Council Chairman calls on government to reconsider drug policy

The Council Chairman of Imperial College, Baroness Eliza Manningham-Buller, has called on the government to reconsider its current drugs policy following the ongoing expense of the “War on Drugs”. Speaking at a meeting held by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Drug Policy Reform, the ex-Director General of MI5 and crossbench life peer raised potential points of consideration in a speech, including regulation of cannabis and a focus on drugs as an issue of health rather than of crime.

Stating her awareness that the issue is a “minefield” and that potential misrepresentation by the media was likely, Eliza acknowledged that drug policy is a “taboo subject for discussion”, while criticising “knee-jerk reaction to any change”. Eliza went on to state that her surprise at the lack of discussion: “Given its effect on us all and the enormous cost of our efforts to limit the problems which drugs cause, I find it extraordinary that it is not at the forefront of national debate.”

Eliza continued with a dismissal of the “same well-worn policy” utilised by the government for the past 50 years, following the aim of a 1961 UN Convention on Narcotic Drugs to create a drug-free world: “We are unlikely to address the harm that is being caused to the world unless we accept, as the US Senate recently did, that much, though not all, of the vast expenditure on the so-called “War on Drugs” has been fruitless.”

In discussion with Felix, Eliza restated her aim to “reduce the harm that drugs do” following the recognition of “extensive human misery” caused by the illegal drugs trade.

Eliza also criticised a response to the speech which labelled the call to review current policy as ‘waving the white flag’, as described by a member of the Centre for Social Justice. In the speech, she was quoted as saying, “What I said [about knee-jerk opposition to any change] has been proved right.”

“Those politicians and commentators who may recognise, at the very least, that there are serious questions about the efficacy of current policies, go quiet or retract when faced by the crude assertion that any other policy would do corrosive and irreparable harm.”

Prime Minister David Cameron, once member of a Home Affairs Select Committee in May 2002, was once quoted in the full report, which examined the Government’s Drugs Policy at the time: “Drugs policy in this country has been failing for decades.”

The report continued: “I hope that our report will encourage fresh thinking and a new approach. We need to get away from entrenched positions and try to reduce the harm that drugs do both to users and society at large.”

In her speech, Eliza acknowledged that “I don’t pretend there are easy options as this is a complex problem.” “We need to collect information on what works, on how harm can be reduced and on what is cost-effective.”

Eliza took on her current role as Council Chairman on July 16 this year following on from her role as Deputy Chairman since 2009.