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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: Conservatives ditch punitive drugs policy
ePolitix
Tuesday 12 Nov 2002 The Conservative Party has called for new therapeutic approach to drug abuse. In a move away from the right's punitive "war on drugs", Iain Duncan Smith and Oliver Letwin have unveiled new policies with an emphasis on treatment not punishment. And in a further break with tradition both accepted that a future Conservative government would have to pay more to fund the rehabilitation of addicts. After unveiling their latest thinking on drugs the Conservative leader and shadow home secretary observed a therapy session for addicts. The pair launched a consultation process on youth crime - "the biggest exercise of its kind ever conducted by an opposition party" - while visiting a Promis counselling centre in west London. Documents fleshing out more detail on policies unveiled at the Tories' conference last month have been published online and sent to police, probation officers and drugs workers for comment. Key proposals are: Targeted mandatory treatment for young heroin and cocaine addicts Targeted support for parents with troubled children Longer rehabilitative sentences for persistent young offenders. The discussion paper openly acknowledges a radical break with past Conservative drugs policy. "This policy shifts the emphasis away from punishment and onto treatment," it states. "We accept that this policy requires government to invest to provide sufficient intensive residential rehabilitation places." Duncan Smith described reoffending rates as "a desperate state of affairs" and urged more action to break the cycle of crime. "Without an effective programme to lift young people off the conveyor belt to crime, new legislation will be an empty gesture," he said. Letwin has branded the governments liberalisation of cannabis policing a "muddled and dangerous policy" and backs a huge expansion of drug rehabilitation facilities. "I propose that we should actively identify those young people who are on heroin and cocaine, and that we should face them with a choice: treatment (including all the psychological and other help required to beat the menace) or off to court," he said. "To make a reality of this policy, we will need greatly to expand the amount of treatment available in this country for heroin and cocaine addiction. We will need to multiply treatment tenfold - to the same level that we see in countries like Sweden." Acknowledging that "many aspects of drug policy in Britain are controversial" the shadow home secretary repeated a his call for the public to report suspected drug users - an approach described by David Blunkett as "unworkable". "We propose to launch a campaign to encourage parents, teachers and social workers to inform the relevant agencies when they encounter a minor who they believe is addicted to heroin or cocaine," Letwin said. "We recognise this will put a new onus on these groups to intervene at an early stage, but early intervention is critical if we are to stop young people from joining the conveyor belt to crime." Duncan Smith and Letwin later joined a one hour counselling session - therapy which at the Promis centre can include sufferers with a range of addictions. "All addicts of any kind (alcoholics, drug addicts, sufferers from eating disorders, gamblers, sex addicts - the lot) are treated alongside each other," says the Promis website. "The human problems of addicts are identical whatever the specific addiction, and it is the management of these human problems that form the core of treatment at Promis." The group which backs Conservative policy on drugs treatment rejects harm minimisation, methadone and needle exchange as "complete anathema". "The life available on prescribed drugs is a life devoid of genuine feeling. Is that what we would tolerate for our own loved ones?," the Promis website asks. More controversially Promis considers the basis of drug addiction to be genetic. "Addicts commonly want to blame their childhood experiences and current social circumstances for their addiction. Promis believes. the basic addictive nature is probably genetically inherited." Treatment, the group argues, cannot bring a cure. "The primary form of treatment is to provide an understanding of the nature of addictive disease and what needs to be done to keep it in remission on a continuing daily basis for the rest of the addict's life," says the website.
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