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Post by fretslider on Nov 17, 2011 15:21:03 GMT -5
Baroness Manningham-Buller, former Commander of MI5, believes the current war on drugs is not working and that it is time to consider decriminalising possession for small quantities. She is part of the All Parliamentary Group on Drug Policy Reform which yesterday called on David Cameron to set up a commission to examine what would be a highly controversial move. But one critic warned any softened stance would effectively mean “waving the white flag” on tackling drugs.
We lost the war a long time ago. Its time to sit down and parley terms.
Baroness Meacher, chairwoman of the All Parliamentary Group said there were clear examples abroad showing appropriate regulation of drugs can help cut crime. She said: "I think we need to look to the evidence. We have evidence from a lot of different countries about what works rather better than what we do in the UK. "The Czech Republic and Portugal have decriminalised possession and use of small quantities of drugs. They have lower levels of problem drug use, lower levels of use of these drugs among young people, lower cocaine use, lower heroin use. It's fairly clear that you do quite well if you have decriminalisation, so that's one of the policies we think needs to be looked at. We hope it will be a commission set up by David Cameron. This should be a cross-party commission in our view because we need to take the politics out of this and start looking at the evidence in a sensible way."
Christian Guy (is that a joke name?), policy director at the Centre for Social Justice, said: “I would agree that the war on drugs has been failing but what I'm concerned about is the idea we should stop fighting it and wave the white flag to these criminal gangs and say we are going to give up.
What Christian Guy chooses to ignore is the fact that legalising drugs removes the user's need for 'criminals' to supply them. What a plank. Expert after expert has recommended controlled legalisation, but only pseudo-experts, big mouths without real experience or proper insight, are listened to by the cowardly politicians. WE could of course not only regulate, we could tap into a whole new revenu stream - possibly lower taxes on other things too.
We lost the war a long time ago. Its time to sit down and parley terms.
Baroness Meacher, chairwoman of the All Parliamentary Group said there were clear examples abroad showing appropriate regulation of drugs can help cut crime. She said: "I think we need to look to the evidence. We have evidence from a lot of different countries about what works rather better than what we do in the UK. "The Czech Republic and Portugal have decriminalised possession and use of small quantities of drugs. They have lower levels of problem drug use, lower levels of use of these drugs among young people, lower cocaine use, lower heroin use. It's fairly clear that you do quite well if you have decriminalisation, so that's one of the policies we think needs to be looked at. We hope it will be a commission set up by David Cameron. This should be a cross-party commission in our view because we need to take the politics out of this and start looking at the evidence in a sensible way."
Christian Guy (is that a joke name?), policy director at the Centre for Social Justice, said: “I would agree that the war on drugs has been failing but what I'm concerned about is the idea we should stop fighting it and wave the white flag to these criminal gangs and say we are going to give up.
What Christian Guy chooses to ignore is the fact that legalising drugs removes the user's need for 'criminals' to supply them. What a plank. Expert after expert has recommended controlled legalisation, but only pseudo-experts, big mouths without real experience or proper insight, are listened to by the cowardly politicians. WE could of course not only regulate, we could tap into a whole new revenu stream - possibly lower taxes on other things too.
