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Mrs. Lait: I am now slightly confused about whether the hon. Gentleman wants to decriminalise only cannabis or all illegal substances.
Dr. Iddon: I am in favour of a step-by-step approach. I should certainly allow the use of cannabis for medical
purposes tomorrow, and I am already on the record as having said that. However, that step would not entirely work because there is a grey area about who are the people who need cannabis for medical purposes. We would get into a terrible dispute about that. In any case, as I already said, I believe that we are wasting valuable resources on catching cannabis users and locking them up.
I shall cite an example from a letter that I received recently. Two teachers grew six cannabis plants at home for their own use; they were not selling the drug. We--society--trained those teachers, and I understand that they were excellent teachers. Somebody reported them to the police; they were caught, punished, lost their jobs and are now on benefits. That does not make sense. We have wasted the lives of two excellent teachers, whom we now have to maintain on benefits. I challenge anyone to argue that that is right.
The secretive nature of substance misuse means that we do not know the scale of the problem. However, it is likely that as many as 5 million people in this country are using cannabis for medical or recreational purposes--that is 8 per cent. of the population. If that is the case, and so many people are prepared to break the law, I ask Home Office Ministers whether that law is right.
Mrs. Lait:
I now understand the hon. Gentleman's point about cannabis, but does he want to decriminalise heroin, cocaine and other, chemical drugs?
Dr. Iddon:
I have already said that I am in favour of a step-by-step approach. I would first find out the results of the decriminalisation of cannabis. If--I stress the world "if"--that worked, I would be in favour of returning to the pre-1971 situation, in which heroin addicts did not have to go on to the street and rob people to pay for street heroin. That drug is often extremely dirty, so it is not the heroin that kills users who inject it but all the impurities that are dumped in it so that the profiteers can make more profit. If I clinically recognised a heroin addict, I would want him to go to a clinic for pure heroin, and to be persuaded, with the help of psychiatrists and other support mechanisms, to come off the drug.
The way in which this country deals with heroin addicts at the moment is crazy. They are sleeping on the streets at night all the way from here to Victoria station because no agency can deal with them. That is madness. So, I am in favour of a step-wise approach and I might even consider the legalisation of all drugs, because I do not believe that prohibition works.
Dr. Iddon:
I must finish my speech, because I have taken up far more time than I intended to do.
Dr. Vincent Cable (Twickenham):
I echo the tributes that have been paid to those involved in the drugs strategy: Mr. Hellawell and his team and the drug action teams at the grassroots. Politically, I and my colleague endorse the unequivocal opposition of the Minister for the Cabinet Office, the Home Secretary and his team and the Leader of the Opposition to the decriminalisation of drugs. There is cross-party consensus on that, and I endorse it.
I agree with the hon. Member for Bolton, South-East (Dr. Iddon) that this debate must be conducted in a framework in which we are open to new arguments and new evidence. If there is new medical and criminological evidence, we should be receptive to it. I agree with him that one useful step would be a royal commission, because that would enable all new information to be considered openly. Since he has put very trenchantly--and, given public opinion, quite courageously--the case for decriminalisation, I should like to make some points back to him on why I think there is a strong consensus among all three parties against such a view.
First, there are the health arguments. I am not a medical doctor and I am not a chemist. The hon. Member for Congleton (Mrs. Winterton) summarised the evidence very well. Yesterday evening, I read through the summary of the literature that Professor Heather Ashton has assembled on cannabis, which is almost certainly the least offensive drug on health grounds. She makes the case that there is considerable evidence that cannabis, even as a relatively inoffensive drug, creates severe problems--it is carcinogenic, has a psychological impact and has serious respiratory effects.
Moreover, the evidence is hardening over time. That is partly because, as the hon. Lady said, the drugs that are now being used are more potent and medical research is finding more evidence. That is not surprising; we went through a similar process of discovery with tobacco, which 50 years ago was not seen as a particularly dangerous drug but is now much better understood.
Mr. Flynn:
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the evidence of the danger of cannabis is as a result of the fact that it is smoked? If it became a legal drug, particularly for people who are sick, it could be used in other ways such as in inhalers, as tabs or tinctures. Does he not see that as a great advantage which would greatly reduce the risk that people currently take when using cannabis?
Dr. Cable:
The hon. Gentleman makes an important distinction, to which I shall return: the use of cannabis in a medical, as opposed to a recreational, context. There are separate arguments, to which I shall come. We may have to consider that issue more flexibly, although the health evidence seems to be powerful.
By far the most important argument in this debate is that it is very difficult to see how we can possibly decriminalise drugs without creating a significant increase in the number of users. The basic point is one of economic logic. If one stops the interdiction of supplies, supply in the market increases and the price goes down. Other things being equal, people will then tend to consume more. That simple proposition is supported by evidence. In places like Alaska, where there has been decriminalisation, that is precisely what has happened.
It is easy to be panicked by the argument that,since drug abuse is rampant, it is out of control. Everything is relative. We know from evidence that although many young people might use--particularly--cannabis once or twice, they are discouraged by legal sanctions from continuing to do so regularly. The penetration of the market--if that is the right phrase--is much less than in the case of drink and cigarettes, and it should be kept that way.
The third prohibitionist argument is that it has never been clearly explained how we could set up an alternative structure to realise the very tempting vision of the Treasury receiving all the revenue rather than the drug barons--by taxing drugs. How would that work? If the tax were fixed below the street price, there would be an incentive to consume more. It is more likely that the tax would be fixed at a higher level. Then there would be all the incentives for smuggling and adulteration that we see at the moment.
Those of us who are involved in the passage of the Finance Bill know what is happening with the enormous bulk smuggling of cigarettes. The problem of policing and criminality reappears in a different form. We all know of the great difficulties in policing under-age smoking and drinking--12-year-olds buy cigarettes. One is simply translating the criminal problem into a different sphere; it is not solved.
The hon. Member for Bolton, South-East mentioned that we are dealing with an international issue and an enormous international business, the turnover of which is roughly estimated to be equivalent to that of the oil industry. That is why we cannot have a strategy that is based on decriminalisation in one country. Once we start fragmenting national responses in individual countries, with maverick countries decriminalising their industry, we undermine any concerted Government action against the international trade.
Dr. Jack Cunningham:
I intended to say in my speech that I apologise to the House for not being able to stay for the duration of the debate, as I would have wished. I must say how much I agree with what the hon. Gentleman is saying. There is no evidence that the countries bordering the Netherlands have been in any way convinced that they should follow suit on policy decisions. Nor is there any evidence that if Britain were to decriminalise one or more of the substances, it would have the slightest effect--for the reasons that he has given. No one believes that criminals involved in trafficking and trading will register as legal providers and start paying taxes to the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Dr. Cable:
I thank the Minister for his intervention; I entirely agree with him. Given the controversy, I am surprised that so many countries have held the line on policy. There has been some marginal legalisation in, for example, criminal penalties in Italy, but it has been relatively little, and we should not be taking the lead in that area.
I return to the point with which I started. Governments must be open to new arguments and persuasion, and that is why I support the idea of a royal commission. If there were overwhelming evidence from the police and the medical profession that we should change our stance, we should not be bound by dogma and we should listen.
Indeed, the hon. Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) introduced the idea that there might be one area in which we need to look at the evidence much more flexibly: medical usage. I am not persuaded of it, although it is possible that policy might have to evolve.
I have a similar constituency case to that mentioned by the hon. Member for Bolton, South-East. My constituent was busted by information from a neighbour a few weeks ago. His flat was turned upside down, and he is now in court. As far as I understand the case from what he has told me, he was a law-abiding individual who did not want to become involved with drug pushers, but his wife has a serious medical condition and he thought it was necessary to her health to gain access to cannabis, so he grew it at home. That might be a fairy story, although the evidence that he presented is plausible. We all operate on the principle that good cases can make bad law. We need much more persuasion before changing things.
That it why it is important that the Government see through the medical trials, which I think have been authorised, and that we should see what happens. Even then, it does not automatically follow that if the evidence of the medical benefits of cannabis is compelling, it should be legalised. There are all kinds of other problems. We know from the use of opium by doctors that they expose themselves to attacks. It is difficult to separate the medical and non-medical legalisation practically. Several steps may have to be taken before that is to happen. Certainly, if the policy is to go in any direction, that is the direction that it would have to be.
Let me now take up some of the issues that have been mentioned in relation to the Government's strategy. I strongly support the principle that the Minister set out in his introductory remarks. He said that his strategy is geared to treatment, lays a strong emphasis on education at all levels, and involves a willingness to use Government money to save Government money. The idea of spending £1 to save £3 is compelling. As in many other areas of Government policy, such as education and health, the problem here is that, although many commitments are being made to public expenditure, people at the sharp end often do not see it. That is partly because many of the services on the front line, such as the Metropolitan police, are under severe pressure, and partly because the policy depends on grants from local authorities to voluntary organisations--the local authorities are under pressure and the grants do not get through. Thus although I welcome the commitment in general terms, we know from constituency experience that the money often does not appear where it is needed.
I have several other specific questions. The first relates to how we monitor the success of the strategy. As the Minister explained, there are genuine problems with time scales and statistics. We understand that. My only suggestion is that the Government publish price data. Police intelligence would make available information on the price of the main drugs on the street, which is a good indicator of the success of policy. Whether or not putting resources into catching cannabis peddlers is a good priority, it seems to have worked because cannabis prices have been rising. However, the price of heroin has halved in the past 10 years, which suggests that the policy is not working in respect of that drug. Price is probably a better indicator than much-sampled survey data on drug addicts.
Secondly, I should like to know a little more about drug treatment and testing orders. It has been suggested that the policy is not working, and one reason may be that very few orders appear to have been made--only 67 up to the end of May. Why have there been so few and why has that perfectly sensible idea not operated on a much more significant scale?
Thirdly, we all know that drug abuse is common in prisons and that many people are in prison because of drug problems. The Minister knows, because I have had an Adjournment debate with him on this subject, that I am concerned about the extent of drug abuse among young offenders. The Feltham institute in London, an old borstal, has an enormous prevalence of drug abuse among 15 and 16-year-olds, most of whom are there on remand. My worry about that centre--it must be true of many other prisons--is that despite good intentions, the drug rehabilitation programmes simply are not happening. Why is that, and when will we have a clear policy on it?
Fourthly, there is declaratory support for drug treatment centres on all sides, but I am told by the voluntary organisations working in this field that it is enormously difficult to get on to treatment programmes. The average waiting time for in-patient detoxification programmes is four months. People who depend heavily on drugs say that that could mean 120 crimes in that period because of their desperation. What is being done drastically to cut waiting times for those programmes?
My next question is about residential treatment. The evidence that I have seen suggests that that is enormously productive in helping drug addicts, but the availability of residential places has fallen by some 25 per cent. in the past six years. Why has that happened and what is being done to reverse it?
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