DRUG POLICIES LEAVE BRITAIN BOTTOM OF TABLE

Decades of Government attempts to control illegal drugs have had
"minimal" impact on levels of use and led to a position where Britain
has the worst addiction levels in Europe, a report will say this week.

In the latest piece of research to underline the failures of drug
policy by Labour and Conservative administrations, the report is
understood to point out that up to one in three people arrested on
suspicion of crimes is using hard drugs such as heroin and cocaine.

The new UK Drug Policy Commission (UKDPC) will say that Britain has
the highest level of problem drug use and the second highest level of
drug-related deaths in Europe.

This is despite sustained attempts to prevent young people trying
drugs. It will say: "Despite successive Governments' attempts to
control the demand for and supply of illegal drugs, drug policy
appears to have had minimal impact on the overall level of use in the
UK."

The number of heroin addicts has surged from about 5,000 in 1975 to
more than 280,000 today. Estimates suggest that drugs cost society up
to UKP13 billion a year in crime, health and other bills. Some have
questioned the need for another major study of drugs policy that
largely draws on Home Office and health statistics.

A recent study by the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts,
Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) found that Britain had "crude and
ineffective" drugs laws that should be replaced, with the Home Office
stripped of its control over policy.

The RSA said the law was driven by "moral panic" and suggested that
the main aim of policy should be to reduce the harm that drugs cause,
not to send people to jail.

The UKDPC report will add to pressure on the Government - which came
to power in 1997 with a promise to be tough on drugs - to consider
radical changes to policy.

It draws on a Home Office survey of 7,500 arrests, which showed that
18 per cent of those detained admitted taking heroin, while 15 per
cent had taken crack cocaine. Some of the 46 per cent who had taken
cannabis were also users of hard drugs.

The head of the UKDPC, Dame Ruth Runciman, said: "We simply do not
know enough about which elements of drug policy work, why they work
and where they work well. The commission has been set up to address
this."

However, Martin Barnes, chief executive of the drug information
charity DrugScope, said: "The trend in drug use has been upwards since
the 1970s, but more recently has stabilised and for some drugs has
been falling.

"To suggest that more recent drugs policy has been a total failure is
unreasonable. Recent record spending on drug treatment, for example,
needs to be seen against decades of under-investment. There needs to
be a greater focus on long-term prevention."