TORY LEADER TO LEARN FROM TOUGHEST DRUGS POLICY IN EU

Iain Duncan Smith is visiting Stockholm today to see how the toughest drugs
policy in Europe has kept substance abuse at bay.

Mr Duncan Smith's trip forms part of a campaign by the Tory leader to find
new ways of dealing with social problems by looking to methods used abroad.

While David Blunkett has downgraded cannabis to a class C drug, Sweden, by
contrast, views the substance as dimly as heroin and drug users are
prosecuted with the same vigour as drug dealers.

Swedish police, for example, have a wide range of powers to deal with the
problem. They can request blood or urine samples and carry out regular
raids on places where people might be taking drugs, such as raves and
nightclubs. Detoxification and treatment programmes also receive
substantial funding and drug-withdrawal programmes in prison are compulsory.

Although the sternest sentences are reserved for dealers, drug users are
also identified and prosecuted, but not jailed.

The fact that Swedish law enforcement does not distinguish between soft and
hard drugs has been credited for the low levels of drug abuse. In Sweden
only 11 per cent of schoolchildren have tried drugs compared with an
estimated 45 per cent in Britain.

The Tory leader, who will visit a drug prevention and treatment centre for
young abusers in Stockholm and meet the county's national drugs
co-ordinator, Torngy Peterson, will be accompanied by Oliver Letwin, the
Shadow Home Secretary. Mr Letwin was one of a number of senior Tories two
years ago to admit to having tried cannabis in his youth in a revolt
against Ann Widdecombe's then policy of giving a criminal record to anyone
found using the drug.