No holidays in the sun for defiant drug users

Recreational cocaine users face increasingly ‘painful’ sanctions, including fines, curfews and holiday bans

Middle-class drug users face being banned from going on foreign holidays under government plans. In an article for The Daily Telegraph, Kit Malthouse, the policing minister, said middle-class or “recreational” users who continued to flout the law would face “increasingly painful” and “escalating” sanctions to be set out in a White Paper this summer. They are expected to include the temporary removal of their passports or driving licences, curfews and increased fines.

MIDDLE-CLASS drug users who repeatedly “snort, sniff, swallow or smoke” face being banned from going on foreign holidays under government plans.

In an article for The Daily Telegraph, Kit Malthouse, the policing minister, said middle-class or “recreational” users who continued to flout the law would face “increasingly painful” and “escalating” sanctions to be set out in a White Paper this summer.

They are expected to include the temporary removal of their passports or driving licences, curfews and increased fines that will punish and deter wealthy repeat drug offenders through their wallets and lifestyles.

Mr Malthouse today announces that football fans who take cocaine or other Class A drugs to matches will face bans of five years from all grounds.

They could also have their passports confiscated if their team or England is playing abroad as well as facing travel bans and exclusion zones around grounds. Anyone who breaches the banning orders could be jailed for up to six months.

Backing the move, Boris Johnson said: “Middle-class coke heads should stop kidding themselves. Their habit is feeding a war on our streets driving misery and crime across our country and beyond.

“That’s why we are stepping up our efforts to make sure those who break the law face the full consequences – because taking illegal drugs is never a victimless crime.”

Mr Malthouse said that in the last year, almost 3,000 people died due to illegal drugs – more than from all knife crime and road traffic accidents. There had also been a 19 per cent rise in drug use, which prompted the Government to set a target of reducing drug use to a 30 year low in a decade

“This will need bold steps to show we are serious about bringing in impactful consequences to all who snort, sniff, swallow or smoke,” he writes.

He said the White Paper would show “exactly how serious we are, with new sanctions for drug offences, making sure drug users face clear, certain, swift and escalating consequences”.

He added: “We will propose new punishments for so-called ‘recreational’ users who continue to flout the law, and for those who continue to offend, these sanctions will get increasingly painful.”

The Government has said “nothing is off the table” in the types of sanctions that drug users will face alongside fines that will be increased to “maximise the deterrent and dissuasion of financial penalties”.

The new footballing banning orders, which currently cover violent behaviour, pitch invasion or racist chanting, will be extended to cocaine and Class A drugs in the coming 2022/23 season.

Cocaine was blamed by football authorities for the shameful scenes at Wembley’s Euros final between England and Italy last July. There was also a 50 per cent rise in arrests for disorder at grounds in the first half of the season.

Mr Malthouse said the Government could not bring about the “complete shift” in drug use without taking “tough and meaningful” action against middle class, or “recreational” users for their part in the “misery, violence and degradation that drugs bring”.

“There is no such thing as a ‘safe’ amount of illegal drug use, and it’s certainly not victimless. The impact of drug-taking is profound and far-reaching,” said Mr Malthouse, citing the grooming of children by county lines gangs to carry drugs across the country.

“Exploitation, child abuse, slavery and extreme violence are part of the business model. Just because recreational users may not see all this, that does not mean they are blameless,” he added.