consumers, in the western world, who happily take these revolting substances and create, therefore, this enormous and disastrous trade which leads as we know to the tragic results which we're seeing at the moment, particularly in mexico and other countries. that's not because of prohibitionary policy, it's because of a long-term policy of decriminalization under which many, many people believe that effectively these drugs are legal. >> thank you. >> thank you, chair. sir, i'm fascinated by what we say. that there's a decriminalized policy since the 1971 act which did the criminalization in the first place. currently around 80,000 people in the uk are convicted of cautionary possession of illegal drug every year. if you think that's a decriminalized policy, how many do you think should be convicted or cautioned each year under your criminal policy? >> well, it's not -- it's not the figures of convictions or arrests that you need to look

at, it's the disposals of the cases when they actually come about. as far back i should point out as 1994, john o'connor who was a former head of the scotland yard flying squad said cannabis has been a decriminalized drug for some time now. that's a -- that's a -- >> that's a fascinating quote. i'm not sure that answers my question. >> let's move on to the situation of cannabis. in 2009, we have -- excuse me while i consult the note to get this absolutely right because it's very, very important. so in 2009, there were 162,610 cannabis cases handled by the police in england. that's the latest year for which i can obtain figures. of that's, 19,137 were dealt

with through police cautions which expire after three months and not normal hi declared to employers. 11,492 resulted in penalty notices for disorder which is an on the spot review which generally results in no punishment. 22,478 actually ended in court which many of them did so because there were several charges against the defendant. 86,593 were dealt with by cannabis warning which is nothing. >> mr. hitchens -- >> if i could make the point, the criminal justice system goes through the motions of pretending to enforce the law against drugs. but it does not actually do so. you can possess a drug which is technically illegal in this country, you can be caught in possession of it by the police, and nothing whatever will happen to you. and most people know that. >> but mr. hitchens, 162,000 cases which strikes me as rather

a lot. you're saying 82,000 cannabis warnings. that leaves 80,000 who are convicted or are cautioned and that number has been the same since before cannabis warnings -- >> warning is not a querks it's nothing. >> i'm agreeing with you on that. 80,000 warnings, round figures, 80,000 who are convicted or cautioned. you say that is not a public criminal policy. i'd like to know how many people you think ought to be convicted otherwise, and are you aware for example of the european monitoring center which has looked across europe and found no association between the severity of sanctions and the amount of drug use. >> again, depends on how you're measuring the severity of sanctions. sanctions exist to some extent on the statute books of countries involved. but there are no sanctions being applied. before the 1971 act, i think 21% of persons arrested for cannabis

possession were sent to prison immediately. before the '71 act completely changed our laws. there was actually a sentence for imprisonment for possession of cannabis which is frequently applied on a first offense. now you're caught with police in possession of cannabis and they let you go. >> around 1,000 people a year are jailed -- >> i would like to come back to the doctor. the very interesting study done by the european monitoring center that he refers to, in fact, not only shows that drug use in britain is much higher than in nearly every other western european country, and problem drug use is about three times higher, but it shows that the criminalization in the other countries that have lower drug use is much higher ran the proportion of people who get convicted and sent to prison startlingly, in this country, is much lower than in the netherlands which actually adopt

quite a rigorous approach to hard drug use and cannabis cafes that break the law, which they do all the time. >> very helpful. miss brett, you wish to add anything on this? >> no, i think the other two -- >> can i just say? santos actually said on the bbc before christmas that as long as people in the uk sniff coke here or in new york or paris, we will suffer here. we will know that at the moment, 2% of people sniff coke here. people at russell brand would like us to believe this is common. it's fill not common, it's common in certain circles are if you decriminalize drugs, the chances are the risk you take is usage would go up to the rate of smoking which is about one-fifth of the adult population. i wonder if any of the committee have stopped to think how they would feel about one-fifth of the cabinet, one-fifth of school teachers, one-fifth of the

doctors and nurses, possibly being able to sniff cocaine because it is not arrestable. >> the committee has actually met president santos last month. and we received the same message from him, that it's good of you to remind us. dr. hubbard, a quick supplementary approximate i think president santos is clear he would like to have discussions about decriminal situation because he sees it as a way to reduce the harms, he was very clear -- >> he was very clear about the discussions he would like to see on that. could i ask all three of you, there's a lot of question in this area, people look at scientific evidence of the harms, look at actual studies which are done, then reach a conclusion, or reach a conclusion first and then look for aspects of data which support that. are you in favor of the idea you should have evidence-based policy? >> we need to move on. miss hitchens. >> of course i am. who wouldn't somebody. >> except i am. it's very abused.

it can be evidence-based policy or scientific tunnel vision. for example the methadone trials which previous doctors giving evidence say this is gold-plated evidence. what do they demonstrate scientifically? that opiate addicts like opiates, quite frankly. they demonstrate if you give free opiates to addicts you will retain them in treatment for a while. they give evidence it minorly reduces their dependence beyond street drugs. other evidence shows that methadone drug deaths have gone up dramatically since this type of medicine was being used. so we have to be very careful about what counts, what's relevant, what's translatable. >> thank you. mary brett? >> yes, it must be given in evidence. and my particular concern is cannabis. there's been quite a lot of discussion already about cannabis. and the facts and figures being given out about cannabis are inaccurate, they're misleading.

if i talk about frank giving out things, the information, there are grave omission in this the cannabis information. and the scientific evidence is there but a lot of it's being ignored. i'd like the opportunity later in the meeting to tell you -- >> we do have other questions for you. quickly, do you think frank was a success or a failure? the government's initiative? frank? >> frank? oh. there are some very good bits about frank. but no, it's -- im, there was a survey in 2010 by a faction which found only 10% of children would phone frank, would look to frank. this is the sort of thing that's coming through. and i've had personally very negative vibes about frank from all sorts of people. >> very good. we will come and ask you further questions on education. michael ellis, a quick

supplementary. >> just if i could ask, miss hitchens, i think you referred to the self-indulgence in the use of drugs. would you suggest, would you support the premise that actually it's not only those who are being self-indulgence who par-take in the use of drugs? do you accept that many people, certainly when they start out using drugs, are feeling unwanted and depressed and lonely and inadequate, and when they get into the first use of drugs, and that they need help, and that they are in effect victims too? and that sizable efforts need to be made towards rehabilitation rather than just punishment? >> personally, no. i think that taking drugs is a wrong thing to do. i think that there's a good reason for there being a law against and it if people do it they should be punished according to the law. i think if we'd held to that, we would still have the levels of drug use which we had before the 1971 act which were minimal.

and i don't think drug users should be indulged. i don't think advocates of drug decriminalization should be indulged either, as the previous witnesses were. >> if i could just quickly -- >> i have to say, i do differ with peter here. i agree with much of what mr. brand said about abstinence. i don't agree with his views on the legal status or otherwise of drugs. i do think that drug addicts' behavior needs conferencetation and the follow-on should be direct and supported but i do think it should be quite conditional on a level of compliance and cooperation. i think the drug courts in america have been hugely successful, about 3,500 of them, and they have sentenced be abstinence treatment. our problem is we do not sentence abstinence treatment,sentence people to further use of synthetic own yates.

opiates. >> you were mentioning about coke use, for example, and how it would increase to the level of smokers if it was decriminalized or legalized and the committee should think about that. this has been a long inquiry and we have searched all over the world on this subject. are you making the assumption that the committee are in favor of decriminalization or legalization? >> i was worried that you took your terms of reference or apparently appeared to, and i indeed wrote to mr. bass about the terms of reference from the global commission on drugs policy, which is basically a highly financed legalizing lo i lobby, and that did disturb me because they had given out and were widely disseminated in the press incorrect figures about drug use spiraling out of control globally, when indeed the unodc shows clearly it's been stable. so that did concern me that your

direction of travel may have been influenced by lobbies who are very much in favor of decriminalization, and if that's not the case, i'm very happy to see it -- >> can i just say, we've traveled to turkey, to united states, to colombia. and we were going to portugal as well. and we've seen many witnesses. i think it's fair to say that every person we've seen has given us different figures. so in two figures have been the same. whoever we speak to. >> no, but there's only one -- you either have to accept the statistics that are collected and used and that's by the united nations, and that's reported in a huge report every year. and unfortunately, the global commission slightly tra deuced these -- misused these figures or reported them incorrectly. and it was a difference of 30% in the case of hard drugs. so that's my only point. and you did mention them in your terms this particular body, in

the terms of reference of your inquiry. >> the committee has not taken a view on any of these issues. that's why we're seeking evidence from the widest possible sources of witnesses. and at the end of the day, we will then publish our results. we're not under the control of any individual group. as mr. steve mckay will show. >> i wonder if i could ask mr. hitchens this question. i wonder from your experience what you thought was the most effective way of warning -- of schools warning children about the dangers of drugs. >> talking to mary brett? >> no, i was asking mr. hitchens, mr. chairman. >> i don't know what schools would do but i think if you have a properly enforced law where

cannabis possession, which is illegal, is punished when detected, then one of the most important things you will do is you will arm a people who are under strong peer pressure from their school fellows to take drugs against that, will give them a good reason. they can turn around and say, i don't want to do that, i don't want to risk having a criminal record, i don't want to risk never being able to travel united states the rest of my life, i don't think it's worth it. puft purposes of a clearly set out legal prohibition against drugs is to strengthen people against that sort of pressure. i think in schools it would be enormously useful if we had a proper law, if we enforced it, if it was seen to be enforced. >> i agree a clear statement by the law by people who are responsible is the thing that makes the most difference to children. the think i found most difficult when my teenage sons were growing up is to find cannabis had been declassified and i had a son at one point telling me

it's not against the law. i said, well, it is against the law. i think parents need the support of the law in order to be very clear with their children and being very clear with your children is the most effective way to prevent them using drugs in the first place. and that is my own experience and it's been borne out by my own experience. absolute clarity about the law and the wrongness of doing this. and i think we've lost sight of that. we're very liberal, we're very casual. >> thank you very much. fy could ask miss brett, i said that you said said that heroin prevention has no place in the classroom. i wonder if you could explain to the committee what you meant by that and what you think about the comments we just heard. >> if you have somebody dependent you can reduce the

dose and get them off. you stand in front of the class, you've got 30 children there, 90-odd percent of them have no intention of taking drugs. the policy has been harm reduction for the last 10, 15 years, something like that. harm reduction assumes that children take drugs anyway, so we need to show them how to do it safely. we know there's no guaranteed safe way of taking any drug. the other phrase that keeps cropping up is informed choice. now, i hope we're able to explain they're not being properly informed at the moment. and hold on, we're giving them a choice to do an illegal act? we don't give them a choice to pilfer or spray graffiti or anything like that. and the choice in the guidelines is from age 7? now 7-year-olds have extremely immature brains, i don't need to tell you that. and the other thing about children choosing is they're

completely incapable. because the risk-taking part of the brain develops before the inhibit tore part of the brain, so that the children are most likely going to take this risk. and if you go in and give harm reduction advice to children on the assumption that they're going to take drugs anyway, which is rubbish, because 30% or 40% of children may try them, but the actual use of cannabis to 11 to 15 year olds is 4.4%, it's very, very low. so you shouldn't assume that they're going to take it. you give harm reduction advice, and on frank there is still harm reduction advice. in other words, this is the amount of mushrooms that people use, and ecstasy, drink water, sip it. that's all harm reduction advice. that sort of thing is a acts as green light for children. and i know instances where it's

happened. they've gone on to frank's website. they've looked up the advice. they've taken the advice. and in the case of cannabis it's been removed now. >> can i just check -- i think the statement about the legal bo position is obvious. mr. somers seems to suggest one of the problems of giving advice that young people might know not to be entirely accurate is that we can infer part of your message. do you have any sympathy with our view? >> with not giving advice? >> well, he suggests that if youngsters are told things about drugs that they know perfectly well are not entirely accurate, it may lead to them dismissing the entire message that you're trying to convey. i wonder tuesday you had any sympathy with that view. >> well, if drug education is done properly, i was a biology teacher and i taught 30 years.

and i know that if ju give them -- i've researched cannabis for years. i wrote a huge report, 2006, i keep it updated. i've really gone into this in a big way. if you talk to children and explain it in a scientific way but age-appropriate, obviously. because it was a boys' school they were interested in the scientific side anyway. and give them the truth. don't exaggerate, don't patronize, talk to them as equals, give them the scientific truth, they will not take drugs. people get children wrong. the vast majority of children have no intentions of taking drugs. what they want, actually, is good, accurate, really reliable information about drugs. so that they can say no to their peer group. some mentioned peer group earlier. kids want uses. i know this.

they used to tell me, give us more information. parents used to take information away with them so they could talk with their children. if you do it honestly, clearly, are willing to be challenged, have your evidence, then you're 90-odd percent there. >> thank you. >> thank you very much. >> mr. hitchens, is it your view that if there was a real hard-line policy, more hard-line than successive governments have perceived, they number of people taking drugs would substantially fall? >> yes, it is. i think it was the case. obviously the arrival of cannabis in this country after the second world war was a slow business. the number of convictions for cannabis possession in the whole united king done in 1945 was four. and in 1960, 235.

my mid '60s, a level of 1,000. it was since the 1971 misuse of drugs act, which was itself an implementation of lady baroness wooden's report, which was not a call for legalization but was in effect a decriminalization of cannabis particularly, the numbers have gone up immensely. 1972, before the act had begun to take full effect. now we're up to 160,000 arrests a year in england and wales alone, not including scotland. there has obviously been immense change. how much of that surge in change can you attribute to the hill change and the increasing unwillingness of the legal system and the police to arrest, prosecute, or punish for cannabis possession? i think they have to be linked. >> the figures do confirm more or less what you've been saying. the 2010-11 british crime survey

showed, for example, that some 2.2 million people were using cannabis 1 in 6 young people took cannabis. are you really saying to this committee that if there was a harder policy, a large number of those people would simply stop because they would be frightened of being convicted in court and go to prison? >> yes, but you must understand which has been a long, slow process of change which has been very gradual. the interesting thing about the '71 act is it contained various mechanisms including the acmd. to put its provisions under constant review and the penalties originally set out in 1971 have been substantially reduced again and again until the introduction without legislation of the cannabis warning after the brixton

experiment of the 1990s. there's been a long, slow conveyor belt down which the pebble tizz have been reduced and the police have found it as a result increasingly tiresome and time-wasting to bother enforcing the law which doesn't have any penalties. you couldn't immediately reintroduce the penalties of 1971 and expect revolutionary change. what you certainly shouldn't be thinking of doing is reducing those penalties still further and imagining by doing so you're not going to make anything better. during the time the pen tizz have been growing worse things are getting worse. to argue, and so many do, the simon jenkins tendency, to say over and over and over again that you -- we have a serious problem of overenforced prohibition, this is failing, therefore we must resort to total decriminalization. it's not logical because the facts don't support it. we have not been inhibiting cannabis and the class "a" drugs

during that time. >> what you're saying, correct me if i'm wrong, heaven forbid i should put words into your mouth. if there was a firmer policy by government, what would be the position in effect is a drug war what be what? >> i don't think you'd win it, trying to defeat human nature entirely are but you'd certainly have much less drug use in this country. your committee, traveling in sweden, the one european country which has not generally taken the position of harm reduction and decriminalization, either formal or informal. and has as a result lowered drug use, particularly of cannabis, than we do or any other major country. >> i doubt if there's anyone here on this committee, i doubt in the house of commons, who has any sympathy with drug-taking. i'd be surprised. be that as it may, what would be your response to the view that prohibition rarely works? and the example which was given time and again, whether it's one

which you would accept, is prohibition of alcohol in the states which collapsed totally. you would say there's no comparison between the two? >> you can certainly put those words into my mouth. there's an enormous difference, for instance, between. if you've got all day we can get into the problem of alcohol which i think in this country should be much more severely restricted. i think we should return to the 1915 licensing laws, myself, at the very least. but to prohibit a drug which has been in common use for hundreds or indeed thousands of years, where in the case of the united states, had never been illegal, and to try and introduce laws prohibiting it -- laws which i might add had exactly the same failure as our anti-drug laws, prosecuted, supply, and transport, but not possession. so to appeal to that and say that failed, therefore, any attempt to not so much prohibit but interdict and discourage the

use of drugs, so because of that one which are individual, specific failure in a culture very different to our own, we can never attempt ever again in the rest of the history of the human race to try and prevent the spread of unpolice sarcht, damaging, and dangerous drugs, just seems to me to be en, again, illegal and not evidence-based. one more question. heaven forbid i should put words into your mouth. it's another view which obviously i would assume you don't accept, namely for drug traders, those who -- archcriminals, among the worst kind of criminals who do their utmost to encourage people to take drugs. would they not be rather keen on a policy which governments have pursued, that if it was different, if it was legalized, decriminalized -- this is the argument, i'm not suggesting it's mine -- if it was decriminalized, the drug dealers

would be rather upset, to say the least? >> i don't believe so. for instance, alcohol and cigarettes are both legal in this country, yet both are either smuggled or produced illicitly by criminal gangs in this country. unless you made drugs free of charge, gave them away, there would still be plenty, and given the fact that a lot of the people who like to take drugs by the nature of the lives their lead are unable to afford them, the chances are there would always be an opportunity for criminal banks. also, it is -- >> far fewer? >> no, i don't think so. there's no reason to suppose so. but might well be the case is if you were to legalize or decriminal it's drugs entirely, that you will increase criminal activity rather than reduce it because of this precise problem. people who want to take drugs are often the kind of people who don't want to pay for them.

the methadone program and various adjuncts to that involve -- instead of drug-takers and abusers stealing from individuals, government steals from the taxpayer to fund the habit of the drug takers and we're told this is some kind of advance. >> thank you, we have to move on. >> if that's not organized crime, i don't know what is. >> thank you. a quick supplementary. >> turning to the area of education. i'd be interested to hear your views about alcohol and education. often alcohol is a drug that's most easily accessible to young people and often gives rise to the most obvious harm in communities in terms of social behavior. what role do you feel education has in terms of alcohol and drugs and the linkages there? >> alcohol and tobacco as i did on the drugs. very little time for anything like this. but i used to talk about alcohol

in the same way and explain exactly what it does to the brain, the body, everything. one thing that used to amaze the children when i talked, i did this in year nine, which is 13 to 14. a lot of them knew alcohol can actually kill them, the respiration muscles are suppressed, they can actually die. so you give -- again, you give them all the facts. the true, scientific facts, whatever. you throw in a few social things and so on. and i've just approached all -- the whole of health ed editiucan i was in charge of in a factual way, speaking of equals, not t patronizing, talking down on them. that has a huge effect on children. if they know exactly how alcohol or drugs is going to affect the body, then they're with you.