Norman Baker, the Liberal Democrat MP and former Home Office minister, has accused the Tories of ignoring reality as he released the details of proposals to reform drug laws that were stripped from a government report by the home secretary.

He said that drugs policy should be based “on evidence, not dogma” and that, although the Conservatives were opposed to liberalisation, they were losing the argument on the issue.

Under pressure from the Lib Dems, the Home Office commissioned a report looking at the international evidence on the impact of legislation on drug use. Theresa May, the home secretary, made no secret of the fact that she had no enthusiasm for the project, and when it was published in October, with Baker taking the lead in publicising it, Conservative ministers signalled that they would ignore it.

The report said international evidence suggested that tough drug laws had no impact on drug use. The factors affecting drug use were “more complex and nuanced than legislation and enforcement alone”, it said.

The document focused on analysis and did not contain policy recommendations.

No 10 said at the time that government drug policy was working and there was nothing in the Home Office report that showed the government had to change tack.

But Baker revealed on Friday that the original draft had contained policy recommendations that, on May’s orders, had been removed prior to publication.

He highlighted three key recommendations proposed in the original draft:

• Promoting the use of cannabis-based medicines, by removing the barrier to their development and allowing them to be prescribed for a range of conditions.

• Piloting a system used in Portugal, where drug use has been decriminalised, which involves “dissuasion commissions” assessing drug users and diverting them from the criminal justice system and into treatment.

• Encouraging more long-term heroin addicts to seek treatment involving clinically supervised diamorphine injections.

Baker – who resigned as a minister shortly after the report was published, saying he could no longer work with May – said the government now, finally, had evidence showing “what works” in relation to drug addiction, but that the Tories were ignoring it.

“The truth is Britain’s drugs policies need radical reform,” he said. “The mask has slipped – treating users and addicts as criminals instead of people who need treatment has failed. The Tories can deny reality if they like, but the tide is turning on this issue. I believe drugs reform is just a matter of time.”

A Conservative party spokesman said: “This government’s policy towards drugs was signed off by the Liberal Democrats, so they are now attacking their own policy. This strategy is working and there is a long-term downward trend in drug misuse in the UK. While the Lib Dems pander to their rapidly diminishing core vote, the Conservatives are clear that drugs are dangerous and ruin lives. We have no intention of decriminalising drugs.”