Breakthrough Britain

9 July, 2007 in Conservatives, alcohol, cannabis, classification, drug education

The Conservatives’ Social Justice Commission will be publishing their final report, Breakthrough Britain, tomorrow. The headlines have focused around reclassifying cannabis to a Class B drug (a consistent Conservative position) and raising a hypothicated tax against alcohol which would go back into treatment.

Mr Duncan Smith who has led the commission’s work has been giving interviews and in The Observer says (about cannabis):

The real effect is on young kids who take it. We regularly have kids who take it at the age of 11 or 12. If your brain is growing, you can kiss goodbye to that - by the time you are 16 or 17 you will be in a psychotic state. It is an enormously dangerous drug, but a lot of middle-class families don’t see that.

He also expresses the view that the term ‘war on drugs’ is unhelpful as policy should be about “getting kids off drugs.”

The Telegraph has further details and in particular they suggest:

Widespread drug testing in schools, an end to “non judgemental, politically correct” drug education programmes and a clear message “that all drugs are wrong and harmful” are further key recommendations.

The paper suggests that David Cameron has seen the report and is broadly happy with the recommendations.

When the interim report was published the suggestion was that “prevention and intervention will be the underlying themes of the policy solutions proposed in the final report”. We’ll be able to judge whether that’s the case when we are able to download the report here from tomorrow.