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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: Labour drops key targets on drugs
Philip Johnston The Telegraph
Wednesday 04 Dec 2002 More than four years into a "10-year strategy" to tackle drug misuse, the Government yesterday conceded that it was too ambitious. Ministers set out an "updated" strategy that abandoned almost all of the original targets, but retained the key features which have characterised the policies of successive governments. The strategy also outlined a new national action plan on crack cocaine to stem supplies, help police close markets, introduce about 20 specialist treatment programmes and divert young people from the drug. Court powers to send offenders for treatment as part of their sentence will be expanded and GPs will be encouraged to prescribe heroin to more addicts who would benefit from it. At present, about 400 users are prescribed the drug in controlled circumstances. The retained key features include educating young people on the dangers of drugs, combating dealers, disrupting supply and treating addicts. The "updated" strategy envisages that nearly 2 billion will be spent annually on tackling drug misuse by 2006. A study by York University also published yesterday said the total cost to the economy of the drug-related problems, notably crime, was 20 billion a year. Campaigners pressing for the legalisation of drugs said the policy had changed little in the past 30 years, during which the number of hard drug users had risen from a few thousand to 200,000. David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, denied that the old strategy had been abandoned, but only one of the four original targets for cutting drug misuse has survived: to make treatment available to all problem abusers by 2008. Others, such as cutting the availability of Class A drugs by a quarter by 2005 and 50 per cent by 2008, have been dropped. Keith Hellawell, the former "drugs tsar" and the architect of the Government's earlier strategy, criticised the relaunch. He said the Home Office was sending confusing signals, especially on cannabis. Last year, Mr Blunkett announced he was downgrading the drug from a Class B to Class C substance. Many thought this was to make possession of cannabis a non-arrestable offence and, according to the latest British Social Attitudes survey funded by the Government, one in two people thinks cannabis should be legalised and most say doctors should be allowed to prescribe it. But the new Criminal Justice Bill, which gets its Second Reading in the Commons today, will make possessing Class C drugs arrestable. Ministers said this was to ensure that police could arrest someone for smoking cannabis in a way likely to cause a breach of public order.
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