A fresh start on drugs

12 April 2012
Evening Standard editorial comment

Today's cross-party Select Committee report gives the Government the amber light it was looking for. This time last year it was still taking an uncompromising line on soft and hard drugs alike, for fear of antagonising concerned voters. It would be astonishing if Downing Street, having tested the waters with Lady Runciman's Police Foundation report in 2000, and the Home Secretary's proposal seven months ago to reclassify cannabis, does not now move quickly to accept most of the backbench MPs' recommendations.

What they primarily require from the Government is a change in attitude - from regarding drug-taking as a sin to a misdemeanour (in the case of cannabis) or at worst an addiction which needs treatment rather than criminal sanctions. This surely is right. Drug abuse cannot be curbed by legal penalties however harsh, and while New Labour has been digesting this fact, drug abuse and drug-related deaths have been rising, and drugrelated crime now accounts for up to half of all burglaries and robberies.

In view of the enormous public cost of such crime, huge savings could result from funding more and better treatment for drug addicts, mostly heroin users, as the Committee recommends. It calls for proper training in drug abuse problems for GPs: at present they are given very little, and many shy away from treating addicts. As for ecstasy, the report rightly points out the apparent lack of logic in labelling it a class A drug alongside heroin. Ecstasy, taken by hundreds of thousands every week, is clearly not as dangerous as heroin but, as the MPs themselves point out, it kills up to ten people a year. Downgrading it to class B, on a par with cannabis, could in practice mean possession triggered only a fine or a police warning. Of course the drug is already widely used in breach of the law but the Home Secretary is wisely reluctant at this point to signal tolerance of ecstasy use to the extent of making it a class B drug.

Overall, the committee appears to have approached the problems of drug abuse with considerable understanding, and this sophistication is evident in its recommendation that "social supply" - buying a few ecstasy tablets to share with friends, for example - while not decriminalised, should be distinguished by the courts from large-scale dealing for profit. The proposal that a new offence of "supply for gain" should be created deserves serious consideration by the Government, which at last is being offered a welcome opportunity to reorder its thinking after thirty years of increasing inadequate drugs policy.

Spanish practices

The Gibraltarians have a right to expect self determination, but they are unwise to behave like King Canute's courtiers; the tide of history does not stand still. However, the Foreign Office has acted with special ineptitude. Mr Jack Straw predicted with supreme confidence that a final settlement of the whole problem was imminent, but at the same time has given enormous ground by agreeing to allow Gibraltarians a veto over any deal.

The Foreign Office should have known that this was a recipe for breakdown. There is no way the residents of the Rock will give up British citizenship voluntarily - and they cannot be made to. Given these realities, the Government's big mistake has been to raise expectations that a deal was close at hand when clearly it was not. The best way to make progress is to negotiate confidence-building measures for now, and leave the hardest constitutional questions about eventual sovereignty until later.

In return for Spain making life easier at the border crossing, there seems little reason for Britain not to share Gibraltar's naval facilities - after all, Britain and Spain are supposed to be Nato allies. Britain could also move faster to strip its tiny colony of its tax haven status and, more generally, do more to integrate Gibraltar into the rules and regulations of the European Union. The impasse is the result of too much grandstanding by all sides. Britain should now take the lead in lowering the temperature and pursuing more realistic objectives.

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