GET-TOUGH POLICIES FAIL IN WAR AGAINST DRUGS

Get-tough drug policies leading to a massive increase in jail
sentences have failed to stem the availability of illegal narcotics on
Britain's streets over the past decade, according to a report.

And Government-backed education and prevention programmes designed to
steer youngsters away from drugs appear to have had "very little
impact" on experimentation with illicit substances.

The report, commissioned for today's launch of the independent UK Drug
Policy Commission, found that the UK has the highest levels of problem
drug use and the second-highest rate of drug-related deaths in Europe.

Around one-quarter of 26 to 30-year-olds have tried a class A drug at
least once, and around 45 per cent of young people have used cannabis.

The total value of the UK market for illicit drugs is estimated at UKP5
billion a year. Drug-related causes lie behind the deaths of 34 per
million of the UK's adult population.

And the 0.85 per cent addiction rate seen among the UK population is
twice or more that in comparable European countries such as France and
Sweden (0.4 per cent) or Germany and the Netherlands (0.3 per cent).

England's 327,000 problem drug users commit "very high" numbers of
crimes - mostly shoplifting - to fund their habits, said the report,
entitled An Analysis Of UK Drug Policy.

With around one-fifth of all people arrested thought to be dependent
on heroin, the total cost of drug-related crime in England and Wales
alone is estimated at more than UKP13 billion.

The report's authors, Professor Peter Reuter, of Maryland University
in the USA, and Alex Stevens, of the University of Kent, noted that
policies like needle exchanges, drug rehabilitation and the
prescription of heroin substitute methadone, have had positive results
- - including keeping HIV rates among injecting users down below those
in comparable countries.

Certain types of drug treatment have been shown to be cost-effective,
with savings of more than UKP3 for every UKP1 spent, mainly because of
reductions in crime.

But the report said that not enough is known about which elements of
drug policy work, why they work and where they work well.

Despite increased investment in treatment, the majority of Government
spending still goes towards enforcing drug laws, said Prof Reuter and
Mr Stevens.

Meanwhile, tougher sentencing policies have seen numbers of people
jailed for drug-related offences rise by 111 per cent between 1994 and
2005 and the average length of sentences increase by 29 per cent.

Taken together, this means the courts handed out nearly three times as
much prison time in 2004 as in 1994.

But despite this judicial crackdown and a "substantial" increase in
drug seizures, street prices for heroin have plummeted from UKP70 a
gramme in 2000 to UKP54 in 2005, indicating a probable increase in
availability.

"Tougher enforcement should theoretically make illegal drugs more
expensive and harder to get," said the report.

"The prices of the principal drugs in Britain have declined for most
of the last 10 years and there is no indication that tougher
enforcement has succeeded in making drugs less accessible."

The report suggested that imposing longer jail terms may not be the
answer, arguing: "Imprisoning drug offenders for relatively
substantial periods does not appear to represent a cost-effective response."

Enforcement action has a "disproportionate" impact on certain ethnic
communities, notably black people, who are arrested and imprisoned for
drug offences at higher rates than white, said the report.

And it warned: "There is little international or UK evidence to
suggest that drug education and prevention have had any significant
impact on drug use.

"The international literature consistently indicates that most
school-based prevention efforts do little to reduce initiation. Even
those programmes that are delivered effectively seem to have very
little impact on future drug use."

The report's authors called for further Government effort to be
focused on the development of treatment and harm reduction programmes
which have been shown to have an impact on the levels of crime,
ill-health and death linked to drugs.

While drug trends since the turn of the millennium have shown signs of
stabilisation - with falls in use of cannabis, LSD, amphetamines and
Ecstasy - they remain at historically high levels, and use of cocaine
and crack has increased, they said.

Chaired by Dame Ruth Runciman and funded by the charitable Esmee
Fairbairn Foundation, the new UK Drugs Policy Commission aims to
"improve political, media and public understanding of drug policy
issues and the options for achieving a rational and effective response
to the problems caused by the supply of and demand for illegal drugs".

It brings together 12 experts drawn from the drug treatment and
medical research fields along with senior figures from policing,
public policy and the media.

Speaking at today's launch in London, Dame Ruth said: "The UK Drug
Policy Commission is an independent organisation that will provide
objective analysis of issues of drug policy in the United Kingdom.

"The Commission does not start from the position that all UK drug
policy has failed, but rather that we do not know enough about which
elements of policy work, why they work and where they work well.

"The debate on drugs is often sensationalised and polarised. Our
mission is to improve political, media and public understanding of the
strengths and weaknesses of this country's policies for tackling drug
misuse."

Also serving on the Commission are chief executive of the Medical
Research Council Professor Colin Blakemore, former West Mercia Chief
Constable David Blakey, president of the Royal Society of Medicine
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff, comment editor at The Times Daniel
Finkelstein, chairman of the Mental Health Act Commission Lord Patel,
chief executive of Shelter Adam Sampson and director of the National
Addiction Centre Professor John Strang.