Only 4% kick drugs in rehab

The war on drugs is a total unworkable failure and needs to be scrapped. Remember we have troops dying in Afghanistan now fighting an enemy made rich from growing a weed we're trying to prohibit. In failing, the war on drugs has done much more than than ruin lives of addicts.

Illegal drugs are not controlled drugs, unless the market in a substance is controlled the substance cannot be said to be. Because of the war on drugs we know nothing about the supply side; who sells the drugs, where from, how pure they are or how strong they are. There's no age limits and no recourse to the law when deals go wrong.

Sure, encouraging abstinence has a place, but you can't make people be abstinent, they have to want to want it. For the rest, why not allow them to be addicts with the drug they want - Heroin, only make it clean diamorphine from a clinic rather than smack from a dealer.

If the Tories are serious about ramping up the drug war, then they'll have a bill to pay. Drug war rhetoric is cheap when in opposition, less so in government.

By Derek Williams. Posted July 21 2009 at 7:16 PM.

Regardless of what forms of rehabilitation works best, the UK government still spends many times the entire treatment and education budget on enforcement. We spend billions a year on police, courts and prisons, but it isn't making us any safer. Hard drugs are becoming more and more available, with dealers in every street and addicts forced into a life of crime to fund their habits.

We need a maintenance prescription scheme such as that used in many European countries, to provide addicts a controlled supply of heroin administered by health professionals. This will prevent them stealing or prostituting for their fix, make our streets safer, and free up police budgets to deal with other crimes. It will also mean that the current addicts are spared from the chaotic and destructive lives that destroy any chance of kicking their addictions, and seeing health professionals every day who can encourage absintence based treatment.

In European countries that have had heroin maintenance, the average heroin addicts are in their 30s and 40s. Sure, not all of them have quit, but younger people aren't becoming addicted because heroin isn't available on the street any more. Many of the addicts are able to hold down jobs and contribute to society. In the UK, the average addict is in their late teens or early twenties, on benefits or already turning to crime to get their fix. Its not rocket science to see that heroin maintenance programs are better for everyone concerned.

By Stephen Kay. Posted July 21 2009 at 12:19 PM.

I am a police officer from Canada, and while off-duty I volunteer with Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. LEAP is an organization of 13,000 current and former criminal justice professionals who seek to minimize crime, addiction, death and disease by gradually legalizing and regulating drugs.

Let's face it: an enormous amount of crime occurs not from drugs themselves, but from drug prohibition. For example, gang violence from criminals attempting to control the black market for drugs. Property crime, fraud and prostitution occurs because people are trying to get money to purchase drugs but prohibition has increased the price of these drugs by 10,0000%.

The answer here is to legalize and regulate drugs, not criminalize drug users. This would launch an economic war against organized crime by removing the profits from the black market. And it would free up valuable police resources to focus on crimes where real harm is being caused, like child pornography and domestic violence.

Time and time again we have learned the consequences of banning consensual but undesirable activities. Historical examples include gambling, abortions and alcohol. How much longer will it take us to learn this lesson about drugs?

By David Bratzer. Posted July 20 2009 at 8:12 PM.

Having worked in a few drug and alcohol treatment centres (rehab) I was not at all suprised by your findings that only 4% of people remain drug free. It's not that rehab doesn't work (indeed for that 4% of people it's very helpful) it's just that once people get addicted to drugs it's very hard to stop (hence the need for rehab in the first place!).
I now work for a charity called Drugsline, which is an abstinence based organisation offering help/support to those affected by drugs/alcohol. For many years we have stood by our foundations that abstinence is, for many addicts, the only way to turn their lives around. Whilst we agree that greater focus should be on abstinence rather than harm minimisation/reduction we believe the main focus should be on EDUCATION. In the last academic our outreach team delivered drugs education sessions to over 48,000 young people around the realities of drug/alcohol use. It is far cheaper to educate young people than to pay for drug treatment. The government should put more money into preventing the problem. We know we will never stop all young people from using drugs, but if we can at least make some of them think about the consequences it could save a lot of money and heartache in the future.

By tina hine. Posted July 20 2009 at 4:43 PM.