Will any government ever understand drug abuse?

Once again, the government has proved it has no idea how to deal with drugs.

No sooner has cannabis been reclassified as a class C drug than John Reid announces plans to decrease the limit for possession to 5g, along with a host of changes to the restrictions on harder drugs.

The cynical might say it’s a shameless attempt to appear tough-on-crime-tough-on-the-causes-of-crime at an opportune moment for an embattled minister.

I’d go one further and say that it’s a reckless move which will criminalise thousands of people, fill the prisons, and saddle the police force with an even greater burden than they already shoulder.

Given Mr Reid’s own admission that his department is ‘not fit for purpose’, how is it going to cope with the extra workload of cases and paperwork? And what of drug users who will be sent to prison rather than medically treated as they ought to be?

Everyone is aware of the dangers of drugs and it is understandable that a bulldog like Reid takes a hard line approach. But drug-related crime will never go away in this country until we learn that it is the crime that should be done away with, not the perpetrators.

I say bring in the controversial ‘shooting galleries’ for heroin addicts. It keeps them off the streets, HIV-free and within the reach of those who want to help them. It defies belief that no-one in the present administration is considering this.

I would also call for the decriminalisation of cannabis. The Swiss have done it and despite a few teething problems with police unsure of how to deal with the spread of cannabis outlets, it has been successful.

The coffee shops, rampaging tourists, dens of iniquity that the right-wing press says would immediately flood Britain if cannabis was decriminalised? Nowhere to be seen in the land of cheese and chocolate.

In fact, there is a case for complete legalisation of all drugs. It requires a bigger forum than this to discuss, but my argument, in brief, is this: Legalising drugs takes them out of the hands of criminals and gives the government control.

In an era when control over its citizens is something the government positively salivates over, why can’t that zealotry be used for practical, rather than intrusive measures?

Only then will the pressure on prisons be relieved and the stigma of drug use properly dealt with. Until drug users are lifted out of an artificial subculture, no government will ever truly understand them.