here - United Kingdom Parliament

275WH
Drugs
6 JUNE 2013
Drugs
276WH
[Dr Julian Huppert]
brought in a couple of years ago to allow the temporary
ban on drugs while we are trying to find all the evidence.
The Government have made it an offence to supply
large amounts of such drugs, but not an offence to
possess small amounts. All I am suggesting is that we
apply the same principle to other drugs, because it has
been found to work in Portugal, to be publicly accepted
and to have good outcomes.
I am keen on an evidence base. There is a fantastic
piece of evidence from the Czech Republic. The Czech
Republic used to have no criminal sanction on possession
of small amounts, but in 2001 it changed the law and
criminalised possession, and there was a big debate. The
sort of arguments were made that might be expected,
with people saying that if possession were criminalised
fewer people would use drugs, people would be healthier
and better, and there would be less drug use—all of that
sort of thing. The Government there did something
that Governments rarely do and set out their hypotheses,
worked out how to measure and test them, and published
a proper impact analysis, internationally verified, of
their predictions. They found that they did not get what
they expected from criminalising possession.
The implementation of a penalty for possession of
illicit drugs for personal use did not meet any of the
tested objectives, was loss-making from an economic
point of view and brought about avoidable social costs.
It was found that criminalisation made things worse.
That suggests that decriminalisation—not an absolute
parallel, but as close as one can get—would not be
likely to make things bad.
The summary of results in the Czech impact analysis
states:
“from the perspective of social costs, enforcement of penalizing
of possession of illicit drugs for personal use is disadvantageous”.
The hypothesis that availability of illicit drugs would
decrease was rejected, as was the one suggesting that the
number of illicit drug users would decrease; and rather
than the number of new cases of illicit drug use decreasing
after criminalisation, incidence in the general population
increased. Rather than finding no negative health indicators
relating to illicit drug use, there were more fatal overdoses
from illicit drugs after criminalisation, and the hypothesis
that social costs would not increase was rejected. Having
done this study, the Czech Republic went back and
decriminalised possession, because it found that it was
better for its society and was cheaper and more effective
at dealing with drugs. We can do this in this country.
Of course, no country is a perfect model, but we
know that in Portugal decriminalisation of possession
of small amounts works and has societal benefits and is
well accepted, and that in the Czech Republic it is better
to decriminalise possession than not to. We can try that
here. We would need a royal commission to work out
the exact details of how to do the work here. We can
make a difference.
Although I would love to talk about other domestic
issues, I do not have time to go through them in perfect
detail. The focus on treatment is right. I am alarmed
that there is a push to suggest that abstinence is the only
form of treatment that really counts. Where people are
having treatment, we want to move them from high
usage to lower usage. For some people that will mean
abstinence and for others it will mean maintenance. We
want to offer them the choice of whatever will get them
to the lowest level we can. The Chair of our Committee
was right in what he said about prisons and the need to
get smaller providers involved in drugs treatment.
I want to pick up on an issue, drug-driving, that plays
into Home Office discussions. It is right to have a
criminal offence for drug-driving, just as there is for
drink-driving, and the threshold for harm should be the
same. We allow drivers to drink up to 0.08 mg per ml,
and we should allow the same equivalent harm from
drug use. For someone whose drug use has taken them
to that risk level, that should be the key test. We make
that recommendation in our report in paragraph 2:
“the equivalent effect on safety as the legal alcohol limit, currently
0.08 mg/ml.”
We must ensure that we get health further involved.
Let me finish by mentioning supply, because drugs
are not just a UK problem but a huge international
problem. Although we have had 50 years of criminalisation,
illicit drugs are now the third most valuable industry in
the world, after food and oil. That is incredibly damaging.
We tracked the routes for cocaine, as our Committee
Chair said. We went to Colombia to see where it was
grown; to Florida, where we saw how the US military
tried to combat it; and we saw the customs’ efforts to try
to stop it flooding into the US. I spoke to parliamentarians
from west Africa, looking at that stage of the process.
In Portugal, cocaine is coming into Europe. The message
at every stage was clear: supply cannot be stopped. It
can be squeezed in various ways. For example, massive
military efforts can be made in Colombia to reduce the
amount of coca plantation, but it moves to a neighbouring
country. Interdiction can used and the navy can block
one side of central America, but it goes to the other side
or takes an air route.
It was astonishing to see the mini-submarines now
being created by the Colombian drugs lords, which cost
about $1 million and have a range that allows them to
reach London. The cocaine loaded on to those can be
sold for about $500,000. The US navy was clear: with
the best will in the world, it cannot spot a small submarine
somewhere in the Atlantic. Supply cannot be controlled.
Keith Vaz: It is more astonishing that it was cost-effective
for the drugs barons to sink the submarine when it
arrived in Africa, because their profits were so enormous
that they could just buy another one.
Dr Huppert: The right hon. Gentleman is right. I was
flabbergasted to find out just how much money was
involved. I was even more surprised to discover that, in
Portugal, where there has been a problem for a while
with people flying drugs in from west Africa—they have
tried to combat that—drugs are now being flown back
from Portugal into west Africa. On asking, we were
told, “We think it is because the drugs are returned
to the sender if they are not of good enough quality.” If
people think it is safe enough to transfer drugs
internationally that they can have a returns policy, we
are nowhere near stopping supply, and in the process we
are losing control of country after country to the drugs
cartels. The profits are huge, and criminal gangs and
cartels across the world thrive on them. The banks have
a huge part to play, as the right hon. Gentleman was