WE COULD KEEP DRUGS OUT OF PRISON IF WE WANTED TO

There are three phenomena of the British world c.2008 that I find
unfathomable to the point of disbelieving fury. The first is the
fatalism with which my fellow countrymen have resigned themselves to
their losses from the economic downturn. Why are prudent savers not
laying siege to the speculators' palaces and smashing the graven
images of capitalism?

The second is the persistence of mixed wards even in some of our
newest, glitziest hospitals. It is 12 years since Tony Blair -- then
Leader of the Opposition -- expressed amazement that such indignity
was still possible. Was it, he asked, beyond the wit of the Government
and the health administrators to deal with the problem? Oh yes, to
their eternal shame, it was.

And the third, right up there with the other two, is the lily-livered
acceptance by almost every authority in the land that drugs in prison
are an immutable fact of life. It may indeed be, as yesterday's report
by a think-tank called the UK Drug Policy Commission concluded
bleakly, that the drug trade has remained "extremely resilient" to
everything the Government has thrown at it in recent years. But you --
sorry, I -- would have thought that prison is the one point at which
the whole sad chain of exploitation and misery could be broken. Is
there not here a captive constituency for treatment?

Of course, such a sentiment is itself defeatist. It would be consoling
to believe that the country's borders could be hermetically sealed
against illegal drugs -- as against illegal bush-meat, black-market
firearms and everything else that threatens the public good. But we
know that is not possible. Ditto the level of policing that would
convince everyone, from kingpins to petty street traders, that they
should pack up and leave.

But even if improvements could be made in both these areas -- and I'm
sure they could -- there would still be the deserted coves and private
airfields; concealed cannabis factories in private houses, and would-
be drug mules ready to risk their lives in quest of a pathetically
small fortune. And when you consider the figures assembled by the UK
Drug Policy Commission, you almost wonder whether it might not be
better simply to abandon the field to the traffickers. The value of
their illegal trade in Britain is estimated at UKP 5.3bn. The
Government currently spends a total of UKP 1.5bn trying to combat it,
plus the diverse costs of drug-related crime, for which the most
recent estimates -- surely underestimates -- come in at UKP 4bn. The
taxpayer thus seems to be spending as much to fight the traffickers as
the traffickers are earning. Clearly there is much that cannot be done.

Keeping drugs out of prison, though, is surely something that could be
done. At least half of all inmates -- some suggest the proportion is
much higher -- are in prison as a direct result of drugs, either
because they have been caught trafficking or, more likely, because
they have turned to crime to feed their habit. Quite rightly, the
Government sees treatment as a key to reducing both crime and the
prison population. But if treatment is to work, it must be properly
funded, and the prisons must be part of the solution -- which at
present, patently, they are not.

Some 55 per cent of prisoners in England are dependent on drugs, and a
greater proportion in Scottish jails. Ex-prisoners suggest it is far
more. Yet, with or without treatment programmes, a lively drugs trade
flourishes inside, facilitated by mobile phones, crooked warders,
misguided visitors and such imaginative solutions as stuffed tennis
balls lobbed over walls to order. Nor has deregulation supplied an
answer. Why did the contracts not stipulate that new, private, prisons
should be drug-free? For the same reason, I assume, that brand-new
hospitals could operate mixed wards.

Alas, too many people have an interest in keeping the prison trade
going: rank-and-file prisoners, hungry for anything to break the
boredom in the absence of more productive diversion; those inmates who
earn money or favours while inside; warders and managers who fear
mayhem from overcrowding and like their charges compliant.

Earlier this month, the Government announced plans to spend UKP 80m on
technology to block mobile phones in prisons and "search" visitors
electronically. Which may be a welcome sign that the problem is
finally being addressed. I fear, though, that without the political
and managerial will -- the "wit" Tony Blair mentioned in relation to
hospitals -- the prison drug market will be as lively in a year's time
as it is now. I just hope that by then the public indignation might
also be greater.