Drugs

Lord Taverne Excerpts

Thursday 17th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taverne (LD)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a trustee of the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs. The debate was not necessarily promising because of the five-minute time limit for such an important and complex subject. In fact, however, the contributions have been invaluable, starting with the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, and also with the maiden speech of my noble friend Lady Manzoor.

There is one area on which nearly everyone is agreed: we should transfer the primary leadership on this issue from the Home Office to the Department of Health. It should be treated as a medical rather than criminal problem. There was also, not total agreement, but a majority of recommendations that possession of drugs should not be treated as a crime. Some 42,000 people a year are sentenced for drug offences, and 12,000 are given jail sentences for drug possession. There is no evidence whatever that this deters drug abuse. Indeed, it discourages going for treatment because, as many speakers have pointed out, of the stigma involved in such a conviction. The last thing that those who are addicted want to do is to acquire a criminal record, which would have all sorts of disadvantages. Nor is there any evidence that longer sentences help. There has been a gradual drift towards longer sentences for all drug offences, and there is no evidence that this has helped at all.

Apart from the bodies that have been referred to, a recent report was issued by the UK Drug Policy Commission, which is headed by Dame Ruth Runciman. It is an expert commission and a very important report, but the Government do not seem to have commented on it. The Government’s approach to evidence-based policy has often shown considerable shortcomings. Take, for example, the classification of drugs, to which many noble Lords have referred. The way the Home Office has neglected evidence is appalling. There is no particular evidence that the present classification is any good, but it is absurd to classify cannabis together with drugs such as heroin, cocaine and crack.

That is not the only unsatisfactory aspect. Several noble Lords have referred to the dangers of addiction to prescribed drugs. A number of bodies have warned about the excessive reliance in treatment on methadone tablets, which can easily be sold on the illicit drug market and can often lead to a relapse in people who have been trying to come off the drug. However, when they find that they can sell what has been officially prescribed, and that the methadone is easily sold, that is an incentive to relapse from treatment. As many noble Lords have pointed out, buprenorphine is a better alternative, especially when it is combined with naloxone. It is in common use in other countries, but has been neglected in this country.

All these contributions come to one conclusion, which is that the Misuse of Drugs Act is now 40 years old, the drug scene has changed dramatically since 1971, and it is high time that it was fundamentally re-examined.