News release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Tuesday 7th April 2009

Groundbreaking report shows that legalising and regulating drugs will save billions for the UK

A report released today by Transform shows that replacing drugs prohibition with a regime of legal regulation would save billions of pounds and significantly improve the lives of millions of UK citizens. The UK has wasted £100 billion over the last ten years and will pour a similar amount down the drain over the next decade, if it does not substantially change its policy.

No cost-benefit analysis (CBA) of this kind, comparing existing policies with alternatives, has ever been done before in the UK, or elsewhere. In fact, no country has even carried out a comprehensive Impact Assessment of existing drug policies and spending to ensure they are cost-effective and delivering what they are supposed to.

This new report separates out the costs and benefits stemming from drug use and those caused by the Government's prohibition policies. The costs of prohibition, which would diminish significantly under a regulated regime include:

•  the illegal heroin and cocaine market, worth £3.7 billion, and its collateral damage

•  over half of all property crime and a prison crisis

•  health costs, such as increased drug related deaths from using unregulated products in unsafe circumstances.

The key findings of the report (based on data from England and Wales and focusing on heroin and cocaine) are that:

• Drugs prohibition is delivering precisely the opposite of the Government's stated claims: drug supply and availability are increasing; use of drugs that cause the most harm is increasing; health harms are increasing; huge levels of crime created at all scales, leading to a crisis in the criminal justice system; and illicit drug profits enriching criminals, fuelling conflict and destabilising producer and transit countries from Mexico to Afghanistan
• Prohibition is the root cause of almost all drug-related acquisitive crime, and this crime constitutes the majority of drug-related harms and costs to UK society
• The combined crime, health and other costs of existing drugs prohibition policies in the UK are £16.785 billion per year
• The equivalent costs of a legally controlled and regulated UK drugs market would be £5.951 billion per year
• Therefore a move from drugs prohibition to legally regulated markets would deliver savings of £10.834 billion per year to the Treasury and wider society
• Modelling also shows that even in the highly unlikely event of a significant increase in use, a move to legally regulated drug markets would still deliver significant net benefits. Billions saved by the Treasury could be spent on policy measures proven to reduce the impacts of drug use on individuals and society as a whole
• By failing to carry out its own Impact Assessment of drugs policy the Government has reneged on its commitment to evidence based policy and has also broken its own rules for ensuring policy is cost effective and delivers the desired outcomes

Transform Head of Research Steve Rolles said; “It is unconscionable that UK drug enforcement spending continues to deliver such appalling outcomes, whilst remaining immune to meaningful scrutiny and evaluation. Even by the Government's own measures it is now clear that drug enforcement is causing more harm than the drugs themselves. There can no longer be any excuses for not carrying out a comprehensive Impact Assessment to count the real costs of its drug policy, and explore alternatives approaches. That the Government has ignored its own principles and rules in failing to do so is a disgrace – even more so given the current economic crisis.”

Professor Jeffrey Miron of Harvard University said ; "I applaud Transform for breaking new ground with this report, explicitly comparing the costs and benefits of two alternative drug policy regimes - prohibition and legal regulation. This will catch the UK Government between a rock and a hard place: accept this report's findings - that prohibition is a disastrous policy choice - or carry out their own research, which, if done properly, will serve to confirm that Transform's findings are right on the money."

The full report and an executive summary are available

ENDS

Notes for editors

1. Professor Jeffrey Miron is Senior Lecturer and Director of Undergraduate Studies at the Harvard University Department of Economics http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/miron/cv/CV_Miron.pdf

2. Government guidelines on Impact Assessments are available at http://www.berr.gov.uk/whatwedo/bre/policy/scrutinising-new-regulations/preparing-impact-assessments/page44077.html

Contact

Danny Kushlick, Head of Policy and Communications 07970 174747

Steve Rolles, Head of Research 07980 213943

About Transform

Transform Drug Policy Foundation is a charitable thinktank that exists to reduce harm and promote sustainable health and wellbeing by bringing about a just, effective and humane system to regulate and control drugs at local, national and international levels.