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Drug Strategy

I should prefer to continue, if I may. We must be very careful about the way in which we apply our policies in this war on drugs. China had a huge problem with opium. In fact, it is often said that we planted opium in China to undermine the social structure of that country. So, of course, there was a war on the use of opium in China. What did we do? We displaced it to the golden triangle. Then we had a war on the use of opium in the golden triangle, and what happened next? It was displaced to Afghanistan. Ninety per cent. of the heroin that comes into this country now comes from Afghanistan. Every time we take action, we displace the problem. Another example is cocaine production in the Andean countries. Everyone knows that Colombia is, or was, the main source of supply. The Americans sprayed the crops. They gave the Colombian Government arms with which to tackle the rebels who were using the profits of cocaine manufacture to try to take over the Government. What happened there? We displaced production of the coca bush to Bolivia and Peru. The message that I am trying to get across is that the war on drugs does not work. Most of the cocaine that came into Britain came in via the Caribbean rim countries, especially Jamaica, and Kingston in particular. There were terrible problems with the selling of cocaine to European countries, including Britain. What did we do? We sent the Royal Navy into the Caribbean, and we have had huge successes there, but that has not ended the problem. Although cocaine is still coming into Britain via Jamaica, it is arriving in smaller quantities. Most of it is now going to west Africa, and some west African countries are now experiencing the corruption and deaths that Jamaica has experienced for decades. We must stop this war on drugs. It simply does not work, and we are spending billions of pounds on it. I am more concerned about the fact that we are displacing people by adopting a zero-tolerance approach and increasing enforcement measures. People do not want to be arrested. They do not want to go to prison, and they do not want criminal records. But there are plenty of drugs available on the internet, and there are plenty of drugs in the doctor's parlour—he will provide a prescription for them—and those are the drugs to which people are turning now. Let me quote another interesting statement:"““The abuse and trafficking of prescription drugs is set to exceed illicit drug abuse””," the United Nations has warned, adding:"““The 'high' they provide is comparable to practically every illicitly manufactured drug.””" That is what is happening now. There are role models, from film stars to Robbie Williams. I could name a string of very interesting people who are not using illicit drugs, but getting their ““buzz”” from prescription drugs and even drugs that can be bought over the counter in the local chemist's shop, cough mixture included. I have been concerned about this for 10 years, and when the United Nations document turned up I decided, as chairman of the all-party parliamentary drugs misuse group, to interest the group in launching a public inquiry into the misuse of prescription and over-the-counter drugs. We launched one last summer, and so far we have received 75 pieces of evidence from organisations and individuals. It is a pity that I have no time to read out some of the letters from individuals whose relatives are addicted, in old people's homes or in their own homes. Carers have written to me saying, for instance, ““The elderly person for whom I am caring is being completely knocked out by the general practitioner, and is addicted to benzodiazepines””, or to over-the-counter or prescription drugs containing codeine or morphine. That is a huge problem, and it has nothing to do with the war on drugs. It is happening in front of us. I say ““By all means adopt a zero-tolerance approach, but you will not stop people seeking relief from the turmoil that their minds are causing them.”” For that is the reason why people turn to drug misuse: it is triggered by something that has gone wrong in their lives, perhaps the death of a close relative or a friend. We ought to intervene and help those people instead of locking them up. The UN says that drug misuse is a ““disease of development””. What it means by that is that we in the more developed countries are more subject to stress; we are always increasing our performance and productivity, which increases our stress levels, and we sometimes need to escape from reality in order to get some relief. That is why people turn to misusing not only controlled drugs, but increasingly prescription and over-the-counter drugs. I have discussed geographical displacement, to borrow a phrase the UN uses. It also mentions substance displacement. Methamphetamine was not a classified drug at one time, but it came on to the scene and we recently bunged it into class A. As a medicinal chemist, I know that every time we classify a drug into categories A, B or C, there will be another drug that is not yet illegal waiting in the queue for some person—or, rather, thousands of people—to misuse. All of this will never stop. The Science and Technology Committee, under the chairmanship of my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, North (Dr. Gibson), the RSA—or Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce—and even eminent people such as Professor Colin Blakemore and Professor David Nutt, who is a member of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, have said that drug classification is a waste of time. This debate about whether cannabis should have been kept in class B, as previously, or should remain in class C, where we have now dropped it, or be put back into class B again is yo-yo politics, and it will have absolutely no effect at all on young people. They want to know which drugs give them a buzz, regardless of whether they are illegal. They want to know how much those drugs cost, too, and as the street prices of drugs are falling, more and more people will, of course, be tempted to try them. It is not the classification of drugs that matters; it is economic factors such as price that switch people on to drugs once they have had a problem in their lives. This is a complex issue, and I recommend that Members read the recent UN reports. Let me read out one final quote. The UN commission says that"““there is indeed a spirit of reform in the air””—" I hope we hear it here this afternoon—““to make the conventions”” of 1961, 1971 and 1981, which are the three UN conventions on which our policies are based,"““fit for purpose and adapt them to a reality on the ground that is different from the time that they were drafted””." I shall leave the House with that thought.