Media/News > Press Releases > 05.10.05 Goggins' drug strategy UK tour

What Paul Goggins won't be telling you on his 'drug policy tour' of Great Britain

As Paul Goggins MP (and Home Office minister with the drugs brief) sets out on his 9-stop drug policy tour of the UK, Transform, the UK's leading drug policy reform think tank have drawn attention to the shocking failure of current drug policy, and how the Government doesn't want you to know about it.

A report produced by the Prime Minister's Number 10 Strategy Unit and leaked to the media in the summer offers a detailed and devastating critique of the failures of the UK and international 'War on Drugs' (see notes to editors below).

Attempts by the Government to suppress this analysis were undermined initially by Freedom of Information requests and subsequently by leaks of the unpublished sections of the report to the media.

In a new interview with the BBC online Goggins flatly refuses to engage in debate over the critique produced at the heart of New Labour policy making or any of the issues it raises for the future of UK policy.

Questioned on the report's devastating conclusions Goggins only responds

"What I'm responsible for is not the drugs strategy unit report but for the drugs strategy:"

On the question of more substantive reforms to the drug laws Goggins is equally unforthcoming:

"There are people who believe in legalisation in principle and there are people who believe in legalisation out of a pragmatic sense of complete failure," he said. "I'd reject both of those arguments out of hand."

This comment coming shortly after his call for "a more mature debate on the drug strategy"

Danny Kushlick, Transform Director said:

"UK drug policy is failing in spectacular fashion and all the available evidence shows the current prohibition based regime is making it worse - as is clearly detailed in the No.10 Strategy Unit report. The communities that Goggins will be visiting know of these failings from the carnage they see around them.

"The Government is actively concealing this failure from the UK public, and this tour is another effort to spin failure as a success.

"What we need is a serious and open debate on the failings of current policy to be followed by an exploration of alternative policies including legally regulated drug markets."

----Notes for editors----

Contacts :
Danny Kushlick - Director: 07970 213 943
Steve Rolles - Information Officer: 07980 213 943

Further info:

BBC online interview with Paul Goggins MP (Home office minister with the drugs brief)

No.10 Strategy unit drugs report summary and briefing from Transform

No.10 Strategy Unit drugs report in full

• Notable supporters of drugs law reform include the late Mo Mowlam (Goggin's predecessor up until 2001) and Conservative leadership candidate David Cameron.

Number 10 Strategy Unit report notes:

The report was produced by the Prime Minister's Strategy Unit was partially made available under the Freedom of Information Act, the remainder, the second half containing the most critical analysis, subsequently leaked to the Guardian.

It demonstrates that enforcement strategies to eliminate or reduce the trade in heroin and cocaine have failed to halt their production, supply or use. In a powerful and detailed critique, the report demonstrates that the war on drugs is actively counterproductive - causing many of the harms that it is intended to reduce.

The report, presented to cabinet in June 2003, is a detailed guided tour of the failure of supply side drug prohibition to achieve any of its stated goals, concluding:

"The drugs supply market is highly sophisticated, and attempts to intervene have not resulted in sustainable disruption to the market at any level."

The report states that:

---The cost of crime committed to support an illegal cocaine and or heroin habit amounts to £16 billion a year in the UK (note: this is more than the entire annual Home Office budget).

---Drug production cannot be stopped in developing countries for deep-seated economic and social reasons.

---Trafficking cannot be significantly curtailed. Seizure rates of 60-80% would be required to have an impact and nothing greater than 20% has ever been achieved. The report further shows that even if supply side interventions were more successful, the result could be increased crime and health harms - as rising drug prices could force addicts to commit more crime to support their habits, and falling drug purity would increase the risks associated with use.

(see Transform briefing for more detail and analysis)