Drugs and Crime

Lord Mancroft Excerpts

Tuesday 15th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mancroft]

My Lords, it is my first and very pleasant duty to thank on behalf of the whole House the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, not just for initiating this debate but for co-ordinating the letter to Ban Ki-Moon, working with the UNODC and going to Vienna, which I am quite sure, as she suggested, has had a considerable effect.

I do not think that this is a discussion paper; it is more a positioning paper, which reveals a radical and welcome change in the United Nations’s stance. It is radical because, as we have heard, the United Nations has until now focused almost exclusively on the elimination of drug use and suppression of the drugs trade. Now, suddenly, we see that focus switch towards the only effective way to tackle the drug problem, which is to reduce the demand for drugs by providing appropriate help and healthcare to drug users and addicts. The change is welcome because a growing number of people in public and political life have pressed for a move away from gesture politics towards a more mature and pragmatic policy which will have a significant social and economic benefit.

What has brought this about? It is quite simply a change in the direction of American policy. For years, the United Nations was unable to move even if it had wanted to—which I do not think it did—because its most powerful member and paymaster, the USA, was determined to go on promoting its war on drugs and its “just say no” campaigns.

With the arrival of the Obama Administration, however, that has changed. The language has changed. It seems that—not overnight, but carefully and slowly—the Administration will wind down the war on drugs. It is this change in US policy that has taken the shackles off the United Nations and allowed it to move in this new and very welcome direction.

Crucially, the UNODC is accepting, indeed encouraging, member Governments to act in a way many do already, but, more importantly, in a way which it had previously argued was in breach of the conventions. This paper invites us to take a position started by the previous Government. In reality, very few people in the UK are sent to prison for possession of drugs alone. We remain in the position, however, where an enormous proportion of those currently in prison, probably over 50 per cent, are there for drug-related crimes. This paper invites us—and I am confident the new coalition will accept this—significantly to increase both the availability and the quality of treatment in the criminal justice system and the wider community, with the specific objective of getting people off drugs rather than maintaining them on drugs indefinitely, giving them appropriate support when they leave prison, and helping them to lead healthy and, I hope, happier lives as positive members of society.

Throughout this paper, the UNODC reiterates that drug dependence is a health and social problem, but health and social problems cannot be solved by using the criminal justice system. We therefore cannot say, “We will give you the help you need until the moment you need it most, when you relapse, whereupon we will withdraw that care unless and until you get yourself arrested”. That is a pretty good summary of what happens in too many cases in the UK.

The paper also raises some interesting points about coercive treatment. I agree that this is an unattractive route and I hope the Minister will confirm that that is not within the Government’s thinking.

I make two other points in passing. The first concerns the difference between users and those addicted to, or dependent on, drugs. Not everyone who drinks alcohol is an alcoholic. If you do not believe me, go and look in the Bishops’ Bar this evening. Not everyone who uses drugs is an addict. Addicts and alcoholics are ill. They need treatment, even if they do not always want it. At some stage whether we like it or not, society is going to have to get used to the idea that large numbers of our fellow citizens have made informed decisions to use drugs in the same way that their fellow citizens use alcohol. The vast majority do not have health problems and do not commit crimes and, on balance, they behave better in public than many of their fellow citizens who drink. That is for another day, but that other day is coming.

Lastly, I draw attention to the comments in the paper about drug courts. They exist in the UK to a limited extent, and it would be very interesting to hear the Minister’s views.

We are barely a month into this new Government and it would be unfair to expect a detailed response from my noble friend on the Front Bench today. Indeed, it is a pity we are not having this debate in a few months’ time when we could reasonably expect a more detailed answer. If that is the case, perhaps I could ask my noble friend to come back to the House at a later date and make a fuller statement on the Government’s policy. Even so, I hope he will say that the Government welcome this paper and that it is, indeed, the general direction in which the Government would like to move.

If the Obama Administration, the United Nations, the Public Accounts Committee and the Permanent Secretary to the Home Office in the report that was published by the Public Accounts Committee in April find common ground on a policy issue of this complexity, you can reasonably conclude that a consensus is starting to form. It seems there might be a consensus forming in your Lordships’ House this evening, and I very much hope that Her Majesty’s Government will join, if not lead, that consensus.