This week, the Home Office published its White Paper ‘Swift, Certain, Tough’, setting out changes to the criminal justice system’s approach to tackling adult drug possession in England and Wales.
The paper builds upon the strategic priorities identified in the government’s 10-year drug strategy, ‘From harm to hope’ (December 2021). Those priorities are: breaking drug supply chains; delivering a world-class treatment and recovery system; and significantly reducing demand for illicit drugs.
Ray Jenkins, Chief Executive of Emerging Futures, commented: “I welcome the fact that the sector will receive significantly increased funding over the next three years. However, I also think it is important to not do the same things and expect a different outcome, that’s insanity right?
Learning from the past
“The priorities and measures proposed within the paper take me back to the first 10 year drug strategy of 1998 (‘Tackling Drugs Together to Build a Better Britain’), which prioritised: young people; building communities; improved access to treatment; and the ambition to stifle the availability of illegal drugs on our streets. This produced a range of new criminal justice interventions in the UK, including test on arrest, innovative court dispersal DRR/ATR orders and the introduction of police custody and prison intervention teams.
Treatment not punishment
“We are now 24 years down the line and clearly not winning the ‘War on Drugs’, with related deaths and prison numbers at an all-time high. My fear is that we continue to pursue a strategy of punishing rather than treating.
“Working with people who have substance use disorders will always be complex, not least because we are working in a field where there is no definitive causality or treatment that guarantees success. My hope is that we can learn from what has gone before and not keep doing the same things and expecting a different outcome.”
