Drugs

Lord Fowler Excerpts

Thursday 17th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Fowler (Con)]

My Lords, first, I congratulate the noble Baroness on her speech, which was extremely effective. I agree with her that the acid test is not about criminalising drug users but how we deal effectively and properly with the problem. I also congratulate her on her report and the other report that we are considering today.

I made my maiden speech on drugs policy in the other place 43 years ago in 1970, and I am tempted to say that the debate has not changed very much in the interim. It strikes me how much of the debate is put in military terms, or semi-military terms. I still have a T-shirt given to me by the Drug Enforcement Administration in the United States with the slogan, “It is not over until we win”. That was 20 years ago and I do not think that we have won in the interim. As I have been going around the world over the past 18 months looking at the issue of HIV and AIDS, I find Ministers still talking about the war on drugs. Indeed, when I was in Russia a few months ago, a political leader said, “It is not just the war on drugs, it is total war”. In fact, Russia has probably the worst drugs position in the whole world; it has a disastrous policy.

These words may give great comfort to some politicians and increase their sense of self-righteousness, but they do not do very much to solve the problem. The truth is that this one-dimensional approach has never worked in the past and is unlikely to work in the future. We all know what we want to achieve: we want to stop the pushers; we want to persuade people not to take up the habit; and we want to deal decently and humanely with those who have become dependent. However, we are not going to deal with all those goals by saying that all you need to do is to enforce the law. That is precisely what we have been doing over the past 50 years and it is precisely the reason why we have not been successful. We need to be frank about that failure.

Before this debate, someone asked me whether I was in favour of liberalising drugs policy. My answer to that, in principle, is yes, but the real answer is that we have already liberalised our drugs policy. When the Government were seeking to deal with the HIV and AIDS crisis in 1986-87, we faced precisely that problem of how to deal with drug users who shared needles and syringes. The result, obviously, of shared needles was devastating. We had no treatment to offer—it was a death sentence—and someone with HIV simply spread it to others.

We could have taken the view that upholding the criminal law was the only policy—the only way to go—and that those who injected should be prosecuted. There were many who urged us to take that way. In fact, we decided to institute a policy of clean needles. Our advice was, obviously, not to inject at all but if, in spite of the advice, people still injected, then we would supply clean needles. In other words, we put public health in front of the strict interpretation of the law.

This policy was not decided by some way-out left-wing Government or by implementing a resolution of the Liberal Democrat annual conference—I am sorry about that; it was meant to be a joke—but by the Government of Margaret Thatcher, who, for all her great qualities, did not have a reputation as a radical reformer in this area. The policy has been spectacularly successful. For the past 25 years, the spread of HIV through injecting drugs has been only 1% or 2%. It has not led to an increase in crime and drug use, and the policy has been followed by many other countries.

I agree that it has not been followed universally. It has not been followed in Russia and the result is that drug users are abandoned to their fate and an appalling tragedy is taking place before our eyes. Saddest of all, the United States has just gone back on the policy. The House will not be surprised to know that this was because of the disagreement on the budget between the Administration and the House of Representatives.

I do not pretend to have instant solutions. There were warnings—the needle park in Zurich being one, where a park was given over officially to drug users. However, we need to open a new dialogue and try for new solutions in this area. The old policies have failed and we must try, perhaps by pilot schemes, to find new and better ways forward. Some of the ideas put forward in these reports are excellent and should be carried forward. I congratulate the authors of both reports on what they have done.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I can only point to the fact, which I have already quoted, of the reduction of drug use among school children. When I talk about cross-governmental co-operation, I am demonstrating that it is one of the areas that is very important. Schools can be very important in this, and I am satisfied that the Department for Education is playing its full part.

We are also committed to undertaking an evaluation to assess the effectiveness and value for money of the current drug strategy as well as reviewing the drug strategy on an annual basis. The second annual review will be published shortly.

I agree with my noble friends Lord Fowler and Lady Hamwee that the “war on drugs” is an unhelpful term and does not reflect the complexity of the issue. However, I believe that the legalisation of drugs would not eliminate the crime committed by organised career criminals; such criminals would simply seek new sources of illicit revenue through crime. Neither would a regulated market eliminate illicit supplies, as alcohol and tobacco smuggling clearly demonstrate. Regulation also carries its own administrative and enforcement costs and could cause increases in drug use and availability. I do not believe that it is a risk worth taking.

[Lord Fowler]

I apologise for intervening, but could my noble friend be absolutely clear on the clean needles policy? I have been listening to what he says very carefully. All the international experience to which he refers suggests that when countries do not follow that policy, it has a disastrous effect with regard to HIV. Do the Government in the United Kingdom remain absolutely committed to the clean needles policy?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

Yes, I can give my noble friend that commitment.

It may help if I go on and stick to my notes in order. We talked about the medical evidence; the recent British Medical Journal report stated that global drug prices are falling and purity is increasing. However, this focused on international drug supply indicators. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, who always makes a valuable contribution to our debates. In the UK, we are seeing low purity levels and high wholesale prices for both cocaine and heroin, alongside some very large seizures and the lowest drug usage levels since records began. We should acknowledge the work being done by those individuals working to achieve this.

We have a cross-government action plan, which is already delivering successful outcomes. We continue to work with the ACMD to monitor closely this market, and our evidence-based approach continues to support UK law enforcement to disrupt supply and communications activity to reduce demand. Hundreds of new psychoactive substances identified in the EU are already controlled drugs in the UK, and we are leading the international response through the G8 and with the EU to tackle the threat from NPS. However, we are not complacent—I use that word again. We are conducting an international comparators study of alternative approaches adopted abroad to address drug issues, including legislative responses to the legal-high market. We want to understand the opportunities and drawbacks of the alternative approaches to help inform any further necessary steps to protect the public. We welcome the contributions that this debate has made in that field. But the noble Baroness, Lady Greenfield, brought us up sharp with her informed comments on cannabis.

We are committed to explore the full use of existing drug, medicines and consumer protection legislation, as well as the Intoxicating Substances (Supply) Act 1985, to disrupt the NPS market.

I also point to the work done by my honourable friend, the former Minister Jeremy Browne. He visited Portugal, which has been mentioned by a number of noble Lords, Denmark, Sweden, Japan, South Korea, Canada and the USA, and has spoken to the New Zealand representative responsible for drug policy. Visits to the Czech Republic and Switzerland are planned for November. We recognise the global nature of this issue and we are determined to learn from other countries.

I have been taken short by a couple of interventions on these issues which rather threw me, but I confirm to my noble friend Lord Fowler my remarks on needle use. I thank all noble Lords for speaking. The Government are committed to a balanced approach, focusing on reducing demand, restricting supply and building recovery. Drug use is at its lowest level since measurement began in 1996. We are not complacent and we will continue to increase the resilience of young people to enable us to make a good choice on a range of issues, not just drugs but alcohol, sexual health and obesity. I thank the noble Baroness for presenting us with this chance to talk about that.