Dench and Branson in call to legalise drug use

The Global Commission on Drug Policy, whose members include former United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan, warned that major policy reforms were needed to help reduce the prison population and stop wasting millions of pounds.

It comes as Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke plans to divert more people with drug problems away from prison and into treatment as part of a “rehabilitation revolution”.

Sir Richard said a new approach was needed: “One that takes the power out of the hands of organised crime and treats people with addiction problems like patients, not criminals.”

“We need more humane and effective ways to reduce the harm caused by drugs. The one thing we cannot afford to do is to go on pretending the ‘war on drugs’ is working.”

“The war on drugs has failed to cut drug usage,” he said, adding that it had only “filled our jails”, cost millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money, “fuelled organised crime and caused thousands of deaths”.

Dame Judi urged David Cameron to carry out “a swift and transparent review of the effectiveness of current drug policies”.

The York-born Oscar-winning actress was one of more than 30 high-profile figures who signed an open letter saying to the Prime Minister: “Should such a review of the evidence demonstrate the failure of the current position we would call for the immediate decriminalisation of drug possession.”

Nearly 80,000 people in the UK were convicted or cautioned for possessing an illegal drug in the last year alone and “most were young, black or poor”, the letter published by campaign group Release said.

The intervention of high-profile public figures, backed by many others including Sting, actor Julie Christie and former defence minister Bob Ainsworth, comes as a report by the Global Commission on Drug Policy said action was needed “urgently” and “policies need to change now”.

The report also called for an end to the “criminalisation, marginalisation and stigmatisation of people who use drugs but who do no harm to others”.

Governments should be encouraged to experiment with models of legal regulation of drugs “to undermine the power of organised crime and safeguard the health and security of their citizens”, it said.

It added that a variety of treatment plans should be used.

Campaigner Danny Kushlick, of the Transform Drug Policy Foundation, said: “This report is a watershed moment that puts legal regulation of drugs on to the mainstream political agenda worldwide.”

A Home Office spokesman said: “We have no intention of liberalising our drugs laws. Drugs are illegal because they are harmful – they destroy lives and cause untold misery to families and communities.

“Those caught in the cycle of dependency must be supported to live drug free lives, but giving people a green light to possess drugs through decriminalisation is clearly not the answer.”