December 22, 2001

By Nick Paton Walsh

The Observer

Ministers have demanded changes to Britain's drug laws that would allow officials to focus on the treatment rather than arrest of drug users. In a significant change of policy, they have used the Netherlands as a model to demand the prescription of heroin and an end to the prosecution of people who grow cannabis for themselves.

The Home Office told Parliament last week that it had reversed the Government's hardline stance on prosecution of drug users. Minister Bob Ainsworth announced new elements to the drugs strategy, including:

  * Focusing on treatment for drug users - known as 'harm minimisation' - rather than their prosecution 'to minimise the harm that drugs do to individuals and their families'. Some campaigners will see the move as effectively decriminalising possession of drugs.

* Advising senior police to focus on dealers, not users, asking them to 'pay the highest regard to the more serious crimes of trafficking and possession with intent to supply'.

* Government plans for new measures to prescribe heroin to addicts.

The Department of Health also told the science and technology select committee that police should not prosecute people who grow cannabis for their own use. This contrasts with the Home Office's recommendations to the Runciman inquiry into drug laws which demanded jail for growers. The offence carries a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison.

The Home Office had insisted that a 'soft approach' to drug possession was not an option. Experts say the Government should be seen to be tough on drugs and related crime, while addressing the problem of placing increasing numbers of users in jail.

Roger Howard, director of the Government-backed charity DrugScope, said the emphasis on harm reduction was 'a pragmatic and sensible step. The Government has recognised that a crime-led response to drug use has not been effective and that other options must be explored.

'If this includes lesser punishments for cultivation of small amounts of cannabis for personal use, thereby diverting trade away from organised crime, so much the better,' he said.

A Home Office spokesman said the measures were an expansion of plans outlined by the Home Secretary, David Blunkett, last month. Although the focus would be on 'harm minimisation', Dutch cannabis cafés were not being considered. The Home Office 'does not want to encourage people to smoke cannabis', she said.

'We recognise that people will always want to take drugs. We want to make sure they have the information and help to ensure their safety.'