Ex Minster condemned as 'irresponsible' by party for drugs u-turn.



MP who held defence and home office posts describes war on drugs as 'nothing but a disaster'

A former minister who once had responsibility for Britain's drugs policy said today all narcotics should be decriminalised, arguing that prohibition and the war on drugs had been a failure.

Bob Ainsworth, a Home Office minister under Tony Blair, said he wanted production and supply to be officially regulated. He added that his time as minister for drugs policy had shown him that prohibition had failed.

The Coventry East MP is the most senior British politician to call for the decriminalisation of all drugs.

Labour leader Ed Miliband moved swiftly to distance themselves from the MP's 'irresponsible' ideas'. 'Bob's views do not reflect Ed's views, the party's view or indeed the view of the vast majority of the public,' added a spokesman.

A party source described the legalisation proposal as 'extremely irresponsible', adding: 'I don't know what he was thinking.'



Asked whether the Prime Minister thought Mr Ainsworth's ideas merited consideration, David Cameron's spokesman said simply: 'No.'

'Irresponsible': Former Cabinet minister Bob Ainsworth says the war on drugs had been 'nothing but a disaster' as he called for total decriminalisation while Labour leader Ed Miliband moved swiftly to distance himself from the statement



He added: 'The Government is not in favour of legalisation of drugs because we don't think it is the right approach. Drugs cause a lot of harm in society and we don't think legalising them would be consistent with minimising that harm.'

Tory MP Andrew Griffiths, who chairs the all-party parliamentary group on the misuse of drugs and alcohol, said: 'No wonder drugs policy was such a mess under Labour when a Home Office minister wanted to legalise heroin.

'Drugs cause crime and can devastate communities. Ed Balls and Ed Miliband must distance themselves from these dangerously out-of-touch comments.'

There was also a stinging retort from Labour MP John Mann, who carried out an inquiry into hard drug use in his Bassetlaw constituency while Mr Ainsworth was drugs minister.

'He didn't know what he was talking about when I met him with my constituents during my heroin inquiry and he doesn't know what he's talking about now,' he said.

Front line: As Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth, right, visited poppy fields in Afghanistan

Crime Prevention minister James Brokenshire said: 'Drugs are harmful and ruin lives - legalisation is not the answer.

'Decriminalisation is a simplistic solution that fails to recognise the complexity of the problem and ignores the serious harm drug taking poses to the individual.

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'Legalisation fails to address the reasons people misuse drugs in the first place or the misery, cost and lost opportunities that dependence causes individuals, their families and the wider community.'

Ainsworth, who was also Defence Secretary in the former Labour government, said: 'The war on drugs does not work. We need to be bold, we need some fresh thinking.

'This has been going on for 50 years now and it isn't getting better. The drugs trade is as big and as powerful as it ever was across the world.'

Alex Stevens, professor in criminal justice at the University of Kent and an expert in drugs, crime and public health policy, backed Mr Ainsworth.

He said: 'My research shows that the "war on drugs" is an ongoing and costly failure which has imposed significant harm on the most vulnerable communities.

'My recent article in the British Journal of Criminology on the decriminalisation of drugs in Portugal shows that harmful drug use does not necessarily increase, and that significant savings in the costs of law enforcement and improvements in public health can follow decriminalisation.

'I put the case for progressive decriminalisation to the Society of Labour Lawyers earlier this week and it is right that Bob Ainsworth has made this call today.

'My 15 years of research in the field has shown how criminalisation of drug users has not reduced drug-related harms, either in the UK or internationally.

'Indeed, it shows that illicit drug use is now widespread.'

Speaking on Radio 4's Today programme, Mail on Sunday columnist Peter Hitchens said that he was all for a rational debate on drugs but believed that the war on drugs had not been fully prosecuted.

He said there was no point going after people for the supply of drugs if nothing was done to punish possession.

He cited the example of Sweden where they had done just that and now has a lower use of drugs than any other European country.

'It is not that we tried and failed to have a war on drugs, it is that we found a war on drugs difficult, unpopular with an influential, selfish section of society and not tried,' he said.

Peter Lilley, former deputy leader of the Conservative Party, called for cannabis to be legalised in 2001 but said drugs such as heroin and cocaine should still be illegal.

Ainsworth said each drug should be examined on its own terms and there should be different regimes for each one.



Heroin should be legally available, but only on prescription, he suggested, while cocaine could be available from legal sources such as doctors.

'I'm not proposing the liberalisation and legalisation of heroin so we can all get zonked out on the street corner,' he said.

'What I'm saying is heroin needs to be taken out of the hands of the dealers, put into the hands of the medical profession, done in a mass way to the extent that's necessary.'

The Labour government had eased penalties on the use of cannabis on its advisory body's advice in 2004 but former Prime Minister Gordon Brown reversed that decision four years later, saying he wanted to send a message that use of the drug was unacceptable.



However, Ainsworth said that had been a mistake as there was no evidence that there had been an increase in cannabis after the penalties were eased.

He said one senior police officer had told him the authorities aimed to disrupt criminal gangs rather than trying to raise the price of drugs.

'They are disrupting the criminal gangs to prevent a Pablo Escobar or an Al Capone,' he said.