U.K.’s David Cameron Comes Under Fire For Supporting Drug Prohibition

British Prime Minister
David Cameron is
under fire from a bipartisan coalition of M.P.s over his
refusal to re-evaluate Britain’s 40-year-old drug laws.

The issue arose following the release of a report from the Home
Office (a government department responsible for immigration,
security, and law and order) comparing the U.K.’s drug policy
with the approaches of 13 other countries. The report found that
“there is no apparent correlation between the ‘toughness’ of a
country’s approach and the prevalence of adult drug use.”

This led to the first major House of Commons debate on drug
policy in a generation. During the debate, M.P.s from across the
political spectrum stood up to denounce the current policy and call
for reform.

This disparate group included a succession of members from
Cameron’s own Conservative Party. The most prominent of these was
Peter Lilley, a former cabinet minister and Deputy Leader of the
Conservative Party, who bypassed talk of decriminalization and
called for the outright legalization of cannabis.

An even more influential figure to come out for reform was Nick
Clegg, who voiced his support through the media. As leader of the
Liberal Democrats, Clegg is the Deputy Prime Minister of Cameron’s
coalition government. In
an op-ed for The Independent, he argued it was clear
the war on drugs was being lost and that a new approach was
required:

Instead of looking at evidenced-based solutions successive
government’s have ratcheted up the rhetoric–talking tough but
failing to tackle the problem.

The consequences of sticking rigidly to the same old solutions
will not bring about the change we badly need. It would mean more
young addicts carted off to jail. More people in need of help
unable to free themselves from the grip of drug abuse. And those
emerging from jail even more vulnerable to the pushers.

Perhaps most encouraging of all was Clegg’s claim that the
debate in the U.K. had reached a tipping point:

Westminster has finally reached a tipping point in the drug
debate and change is in sight.

As my colleague [the now-departed Home Office
minister] Norman Baker said, “the genie is finally out of the
bottle” and people have realised if you are anti-drug you must be
pro-reform.

Despite the findings of the Home Office report, Cameron is
refusing to re-evaluate existing policy.
His response to the report was characteristic of a politician
with his head in the sand:

“The evidence is, what we are doing is working. I don’t believe
in decriminalising drugs that are illegal today,” he said. “I’m a
parent with three children­—I don’t want to send out a message that
somehow taking these drugs is OK and safe because, frankly, it
isn’t.”

Such a stock-standard response is unlikely to surprise anyone
familiar with the anti-drug rhetoric of political leaders. However,
this represents a complete backflip for Cameron. As The
Independent reports,
Cameron was once a prominent advocate for drug reform:

As a new MP in 2002, he said there was a “powerful argument” for
legalising heroin and said it was “baffling” the Labour government
was not considering the case for decriminalisation…

This statement in favor of reform was not a one-off:

During the 2005 leadership campaign – in which he refused to be
drawn on his personal drug experience – Mr Cameron said:
“Politicians attempt to appeal to the lowest common denominator by
posturing with tough policies and calling for crackdown after
crackdown. Drugs policy has been failing for decades.”

The reason for this dramatic reversal is unclear. It’s possible
that Cameron honestly re-evaluated his beliefs and came to a
different conclusion, but he would also hardly be the first
politician to change a position for electoral reasons. However, if
Baker is right and the genie really is out of the bottle, there
will soon be far less reason for M.P.s to conceal their support for
drug reform. That can only be a good thing.