Debate urged on legalisation after drug policy ‘fails’

The Commons Home Affairs Committee said current strategies were not working and it called on the Prime Minister to establish a Royal Commission to look at other options.

Following a year-long inquiry, the committee concluded that efforts to combat the drug barons had failed while there was not enough focus on helping users to break their habits.

It said Ministers could learn from Portugal where drugs have been “depenalised”– with possession of small amounts not subject to criminal penalties, although they remain illegal.

It also urged the Government to also fund detailed studies of changes in Washington and Colorado – where cannabis is being legalised – and Uruguay where a state monopoly of cannabis production and sale is proposed.

The committee said: “Although it is not certain that the Portuguese experience could be replicated in the UK, given societal differences, we believe this is a model that merits significantly closer consideration.”

Ministers should, it said, open discussions with the United Nations Commission on Drugs on new ways tackle what it called the “global drugs dilemma” – including “the possibility of legalisation and regulation”.

The committee was highly critical of the Government’s failure to hit the profits of the drug gangs, saying its approach to money laundering was “far too weak”. It said Ministers should legislate to extend the “personal, criminal liability” of the most senior office holders in the banks involved.

It said the law should also be amended so retailers who sell untested “legal highs” could be held liable for any harm the products cause. More also needed to be done to tackle the widespread availability of drugs in prisons.

Marjorie Wallace, the chief executive of the mental health charity Sane, said: “If the report is to be responsible, it must take account of the specific damage that cannabis can do to the developing brain, not only as recent studies have shown inducing irreversible cognitive deterioration but in around 10 per cent of cases triggering severe psychotic illness.”

A Government spokesperson said a Royal Commission was simply not necessary and added: “Our current laws draw on the best available evidence and as such we have no intention of downgrading or declassifying cannabis.”