DRUGS WAR 'MUST TARGET POVERTY'

Blairite Thinktank Calls For Centres To Test Purity

The war on drugs has failed and should be replaced with an attack on
poverty and joblessness, according to a report from a Blairite thinktank.

The Foreign Policy Centre report also suggests public points be provided
where the purity and hence safety of could be tested, and calls for the
employment agency to make it easier for addicts trying to quit to claim
benefits.

The report is written by Rowena Young, who has close connections with
Downing Street. She argues that soaring drug dependency statistics show the
inadequacy of the government's attempt to clamp down, since it focuses
disproportionately on the users of soft drugs rather than successfully
convicting pushers of heroin and cocaine.

A majority, 58%, of under 24-year-olds had used drugs, but only a tiny
minority became dependent, the report said. Thousands of people used drugs
recreationally without coming to harm. "Most grow out of it," it said.

Government policy was hampered by "an unhealthy cocktail of acute public
anxiety, simple nostrums, tabloid bile, vested interests and political
opportunism".

The report said: "There is not a single piece of evidence to show
prohibition works. Seizures can grow impressively but the quantities of
illicit drugs hitting the streets show an unerring ability to keep pace."

It mocked the ambition of the former drugs tsar Keith Hellawell to create a
drug free world for being a goal that "produces more incredulity than
inspiration ... a far more sensible goal is a society in which substance
use is well managed, and the risks minimised".

The focus on cutting use and seizing more illegal drugs was misconceived
and the results inadequately analysed. It ought to be replaced by
concentrated efforts to ensure drug dependents came off and stayed off
drugs, and to minimise the harm they caused by providing safe needles
through vending machines. Schools should not exclude children who took
drugs, but ensure they received help to take control of their lives.

The report said the political climate was changing as other approaches
failed, and the cost of failure mounted. One fifth of all people arrested
were on heroin, and it was estimated that every heroin addict stole goods
worth UKP43,000 a year.

It challenged the government to respond. "It would be a major blot on its
copybook if in five or 10 years time, the scale of problem use had
continued to soar."

Highlighting the link between deprivation and drug dependency first
identified in the US in the 1950-60s, the report quoted a Glasgow survey
from the early 1990s: "The relationship between deprivation and drug misuse
is higher than any other variable they had studied. Poverty does not
directly cause addiction. Instead it increases propensity to misuse."

It suggested that the new national treatment agency should look beyond
health issues and help people to change their lives. Work and training
should be integrated into treatment, and at the same time agencies involved
in regeneration should incorporate strategies for dealing with drug
problems. Most controversially, it suggested that staff in employment
centres assessing benefits needed the flexibility to be able to judge their
clients' prospects, concentrating on "what will take them forward rather
than imposing sanctions which lead to repeated short term failure".

But it said legalisation was not an easy option; there would have to be
controls on regulation and distribution. However, agencies working with
drug users "should be allowed to permit supervised drug taking on licensed
premises".