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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: Policies on soft drugs 'distract from real problem'
Ananova
Monday 26 Nov 2001 An ex-Government adviser says policies designed to cut recreational drug use over the past two decades have been a distraction from the real problems of hard drugs. Mike Trace, the Government's former deputy drugs Tsar says the policies have lead to an increase in deaths and crime. He says Britain's anti-drugs laws should concentrate far more on heroin and on addicts who mix different narcotics. Britain saw about 2,800 drug deaths each year - 40% of the total reported in the entire European Union, he said. His comments come shortly after David Blunkett's announcement of a significant relaxation of the law on possessing cannabis, and follow a row over a senior London police officer's claim that recreational drug use is not a serious problem. Mr Trace, whose post was discontinued following the June General Election, said: "We have had a problem, as many other countries have had, in concentrating too heavily on trying to reduce the prevalence of drug use across the board, which clearly we have failed to do. "The UK has high prevalence rates. It has had high prevalence rates all through the 1990s. Successive attempts to bring those prevalence rates down have not so far worked. "What we are starting to do is put a lot more resources into reducing the problem of drug-related deaths, and those have not received enough attention over 10 to 20 years." Efforts to cut cannabis use took large amounts of funds and police time, but had negligible effect on the worst consequences of drugs, said Mr Trace, now chairman of a monitoring centre for European drug abuse in Portugal. "Generally, the approach we take to recreational cannabis use is not going to make too much difference to the death rate," he said.
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