DRUGS POLICY FAILING, SAYS REPORT.CO.UK

Longer jail sentences for drug offences have failed to rid Britain's
streets of illegal narcotics, according to a report released today.

The report also found that 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 document, commissioned for today's launch of the independent UK
Drug Policy Commission, found tougher sentencing policies have led to
the number of people jailed for drug-related offences rising by 111%
between 1994 and 2005 and the average length of sentences increasing by 29%.

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
gram in 2000 to UKP54 in 2005, indicating a probable increase in availability.

The Conservative party said the findings we a "shocking indictment"
of government failure after 10 years in power.

David Davis, shadow home secretary, said: "This shows that Tony Blair
has utterly failed in his pledge to get tough on the 'causes' of crime.

"The consequences of this failure are not just that hundreds of
thousands of young lives are being ruined - drugs also fuel much of
the gun and knife related violence on our streets today, thus
destroying communities."

The UK has the highest levels of problem drug use and the
second-highest rate of drug-related deaths in Europe.

The total value of the UK market for illicit drugs is estimated at
UKP5bn a year. Drug-related causes lie behind the deaths of 34 per
million of the UK's adult population.

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 UKP13bn.

The report's authors, Professor Peter Reuter, of Maryland University
in the USA, and Alex Stevens, of the University of Kent, suggested
that imposing longer jail terms may not be the answer.

"Imprisoning drug offenders for relatively substantial periods does
not appear to represent a cost-effective response," the report states.

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 people, 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.

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.

Home Office minister Vernon Coaker said the government would continue
tackling drug misuse through enforcement, education, early
intervention and treatment.

He said: "We are spending unparalleled sums on our drugs strategy,
which has been vindicated by record numbers of people in drug
treatment and significant falls in drugs misuse and drug related crime.

"We are proud of our record and intend to build on our success."

The Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, Nick Clegg, said the UK
Drugs Commission was being launched at a crucial time in the national
debate about drugs policy.