Ambitious plan’s doomed if trade is able to thrive
THE drugs market is one of the darkest scourges of modern Britain.
With three million users in a supply chain that thrives on violence and exploitation, it is a destructive racket that spreads misery, wrecks lives, worsens deprivation and fuels crime.
Estimates have put its cost to society at more than £20billion. People with serious drug problems make up a third of the prison population, while 80 per cent of heroin and crackcocaine addicts are on welfare.
Half of all murders are linked to drugs, which are also reported to be behind 100,000 hospital admissions a year.
Yet for decades the state has been increasingly feeble in the face of this crisis. Politicians like to boast about the “war on drugs” but, in reality, not many battles have been won.
In fact, the white flag was raised long ago, leaving users with little to fear from the justice system. Indeed, in parts of the country, soft drugs have effectively been decriminalised.
In the year to March 2021, almost half of all offences for possession were dealt with by cautions, warnings or community resolutions.
But the Government promises all that is about to change through a new strategy that appears to mix toughness with realism.
Announcing a new 10-year plan, the Home Office Minister Kit Malthouse set out proposals not only to provide more funding for treatment programmes but also to crack down on criminal behaviour.
We have been told that there will be a “zero tolerance” policy against drugs in prison, backed up by the use of body scanners and sniffer dogs.
In addition, £145million will be invested in the police to “wipe out” the so-called county lines network operated by dealers.
Further promises came – the introduction of more testing as well as heavier fines for possessions, accompanied by the threat to withdraw passports and driving licences from drug-takers who refuse to undergo rehabilitation.
These measures are welcome in theory, but it remains to be seen if they will be fully implemented in practice.
After all, this Government has developed a worrying habit of breaking its promises, epitomised by its failure to smash the people-trafficking gangs at the English Channel.
A bigger worry is the naïve faith shown by ministers in expensive drug treatments as an alternative to judicial punishment and jail terms.
This approach is now extremely fashionable, based on the belief that the abuse of drugs is really a public health problem rather than a criminal one, so users deserve support rather than stigmatisation.
But, disastrously, this ignores three fundamental realities.
First, though this is rarely admitted by the authorities, the success rate of drug treatment programmes is dismal, with high levels of dropouts and continuing addiction among users, so all the extra funding is certainly not justified by results.
Progressive experts love to screech that the mythical “war on drugs” does not work, yet even less effective is their cherished attachment to rehabilitation.
Second, a softly softly, health-oriented approach undermines the rule of law, since it amounts to a form of decriminalisation by the back door, for which the British public has never voted.
Third, for all the rigorous language, the strategy will continue to incentivise drugdealing by failing to crack down hard on possession.
Supply and demand mean that as long as there is a market for drugs in this country, the criminals will flourish – so the depressing cycle of failed initiatives will continue.
‘These measures are welcome in theory, but it remains to be seen whether they will be fully implemented in practice’