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Drug Classification

According to the 2004-05 British crime survey published by the Home Office in October 2005, there are more than 1 million class A drug users in Britain. Since 1996, the number of cocaine offences has quadrupled—again, that is information from the Home Office. A total of 142,338 drug offences were recorded by the police in 2004-05, an increase of more than one quarter since 2001-02, when there were 113,500. The hon. Member for Bolton, South-East remarked on the connection, or disconnection, between mental health and cannabis use. According to a recent written answer to my hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley), the shadow Health Secretary, there has been an 85 per cent. increase in hospital admissions on mental health grounds resulting from the use of cannabis since 1997, and a 63 per cent. increase in the past five years. That information came from the Minister of State, Department of Health, the right hon. Member for Doncaster, Central (Ms Winterton). To some extent, classification is important because it helps the sentencer, but I dare say it also helps the police and the Crown Prosecution Service to work out what is to be done within the criminal justice setting. The greatest cause of crime is drugs, followed closely by alcohol. The number of people in prison for drugs offences has nearly doubled in the past 10 years. What is more, although the prison population has grown, the proportion of the prison population who are drug offenders is also growing. I have no information to verify this, but I suspect, by virtue of the fact that those people are in prison, that they are either industrial importers or sellers of class C drugs, or users of class A drugs, and the courts have reached a stage where there is little more that can be done with those individuals to prevent them from reoffending on the outside. The courts do not send people to prison lightly or on a whim. They fully understand that many people who are arrested for drug use and possession would do far better in residential rehabilitation centres outside prison, but there are not enough of them. Unfortunately, the courts have to deal with people who, for good reason or ill, are serial abusers of drugs and the drug laws, and there are not sufficient places for them to be dealt with outside the criminal justice system. That is regrettable. People who offend simply because of drug use would be far better dealt with not by sending them to prison but by sending them to places where they can be cured of their drug addiction. It is addicts who commit crimes; it is not criminals, by and large, who become drug addicts. As long as we understand that, and as long as we fail to do something about it, the overcrowding of our prisons will continue, if the figures continue on an upward trend as they have in the past. There is, of course, a hidden drug problem in prisons. There are those who are in prison because they were found guilty of possession or dealing, or even burgling because of a drug habit, be it an A, B or C drug habit, and there are plenty of people in prison who manage to continue to use drugs. The hon. Member for Newport, West pointed out that there is no such a thing as a drug-free prison.