DRUG PUSHERS SAY HURRAY TO JACK STRAW

The large black man with dreadlocks, gold chain and leather jacket
pinned me to the wall and stuck his finger in my chest. "I'll tell you
why I don't like you f*ing reformers," he said. "It is because you
want to do me out of a f*ing job. We got no problem here. Not with
gangs.

Not with the police.

Not with the law. Eff off."

This man was as pleased with Britain's drugs regime as is Her
Majesty's Home Secretary. He operates in what is currently one of
Britain's hottest heroin markets, in London's East End. Hard drug
consumption in the area, mostly cheap smokable heroin, is said now to
outstrip that of cannabis. The average age of known addicts is falling
at an alarming rate. The picture is the same in Glasgow and Edinburgh,
Manchester and Leeds, Nottingham and Bristol. I dislike the word
epidemic, but that is heroin in modern Britain.

For two years I have been serving on Lady Runciman's Police Foundation
inquiry into the 30-year-old Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (MDA). It has
been an alarming experience. Although most "facts" about drugs tend to
be prejudice thinly veiled in anecdote, two generalisations seem robust.

Britain has the toughest drugs laws of any major Western country, yet
it has the highest consumption of drugs and the worst addiction rate.
Only a fool would say that these generalisations are
unconnected.

All drugs are in some degree toxic and potentially dangerous. Some,
such as heroin and cocaine, can be very dangerous. Some such as
Ecstasy and amphetamines are also dangerous but less so. Cannabis is
less dangerous but still harmful. I would plead with any young person
to avoid them all. Classification under the Act was intended to
distinguish their relative harm and attach proportionate penalties to
them. The classifications were wrong and the penalties have failed.

Drug offences have risen tenfold since the Act was
passed.

More serious, known drug addicts have risen from 3,000 to 43,000.
Unofficial estimates put the latter figure at nearer 200,000, mostly
youngsters. Some 2,000 people will die of drug abuse this year.

This is an appalling record for any law. In this week's MORI poll,
conducted for the inquiry, two thirds of respondents understandably
want "tougher" legislation. So do I, in the sense that I want a law
that can be properly enforced to limit the danger of drugs to young
people.

The poll also showed a wide public divergence between toughness on
dangerous drugs and on cannabis.

Most people of all ages claim to regard cannabis as less harmful than
alcohol or tobacco. Half want cannabis legalised.

Almost nobody regards chasing drug users, as opposed to suppliers, as
a priority for police time. These views cross all classes and age
groups. Middle England has turned an important corner.

Enforcement already reflects this. Legal maximum sentences for
cannabis are rarely used. Yet a huge amount of police time is needed
to handle roughly 100,000 cases of cannabis possession each year. Most
lead to cautions, yet the numbers jailed for possession have doubled
since the Act came in. Thousands of young people are criminalised each
year for using a substance that most people feel should be legal.
Their families are torn apart; they and their communities are
"socially excluded" under the rule of gangs.

Joined-up government means nothing.

The law is an inconsistent muddle, with casual users and suppliers
lumped in with very sick people and serious crooks.

As far as cannabis is concerned, Britain cannot legalise it. This is
forbidden by an archaic UN convention pretending to control drugs worldwide.

But discretion is allowed on classification and enforcement. Hence the
recommendation of the inquiry that Ecstasy should be moved away from
heroin into Class B and cannabis into Class C. Hence also the
recommendation that most drug use should receive education and
treatment, not a prison sentence.

Sending users to a British prison these days is like sending a drunk
to a brewery - ever since prison drug consumption soared under the
reckless regimes of Ann Widdecombe and now Jack Straw. The surest way
to turn a cannabis smoker into a heroin addict is to take him off the
street and send him to one of Mr Straw's jails.

The debased word in this debate is liberal.

Most drugs experts regard the most "liberal", that is unregulated,
drugs market in Europe as Britain's. The most dirigiste is in The
Netherlands. British ministers love to deride Dutch experience,
usually on the basis of a one-night visit to a tourist "coffee shop"
in Amsterdam. Yet the Dutch can boast lower cannabis consumption, on
any available indicator, than Britain. The Dutch practice of
tolerating (not legalising) personal possession of cannabis may be
hard to envisage in Britain. But it has not led to booming
consumption. Nor are the Dutch any longer alone.

Depenalising cannabis in Britain would reflect practice in Spain,
Italy, Portugal, much of Scandinavia, most German Lander and some US
states.

All (except America) have lower consumption rates than
Britain.

Cannabis depenalisation makes sense in its own right.

But crucial to the argument is what effect it might have on the
consumption of more dangerous drugs.

The answer is that anything which might separate the cannabis market
from hard drugs is worth doing.

London may not have the tightly regulated coffee shops of Dutch
cities.

Instead it has unregulated school playgrounds, pubs, clubs, common
rooms, rave venues and street corners.

Soho's nightly drugs market is unpoliced.

The law is chaotic.

Drug-dealing clubs in The Netherlands or New York can be, and are,
instantly closed. Not so in London. Whatever may be said of the Dutch,
they have no heroin epidemic and Europe's lowest drug-related death
rate. They are getting something right which Britain has wrong.

There is no evidence that reducing the penalties for using cannabis
might raise its status as a "gateway" to hard drug addiction. The
evidence is all the other way. The chief risk at present is of
cannabis dealers pushing heroin to young people who are already
purchasing illegal supplies.

I personally regard this as such a risk that I would take the Dutch
route, trying to uncouple cannabis supply from hard drug dealing.

The inquiry proposals do not go this far, but would at least deflect
police time from endless cannabis searches and home-production
"busts". If hard drug abuse is still to be treated as a criminal
rather than a medical incident, the authorities should make it their
priority.

No debate is more infested with fear of reason than that surrounding
the escapist substances used by the young. Changing drug classes and
penalties is said by conservatives to "send the wrong signal". Yet the
whole point of the Act's classes is to give distinct signals.

Unless British politics is now brain-dead, it cannot be wrong to send
the right ones. Otherwise we might as well throw every drug from opium
to Chateau Latour into Class A. That is plain stupid.

Were young people so menaced in any other area of health or safety,
Downing Street would be up in arms. Were they threatened by
paedophiles or BSE or train signals passed at danger, committees would
be summoned and laws rushed through Parliament. Yet because the threat
is from drugs, political minds snap shut. With awesome complacency,
both the Home Secretary and the drugs co-ordinator, Keith Hellawell,
yesterday rejected the Police Foundation report and claimed that
Whitehall's latest war on drugs was working fine. John Major said the
same of his drugs war. So do all American Presidents. Last week a US
government survey reported drug-related deaths in America to be
higher than ever - 40 a day.

Laws that intrude on personal freedom must prove that they can work.
The present Misuse of Drugs Act fails this test. Public opinion is
clearly ready for a change.

So are many policemen, politicians, doctors, teachers and
parents.

Like all social reforms, this one needs only a mildly brave Home
Secretary. We wait. Mr Straw parades as a reactionary, yet his inertia
is turning Britain into the 21st century's greatest drugs venue.

That the Government sees no need for a change in regime will cheer
every trafficker and every pusher.

It should terrify every parent.

The present policy is a killer.