Rethink drugs policy

A first step must be a full audit of drug crime to find out the true cost to the nation. Ministers should signal that they are ready to radically rethink drugs policy, including examining seriously the case for further decriminalisation on a drug-by-drug basis. It is self-defeating to make criminals out of addicts, even in the emotive cases of heroin and cocaine.

I’ve long thought that economics is the way to fight drug smugglers and cartels, and that the best way to eradicate the horrendous knock-on effects of the drugs trade is to simply make it unprofitable. For decades we’ve been trying to do this by increasing the risks associated with drug production and selling - but increasing the risks only increases the cost of the drugs, and hence the profits for the cartels. I think it’s about time we tried fighting fire with fire: treating drug suppliers as economic agents, and simply undercutting them on the legal market to a degree that the drugs trade is, quite literally, no longer profitable for them.

I still believe people have the right to put whatever they want into their bodies without the state intervening as some kind of gatekeeper. The denial by the state of individuals’ right to do so is exactly what has caused the problem we now have with drugs. The policy I would advocate is all about breaking the back of the crime that goes with that denial: everything from the heroin addict who steals your VCR and sells it to pay for his or her ridiculously expensive habit, right through to the Pablo Escobars of the world, so wealthy they can take over entire chunks of a country as their own private fiefdom.