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Labour MP Thangam Debbonaire has revealed her strategy for convincing her party leader Jeremy Corbyn to come on board with her idea for regulating street drugs.

Ms Debbonaire has spoken before about her reckoning that the current rules on drug consumption “are not working” and wants an “evidence-based drugs policy” which could see some Class A drugs regulated and sold over the counter.

The Bristol West MP set-up the Labour Campaign for Drug Policy Reform with her colleague Jeff Smith, the Labour MP for Withington in Manchester, in the summer.

They were given a major boost last month when Charlie Falconer, the former attorney general under Tony Blair, came out in support of drug regulation. The ex-member of the cabinet told those at Ms Debbonaire’s drug reform event at the Labour Party conference that he “so regretted being one of the generals in the war on drugs”.

(Image: Patrick Daly)

Ms Debbonaire, speaking to Bristol Live after the meeting, said Lord Falconer’s conversion was proof that attitudes were changing in the Labour Party.

Yet, while Lord Falconer was a big name in the party during the New Labour years, he is not a figure close to the current regime under Mr Corbyn’s watch, having resigned the shadow cabinet as part of the mass walkout in 2016.

Ms Debbonaire said the next step in the bid to get both Labour leader Mr Corbyn and shadow home secretary Diane Abbott on board with drug legalisation and regulation was to engage Labour members, the public and then, step-by-step, Labour MPs.

Mrs Abbott, MP for Hackney in London, has previously branded the war on drugs a “failure” but has refused to back even partial legalisation for less hard drugs such as marijuana, a Class B drug.

Asked how she would look to change the minds of the party’s leadership, Ms Debbonaire said she would not be advocating for an all-out “legalise everything” approach.

(Image: Liverpool Echo)

“To keep on talking is part of the point of the campaign,” said the Labour whip. “That’s why I said in the meeting [at the conference in Liverpool], we have to accept people where they are and try and bring them with us, rather than jump in and say, ‘Let’s legalise everything’.

“Now, I happen to think the solutions could include legalisation and regulation of some drugs – but I think we need an evidence-based approach to that, and that’s why we are having a campaign for drug policy reform rather than a campaign to legalise everything.”

Ms Debbonaire said the next step was to invite people to meetings so they can hear the arguments around drug reform.

“By doing this [holding public meetings],” she said, when asked how she was getting the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) on board with her campaign.

“It is by bringing in more ordinary members, which we had at the conference meeting – members who joined the party for Jeremy, members who have been longstanding.

“There were older members in the room who have never taken drugs in their lives who will talk to their police and crime commissioners and talk to their MPs and give their own MPs a bit more courage to speak out.”

The city MP, who took part in last year’s BBC Drugsland documentary looking at the impact of the drugs trade on Bristol, said the current policy of criminalising all drugs was failing both addicts and non-drug takers.

She instead is arguing for some drugs to be sold, in regulated doses, by medical professionals with warnings attached to them, with health care money invested into drug consumption rooms – centres overseen by clinicians who can test the drugs before use – so the drugs can be administered safely.

The professional musician said a regulatory model had the ability to take drug dealers out of the market altogether.

“What I know is that in Bristol our current laws don’t work,” said Ms Debbonaire.

“They don’t work for my constituents who take drugs but they also don’t serve my constituents who don’t take drugs, who are fed up of needles in their street and drug dealers in their stairwells.

“Every single day I can look outside my office window and see someone defecating, someone injecting, someone selling, dropping drug litter and occasionally a female being, I suspect, exploited or on the verge of it.

“It is not a nice atmosphere, especially for children. That’s not serving my constituents who don’t want to take drugs but who want to live in a safe environment. Whatever it is we are doing now, it doesn’t work.

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“Making heroin illegal hasn’t stopped people taking heroin – but it is making people in Bristol die,” added the former shadow culture minister.

“And it is making my constituents living in flats in Dove Street [in Stokes Croft] and other places have to put up with really horrible things.

“If [critics] say they are opposed to drug consumption rooms, then they need to take a look around. We already have a drug consumption room and that’s called Bristol. It is parks, it is King’s Square, it is car parks.”

Ms Debbonaire said the campaign group was looking to set Labour up with policy change ideas before the party produces their next manifesto.

“Jeff [Smith] and I have both taken slightly different routes to this but my route is now that what we are doing isn’t working so a campaign for drug policy reform is open to any and all suggestions,” she said.

“We are thrashing out where we need to go and get there before we get into government rather than waiting until we get into government and saying, ‘Hang on a minute, maybe we should reform this’.”