THERE'S NO ROOM FOR TOLERANCE IN THE WAR AGAINST DRUGS

THE specialist drugs courts being tested in Leeds and London are
billed as the latest initiative aimed at reducing drug abuse and
related crime, even though drug treatment and testing orders have been
around for some time.

Let us at least wish it success, however. It was announced last week
that hard drug offences have risen by 16 per cent, but that the number
of offences for the use of soft drugs has fallen by 21 per cent.

Of course the latter figure is hardly surprising since the Government
has downgraded cannabis in the scale of offending, aided and abetted
by some police forces in parts of the country, notably in some London
boroughs.

Further, the latest set of guidelines emerging from the Home Office as
to how and when the police may arrest and take action about drugs, for
personal use or for supply to others, totally fails to address the
problem of usage.

In essence it is caving in to the inevitable following the earlier
relaxations of attitude, yet despite the fact that lower tolerances
tried out in parts of London have proved a disaster, bringing hordes
of additional dealers on to the streets, our Home Secretary proceeds
apace to loosen more strings of control.

At least the newly enlightened police in those trial boroughs have,
reportedly, decided to reverse their policy of tolerance.

Others who know far more about the problem than me, such as former
West Yorkshire Chief Constable Keith Hellawell, have made very firm
statements about the result of relaxing controls.

Whereas it may be true that not everyone who tries cannabis becomes a
violent criminal, or goes on to harder drugs, the evidence is there
that most who are on hard drugs have graduated from lesser options. It
is a danger of which the risk of abuse is too high to leave to chance.

In addition, a huge proportion of the crime highlighted daily in the
media relates to drug usage. Most notably, it was recently reported
that the two violent murderers of Merseyside teenager Anthony Walker
had partaken of a number of "joints" before making their vile attack
on a defenceless person.

Over the years, magistrates have heard a progression of excuses
involving drugs. At first the plea that "this offender has a drug
problem" was frequently suspected to be a ploy to get the sympathy of
the bench.

But this later moved to being a genuine problem of serious abuse and
more latterly such pleas became absolutely normal for a very great
number of cases, probably being true in the vast majority of them.

There is a history in Britain of increased tolerance invariably
leading to more bounds being broken. This is no less so for drugs than
for anything else, but with drugs there is an added danger.

Provision of the product encourages further market forces to prevail.
Demand requires providers and providers then seek more outlets. This
has now been proved to be the case in London where relaxation of
street controls attracted more dealers, more dealers attracted more
users, even more dealers came in... and so on.

Britain has a serious drug problem and it is getting worse. So in
order to resolve it, we are giving up the pursuit of those who appear
to be at the lower end of the scale, as users alone.

The laws of supply and demand will therefore run amok: for as long as
users are allowed to use, providers will be needed to provide. The
principle way to stop providers is to demolish the user market.

Sadly, one of the reasons the prostitution market is flourishing is
because so many of those who tramp the streets are hooked on drugs and
finish up in an endless cycle of doing the business to pay for the
drugs, while the drug providers, being the pimps, control the
operations as well as the supply of drugs.

The Government needs to take firm control of the situation and stamp
down firmly on all usage, as in the end this is the main, if not the
only, way the problem will be solved.

Of course, it is important to catch and stop the dealers who bring the
products in from abroad, but if they cannot sell the goods they will
cease to provide them, or at least be severely discouraged from doing
so.

Education has an important part to play. For quite a long period in
Yorkshire, supported by the NHS, police, magistrates, schools and
almost every agency associated with young people, there was a
programme of drug education named Radical.

It was a programme which went out directly to children in schools and
made the most of other opportunities to get through to young people.
But Radical stopped because of a cut in funding and it was many years
later before Tony Blair started to talk about the need to take
prevention seriously by offering programmes of drug education.

In the meantime, whereas agencies had done their best with what they
had available, it all fell far short of what was required and the
resources were woefully inadequate. Years of preventative
opportunities were lost.

The sophistication of the big drugs rings is highly refined. It is not
just a matter of a few frightened carriers bringing in small
quantities in swallowed condoms, or stitched into suitcases. The stuff
comes in by the lorry load.

Nor is it, as some bigots claim, merely a product of certain cultures,
as almost daily white British people are taken to court for highly
organised drug importation.

Indeed, I can recall from bail hearings, in which we magistrates had
to hear cases in detail while defendants were waiting for a Crown
Court hearing, many of the latter people being central to major drug
provision in West Yorkshire.

Drugs affect everybody, especially those who get enticed into usage as
children and who are then affected for the rest of their lives, lives
which are sometimes abysmally and tragically cut short by this abuse.
Drugs respect no differences in terms of class or social groupings.

There is no room for tolerance. The law must be hard and firm and make
sure that every case of illegal use is properly prosecuted in the courts.

Given the proper tools for sentencing and rehabilitation, users may be
discouraged, and by imposing severe penalties for providers, it may be
possible to begin to make some headway against this insidious evil.