Supporters of Impact Assessment

Home Affairs Select Committee

Politicians

The statutory sector

Academics

Organisations

Home Affairs Select Committee, Cocaine Trade Enquiry, 2009

"We were very interested to learn that a Government review completed in 2007 – the publication of which the Home Office had fought for three years – concluded that the effectiveness and value for money of the Government’s drugs spending could not be evaluated. It is at best careless that the Government nevertheless pressed ahead and published its Drugs Strategy in February 2008 without publishing a proper value-for-money analysis of where resources would be most effectively targeted. We therefore support calls for an full and independent value-for-money assessment of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 and related legislation and policy. This assessment must also address the concerns about inadequate data collection raised in the 2007 review."

Source: click here

Support for an Impact Assessment of our approach to drugs is growing rapidly, including politicians, academics, the statutory sector and organisations.

Politicians

MPs

• Bob Ainsworth MP, former Labour Home Office drugs minister and secretary of state for defence
• Peter Lilley MP, former Conservative Party deputy leader
• Tom Brake MP, Co-Chair, Liberal Democrat Backbench Committee on Home Affairs, Justice and Equalities
• Caroline Lucas MP, UK Green Party leader
• Dr Julian Huppert MP, Lib Dem, Vice Chair APPG on Drug Policy Reform

Peers

• Lord Norton, Conservative, Professor of Government, the University of Hull
• Baroness Murphy, Crossbench, former Chair of North East London Strategic Health Authority
• Lord Mancroft, Conservative, Chair of the Drug and Alcohol Foundation
• Lord Taverne, former Labour MP and Home Office minister
• Lord Dholakia, deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats in the Lords, former Spokesperson for Home Affairs
• Lord Layard, Labour, Programme Director, Well-Being Programme, Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics

• Dr Robert Painter, Republican minority leader, Hartford City Council
• Home Affairs Select Committee, Cocaine Trade Enquiry, 2009

  
  In August 2010 Mexican President Felipe Calderón also called for an evidence-based review, saying that the issue of legalising drugs requires: "a fundamental debate in which I think...you have to analyse carefully the pros and cons and the key arguments on both sides."
  
  (Watch video here. Also see the Economist and the Guardian.)
  
  He was supported by President Santos of Colombia who said: "We are entering an era of the narco-trafficking business where one must have these type of reflections."

  Source: click here

  Find more supporters of drug policy reform here
  

The statutory sector

• Carel Edwards, former Head of the European Commission's Anti-Drug Coordinating Unit
• Professor John R Ashton CBE, Chair UK Public Health Association (UKPHA)

Academics

• Professor Sir Ian Gilmore, outgoing President of the Royal College of Physicians
• Professor Richard Wilkinson, Author of 'The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better'
• Professor Neil McKeganey, Centre for Drug Misuse Research, University of Glasgow
• Professor Ben Bowling, Professor of Criminology & Criminal Justice, School of Law, King's College London
• Dr Nick Heather, Emeritus Professor of Alcohol and Other Drug Studies at Northumbria University
• Dr Linda Cusick, Reader in Substance Use, University of the West of Scotland (UWS)
• Professor David Nutt, Edmond J. Safra Chair of Neuropsychopharmacology, Imperial College London, and Chair of the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs

Organisations

The International Harm Reduction Association

The Howard League for Penal Reform

International Drug Policy Consortium

Institute for Criminal Policy Research
25 Bedford Row Chambers