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UK: 'Criminalising drugs is not helping': Farage calls for Britain to follow Portugal where even HEROIN is not illegal Tamara Cohen Daily Mail Friday 04 Apr 2014 - Suggests UK laws are ineffective and called for a Royal Commission - Insists he has never taken drugs and has witnessed 'damage' they do Nigel Farage believes the war on drugs has been lost and Britain should look at legalising them - including heroin. The UK Independence Party leader made the highly controversial claim that Portugal, where drugs were decriminalised 12 years ago, may have a ‘more enlightened’ approach. He said in a television phone-in that he ‘hates drugs’, has never taken them, and has experience of the damage they can do to young people’s lives. But he believes the current laws criminalising users are ineffective, and would back a Royal Commission to look at alternatives including that in Portugal and some American states. ‘I personally think that the war on drugs was lost many, many years ago and that the lives of millions of people in Britain are being made miserable by the huge criminal element that surrounds the illicit drugs trade and I do think that Portugal does show us that perhaps there is a better, more enlightened way to deal with this’, he said. ‘I’m not pro-drugs by the way, as someone with teenage children, and I’ve seen fairly close to hand the damage that drugs can do to young people. ‘So I hate drugs, I’ve never taken them myself, I hope I never do, but I just have a feeling that the criminalisation of all these drugs is actually not really helping British society,' he told a Telegraph phone-in. ‘I think we should look at it and if ever there was a subject where we needed a genuine Royal Commission – not to kick it in the long grass – but a genuine Royal Commission to examine Portugal, to examine perhaps what has happened in one or two states in America and in Switzerland, this subject would be it.’ Mr Farage admitted these were his personal views, and not Ukip policy, saying: ‘This is one subject where I differ strongly from my party’. He was asked by a viewer about Portugal, where police and courts no longer pursue people for buying or possessing small amounts of drugs. They are allowed a 10 day supply, which the law states is a gram of heroin, two grams of cocaine, 5g of cannabis and up to a gram of ecstasy or amphetamine. Anyone with these drugs in higher quantities is treated as a dealer and charged in court. Those caught with drugs within these limits must report to a ‘warning commission on addition’ which can send them to rehab if they are deemed to have a problem. Experts are divided on how well this has worked, with no big increase in drug use as some had predicted, but no substantial drop either, and in some years deaths from drugs been high. Prime Minister David Cameron, pictured today in Devon, has rejected calls from MPs to consider decriminalisation +3 Prime Minister David Cameron, pictured today in Devon, has rejected calls from MPs to consider decriminalisation Dr Manuel Pinto Coelho, President of the Association for a Drug Free Portugal, declared last year that decriminalisation, which treats drug taking as an illness rather than a crime, had ‘not worked’. Mr Farage expressed his support, earlier this year, for Nick Clegg who said following a visit to Columbia that Britain needed to look at alternatives to prohibition. The Ukip leader said in February: ‘The fact is our current approach to drugs is neither practical nor effective. I strongly believe in promoting individual freedom – but I also strongly believe in reducing the public harm caused by drugs. ‘As a parent as much as a politician, I say we have to accept that current policy has not achieved the reductions in crime or consumption that we'd hoped for.’ David Cameron and Theresa May shot down calls from the Home Affairs Select Committee for a royal commission on drugs in 2012. Mr Cameron said at the time: ‘I don't support decriminalisation. We have a policy which actually is working in Britain. Drugs use is coming down, the emphasis on treatment is absolutely right, and we need to continue with that to make sure we can really make a difference. Also, we need to do more to keep drugs out of our prisons. ‘These are the government's priorities and I think we should continue with that rather than have some very, very long-term royal commission.’ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2597099/Criminalising-drugs-not-helping-Farage-calls-Britain-follow-Portugal-HEROIN-not-illegal.html?ITO=1490&ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490
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