27 February 2008
The Prime Minister has launched a new ten-year drug strategy aimed at providing a "comprehensive approach to drug problems" at a Downing Street seminar this morning.
Joined by Home Secretary Jacqui Smith and a group of drugs treatment workers, the PM unveiled proposals such as giving police new powers to sieze the assets of drug dealers and plans to get drug-using families into treatment more quickly.
Writing later in the Evening Standard newspaper, the PM said that the Government was determined to tackle "the scourge of drugs" by targeting dealers and reforming the benefits system.
He said:
"This joined-up, tough new approach builds on the action we have taken over the past ten years which has seen drug-related crime fall by 20 per cent. It is based on the principle that with rights to state support comes responsibility: responsibility not just to look for work, not only to get the skills necessary to get into work, but now to rid yourself of drug addiction. And in return there will be targeted support to help you help yourself."
The new strategy, Drugs: protecting families and communities, will place a greater responsibility on drug-users who are on benefits to get treatment and return to work. The use of community sentences with a drug rehabilitation requirement will also be increased.
The strategy emphasises a number of key aims, including the cutting of drug-related crime, reducing the risk of drug use by young people and enabling a greater number of drug users to contribute to society. The PM said that the investment of almost £1 billion a year will be used to make changes "right across the board".
Investment in drug treatment has more than doubled the number of people receiving treatment to 195,000 in the last year and led to faster treatment services, while drug use is at an 11-year low and drug related crime has fallen by a fifth in the last five years.
Responding to MPs during today’s Prime Minister’s Questions, Mr Brown said that the issue of drug abuse was "still a major problem to deal with" throughout the country. The Home Office puts the health and crime-related cost of class A drug use in the UK at £15 billion a year.