LEGALISE DRUGS, SAYS FORMER SENIOR CABINET ADVISER JULIAN CRITCHLEY

Julian Critchley, the former director of the Cabinet Office's
Anti-Drug Co-ordination Unit, said Labour's "tough on drugs" approach
was like "shifting the deck-chairs around on the Titanic".

He said: "The drugs strategy doesn't work, can not work, because we
have no way of controlling the supply of drugs."

It comes after a report found that police and customs are fighting a
losing battle against the illegal drug trade despite billions of
pounds being spent every year on fighting it. Mr Critchley, who ran
the Cabinet Office's Anti-Drug Co-ordination Unit in the early years
of the Labour Government, said a belief that drug use could be
legislated away is "folly".

He said he is in "no doubt" that their legalisation would produce a
fall in crime, while providing heroin addicts with the drug on
prescription would stop them committing crimes to raise money to
supply their habit.

Ten years ago, the Cabinet Office's Anti-Drug Co-ordination Unit was
at the heart of the war on drugs in the UK, co-ordinating policy
across all government departments.

Keith Hellawell (CORR), the controversial former police chief who
went on to accuse Labour ministers of "closing their eyes" to the
drugs problem, was appointed in 1998 as the public face of the
government's war on drugs.

Mr Critchley, who worked behind the scenes as the unit's director,
said he had taken up his role "more or less agnostic on drugs policy,
being personally opposed to drug use."

But he had become convinced that anti-drugs policy and enforcement
had produced "no significant, lasting impact on the availability,
affordability or use of drugs."

The only way to effectively battle the problem would be to legalise
drugs and take control over their supply, he claimed.

Mr Critchley said the "overwhelming majority of professionals" he had
worked with, including those from the Government, NHS, police and
charities, shared his view.

"Yet publicly, all those intelligent, knowledgeable people were
forced to repeat the nonsensical mantra that the government would be
'tough on drugs', even though they all knew that the government's
policy was actually causing harm," he said.

Mr Critchley dismissed arguments against legalisation based on fears
of an increase in drug use as "bogus".

He said: "Tobacco is a legal drug, whose use is declining, and
precisely because it is legal, its users are far more amenable to
government control, education programmes and taxation than they would
be were it illegal.

"The idea that many people are holding back solely because of a law
which they know is already unenforceable is simply ridiculous."

He recalled meetings in which "there was a very large amount of
agreement that actually this drugs strategy was shifting the
deckchairs around on the Titanic, we were trying to minimise harm but
ultimately we knew that this was riddling while Rome burnt."

A Home Office spokesman said: "We have no intention of either
decriminalising or legalising currently controlled drugs for
recreational purposes.

"Drugs are controlled for good reason - they are harmful to health.
Their control protects individuals and the public from the harms
caused by their misuse."

The Conservatives rejected Mr Critchley's comments. Shadow Home
Secretary Dominic Grieve, said: "Drugs wreck lives, destroy
communities and are a major cause of crime.

"The answer lies in robust policing and sentences to catch and deter
the peddlers of drugs. We also need to establish a dedicated UK
Border Police to stop drugs flowing into our porous borders.

"Finally we must expand residential rehabilitation so that we can
actually get addicts off drugs, in contrast to Labour's policy of
simply managing addiction."

A report last month from the UK Drugs Commission found that
traditional crime-fighting tactics were simply not working and that
the UKP5.3 billion British drug market was "too fluid" for law
enforcement agencies to deal with.

In 2005-06, the Government spent UKP 380 million just on reducing
supply in England, the report said, while the annual cost to the
criminal justice system of dealing with Class A drugs is more than
UKP4 billion.