UK

Partly Sunny with Showers 9° London Hi 14°C / Lo 9°C

UK drugs policy 'has no impact on supply'

By Ben Clover

Law enforcement has "little adverse effect" on the availability of drugs in Britain, new research claims.

A report from the UK Drugs Policy Commission published yesterday said drug markets were "extremely resilient. They are highly fluid and adapt to law enforcement interventions".

The commission, a charity made up of specialists in drug treatment, public policy, policing and medical research, said attempts to tackle Britain's £5.3bn drug habit were not working

Tim McSweeney of King's College London, the report's author, said: "We were struck by just how little evidence there is to show that the hundreds of millions of pounds spent on UK enforcement each year has made a sustainable impact." In 2003/04 the cost of detecting, prosecuting and sentencing class-A drug crime in the UK was £4bn.

The report said enforcement "can have a significant and unintended negative impact on the nature and extent of harms associated with drugs".

A spokesman for the Home Office said that many of the report's recommendations had already been taken up.

Post a Comment

Offensive or abusive comments will be removed and your IP logged and may be used to prevent further submission. In submitting a comment to the site, you agree to be bound by the Independent Minds Terms of Service.

Most popular


Article Archive

Day In a Page

Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat

Select date