Ex-minister calls for drugs to be decriminalised

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LONDON | Thu Dec 16, 2010 9:13am GMT

LONDON (Reuters) - A former minister who once had responsibility for Britain's narcotics policy said on Thursday all drugs should be decriminalised, arguing that prohibition and the war on narcotics had been a failure.

Bob Ainsworth said he had changed his mind on his issue during his period as a Labour minister at the Home Office because of the futility of the policy of trying to outlaw drugs but had not wanted to speak out while he was still in government.

However, the Conservative-led coalition government has ruled out making any changes to the law.

"The war on drugs does not work. We need to be bold, we need some fresh thinking," Ainsworth, who was also Defence Secretary in the former Labour government, told BBC radio.

"This has been going on for 50 years now and it isn't getting better. The drugs trade is as big and as powerful as it ever was across the world."

The BBC said Ainsworth was the most senior politician to call for the decriminalisation of all drugs.

Peter Lilley, former deputy leader of the Conservative Party, called for cannabis to be legalised in 2001 but said drugs such as heroin and cocaine should still be illegal.

Ainsworth said each drug should be examined on its own terms and there should be different regimes for each one. Heroin should be legally available, but only on prescription, he suggested, while cocaine could be available from legal sources such as doctors.

"I'm not proposing the liberalisation and legalisation of heroin so we can all get zonked out on the street corner," he said.

"What I'm saying is heroin needs to be taken out of the hands of the dealers, put into the hands of the medical profession, done in a mass way to the extent that's necessary.

The Labour government had eased penalties on the use of cannabis on its advisory body's advice in 2004 but former Prime Minister Gordon Brown reversed that decision four years later, saying he wanted to send a message that use of the drug was unacceptable. However, Ainsworth said that had been a mistake as there was no evidence that there had been an increase in cannabis after the penalties were eased.

He said one senior police officer had told him the authorities aimed to disrupt criminal gangs rather than trying to raise the price of drugs.

"They are disrupting the criminal gangs to prevent a Pablo Escobar or an Al Capone," he said.

Crime Prevention Minister James Brokenshire said drugs were harmful and should not be legalised.

"Decriminalisation is a simplistic solution that fails to recognise the complexity of the problem and ignores the serious harm drug taking poses to the individual," he said in a statement.

(Reporting by Michael Holden; Editing by Steve Addison)
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Comments (3)
RamboTribble wrote:
Drugs crimes and punishment are big business. Between them, they likely grab a larger share of the economy than even the fabled “military-industrial complex”. It is in their advantage all around to maintain the status quo. Individuals such as Mr. Ainsworth have been speaking out for decades. Sadly, such are voices in the wilderness, for the taxing, eroding machine that is the prohibition industry will drone them out, as it always has.

Dec 16, 2010 4:30pm GMT  --  Report as abuse
bettysenior wrote:
When Labour came to power in 1997 they heralded that great change would happen and that they would listen to the people. The recent comments by former drugs minister Bob Ainsworth sum up the hypocrisy of New Labour and the last Labour Government when he states that all drugs should be open to everyone, as we shall never win the war on drugs. It was himself, his government and his boss David Blunkett who stopped the introduction of a humane cure for all class ‘A’ drug addiction during their reign of power. Indeed this cure has no side effects, no cold turkey, is perfectly safe for human consumption, is non-addictive unlike methadone as it comprises of 13 plant extracts and has cured over 20,000 hard drug addicts over the past 15 years. Indeed when a cabinet minister from the Vietnamese government was going to travel to the UK to open initial cooperation with the UK concerning this wonder cure, the Home Office which Bob Ainsworth and David Blunkett were in charge of, snubbed them. It is also a sad fact that one of Mr. Blunkett’s constituents in Sheffield brought this drug’s cure to his attention. He did not in the end analysis take any notice of her and where this year her eldest son died from an overdose of heroin. He was nearly 40 years of age and had been ravaged by drugs since his early teens. If the Labour government had taken notice of the mother’s pleas then, her dearest son would now most probably be still alive. That is one of the legacies that Labour left this family from Sheffield and where the hypocrisy of the last Labour Government know no bounds – overall they did more harm than good by a very wide margin. But, there may still be a little hope for the UK, as Germany are looking into introducing the cure over the next few years as the treatment was a cooperative development by leading German and Vietnamese scientists. The problem is, will the communist Vietnamese Government remember the snub that Bob Ainsworth’s government gave to them. If they do, Britain will never get this cure and anybody who wants to be cured of hard drugs addiction in this country, will have to travel to Germany.
This non-addictive medicine in capsule form is now produced in modern pharmaceutical laboratory facilities in Vietnam and under western criteria. Therefore this medicine that detoxifies and releases the person from the bondages of addiction in less than one week, has been denied by Bob Ainsworth and his former government. If that is not hypocrisy I do not know what is? For the record we are now officially Europe’s worst country by far for drug addiction, another failure of Labour or is Bob Ainsworth trying here to make excuses that we cannot win the war on drugs for fear that he will be proved totally wrong and what a miserable failure New Labour really was in this respect?

Dr David Hill
Executive Director
World Innovation Foundation Charity
Bern, Switzerland

Dec 17, 2010 9:53pm GMT  --  Report as abuse
lardeon wrote:
The responsible way to deal with drug abuse is to fine users and use the proceeds for enforcement. Start at £200 on the spot fine and double it for each time caught. Also reduce benefits by 10% for one year per offence. Introduce automatic dismissal of any person working for public authority for any drug conviction.
The dealers could not exist if there were no customers.
This solution is very simple but too many polititians pussy foot around pontificating without any solution to the issue.
Any fine not paid within 1 month should result in automatic 1 month prison sentence with fine still to be paid.

Dec 22, 2010 8:09pm GMT  --  Report as abuse
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