Cells, Drugs and rehabilitation role

The Sentencing Guidelines Council is currently conducting a consultation on 'Sentencing for Drug Offences'.

The key piece of UK legislation governing drugs is the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, a nearly 40 year old piece of legislation that has been amended throughout its lifetime, but still adheres to the framework introduced nearly two generations ago.

This approach to drug policy has been ossified by Daily Mail hysteria and political timidity. Everyone knows the current approach does not work and is maintained for conservative moral reasons.

There are differences of approach between decriminalisation and legalisation, but even those who are pro-prohibition (partial or full) have to concede the current sentencing for drug-related offences is farcical.

The more worrying factor is the current 'direction of travel'. By reclassifying cannabis from class C to B last year, the mere possession of the drug is liable to up to 5 years imprisonment, and if intent to supply can be proven then up to 14 years in the slammer can await.

Of course maximum sentencing does not necessarily equal actual sentencing but nevertheless if we compare relative imposed sentences then we get a measure of the moral panic around drugs:

In 2004 the average custodial sentence for those convicted of rape was 79.7 months, for GBH 50.1 months, for causing death by dangerous driving 44.4 months. Yet for importation or exportation of drugs (something mostly done by drug mules, rather than Mr Bigs) it averaged 84 months (seven years). The UK courts are therefore sending a message that walking through an airport with some drugs is worse than rape, viciously battering someone or killing them through driving dangerously.

A 2007 report for the Home Office showed drug dealers saw prison "as an occupational hazard and was not considered a serious deterrent" – as with any crime, as the perpetrators are either sanguine about being caught or do not consider they will be. This is why there is no correlation between the death penalty, sentence length or the harshness of the prison regime and crime or reoffending.

But instead of logically assessing this reality, in recent years the Government has created more laws to deter: 'confiscation orders', 'serious crime prevention orders' and 'the power to close down premises'. Will this work? No, but it will continue to feed the Daily Mail’s addiction to the moral panic of drugs. Even the consultation paper concedes that "it is not clear that lengthy custodial sentences contribute to crime reduction" and "imprisoning drug offenders for relatively substantial periods does not appear to represent a cost effective response".

If we were serious about tackling drugs then the criminal justice system would not even be involved for drug users – but the health service, as it is for alcoholics and nicotine addicts.

We should be asking, in the words of John Lennon, "why do people take drugs of any sort? . . . is there something wrong with society that's making us so pressurised, that we cannot live without guarding ourselves against it?".

If you can inject some logic into this debate, then please respond to the consultation paper 'Sentencing for Drug Offences', which can be downloaded from the Sentencing Guidelines Council website. The deadline for responses is 15th July 2009.