, and an ineffective drugs policy only compounds that damage. All too often, success in the war on drugs is measured in numbers of arrests or seizures of drugs, but many of us believe that we should assess whether the harms associated with drug misuse are rising or declining.

The Home Secretary acknowledged in the foreword to her Government’s drug strategy:

“Individuals do not take drugs in isolation from what is happening in the rest of their lives.”

I agree. Poverty, social exclusion and inequality all have an impact on drug use and drug markets. Research by the Equality Trust has shown a clear and demonstrable correlation between drug misuse and inequality. There is a strong tendency for drug abuse to be more common in countries, such as the UK, that are more unequal. Ending social exclusion must therefore be at the heart of any effective strategy to reduce drug-related harms. To do that, we need to marshal the evidence.