PRISON BOSS CALLS FOR DRUGS LEGALISATION

Sir David Is Convinced Of The Need For Drastic Action

The chief inspector of prisons in England and Wales has called for
drugs to be legalised.

Sir David Ramsbotham told the BBC's A Parting Shot on Prisons
programme that "exposure to what the drug culture has done to the
people I am seeing in prison, their families and the community from
which they come" had convinced him of the need for drastic action.

Sir David, who retires on 1 August, said legalisation would reduce
crime motivated by the need to buy drugs.

Speaking at a drug-free wing at Bullingdon prison, Oxfordshire, he
said: "I think there is merit in legalising and prescribing so people
do not have to go and find an illegal way of doing it.

"The more I think about it and the more I look at what is happening,
the more I can see the logic of legalising drugs, because the misery
that is caused by the people who are making criminal profit is so
appalling and the sums are so great that are being made illegally."

Former deputy Tory leader Peter Lilley prompted renewed debate by his
call on Friday for cannabis to be legalised and sold through licensed
outlets.

Two former home secretaries, Liberal Democrat Lord Jenkins of
Hillhead and the Tory, Lord Baker of Dorking, told the Sunday Times
they favoured decriminalisation.

And an opinion poll for the Independent on Sunday found resistance to
the legalisation of cannabis wavering.

The NOP survey found that 51% opposed legalisation, compared with 37%
who were in favour.

This compared with 66% against legalisation and 26% in favour in its
1996 survey.

Home Secretary David Blunkett has already welcomed an experiment by
police in Lambeth, in south London, not to prosecute in minor cases
of cannabis possession in order to concentrate on tackling Class A
drugs.