Sir Richard Branson: Time to start helping drug addicts instead of jailing them

18:14 Sir Richard Branson: Time to start helping drug addicts instead of jailing them 0 Comments

BEFORE joining the Global Commission On Drugs I felt, as many Mirror readers do, that since drugs are dangerous it was best for society to punish anyone who used them.

Now having spent 18 months with commissioners Kofi Annan, George Schultz, Paul Volker, the Prime Minister of Greece and eight former presidents ­examining the facts, each of us decided it was better to treat those who use drugs as a health problem, rather than a criminal problem.

The com­­mission learnt that the current approach to the war on drugs had completely failed. We found those ­countries like Portugal and Switzerland who didn’t send their young to prison for taking drugs but offered them help instead managed to dramatically reduce the overall level of problematic drug use.

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By setting up clinics where heroin users can go to get clean needles and methadone (and get help when they’re ready for it) Portugal reduced the number of users by 50% and the number of new cases of HIV (from dirty needles) by 50%. The number of cannabis users is now the lowest in Europe.

I do understand why Mirror readers would worry when they read the words “celebrities call for drugs to be decriminalised”. They perhaps picture going into their local supermarket and seeing addicts queuing up to buy their next fix.

This is not what the commis-sion is advocating. It is not what is happening in countries such as Portugal.

What they are doing is proving that by ­decriminalising drug use, they can win the war a lot more effectively.

By helping user, rather than ­demonising them, I believe we will see real changes within our society and real decreases in the number of users – and, in turn, a reduction in cost to the taxpayer.

There are other ­advantages of not prosecuting. By treating it as a health issue drug users are more likely to get help. In Britain we give 75,000 young people criminal records every year for taking drugs.

The cost to the taxpayer of keeping people in prison is enormous compared to sending someone to a specialist clinic to help them. And society benefits by weaning people off drugs. In ­Switzer-land, where users participate in a drugs programme, there has been a 90% fall in addicts burgling homes.

Of course, there are people who are addicted to cigarettes and others who suffer from excessive use of alcohol. But such is the physical desperation around drug addict-ion, it often leads to users hurting not only ­themselves but their loved ones. Sometimes it is random strangers.

If they could openly seek help – without fear of jail – I believe the underground world in which they live would soon begin to crumble.

The dealers who exploit this unseen half of life would be out of business. And the crime barons who trade in misery and human suffering from drugs to prostitution to gun-running would be much more vulnerable.

It is the users’ fear of prosecution that helps keep the status quo in this labyrinthine world.

In the past 50 years we have seen increased drug usage. This has filled our jails, cost hundreds of millions of taxpayer pounds, spread avoidable diseases and fuelled organised crime.

It is time we adopted an alternative approach...

The criminal drugs trade rakes in more than £200billion a year and it also kills mill­­ions through murder, dis­­ease and corruption.As one commentator said last week: “In the 10 years to 2008, according to the UN, global use of opiates has risen by 34.5 %, cocaine by 27% and cannabis by 8.5%. If this is a successful policy, what would a failed one look like?”

I believe it is time to end the criminalisation and stigmatising of drug users. People with drug problems need health care, not prison. Where countries treat drug-use as a pub­­­­lic health issue rather than a crime, disease, ill-health and costs have fallen. At the very least we should have an open debate on the subject with the facts laid out for all to see, so the public can give an informed opinion.

It is an open debate the Global Drug Commission has called for and I hope a sensible dialogue on how to finally win this war on drugs can begin.