Britain's prehistoric attitude to drugs isn't working. Why not learn from Texas? | Simon Jenkins

WWhat can a German do but a Brit cannot? What can a New Yorker, a Chicagoan and a San Francisco resident do but a Londoner cannot? What can Canadians, Dutch, Portuguese, Chileans, Uruguayans and Maltese do? The answer is that they can legally smoke cannabis. There are now courses for cannabis sommeliers in California. In Britain they would be thrown in prison.

Half a century ago, the British were proud to be at the forefront of social progress. In areas such as health care, sexuality, abortion, crime and punishment, they viewed their country as ahead of its time. Now it limps nervously in the back.

I do not take any illegal drugs and am not addicted to nicotine, alcohol or fatty foods. Having served on two drug-related committees, I believe that addictive substances can cause varying degrees of harm to their users and, through them, to others. After half a century of the “war” on drugs, if prohibition had solved or even reduced this harm, then I could see the case for prohibition. It doesn't have that.

Around a third of adults in England and Wales under the age of 60 have tried cannabis. Almost 8% use it occasionally and 2% use it regularly. Significantly fewer people use hard drugs. But almost one in five inmates of English and Welsh prisons is estimated to be incarcerated for a drugs offence. Half of all homicides are drug-related. In many prisons, more than half of the inmates regularly use drugs. For the sake of peace, the authorities turn a blind eye.

Successive interior ministers are afraid to even discuss the issue. Tony Blair delegated drugs – like much of his politics – to the Daily Mail and the Sun. While other countries explored, experimented and tested innovations, Britain simply shut down the debate. When the government's chief drugs adviser, Prof David Nutt, assessed the relative harm of different narcotics in 2009, he was sacked.

Half of Brits are willing to legalize cannabis, while only a third want it to remain explicitly illegal. The Liberal Democrats voted for decriminalization in the election and saw 72 MPs returned. But Labor dared not say a word on the issue. Five years ago, David Lammy, now foreign minister, visited Canada and spoke out strongly in favor of legalization. We understand why Keir Starmer wouldn't let him near the Home Office. Starmer’s approach to prison reform appears to be to “build more prisons”.

If Britain were to pursue drug reform, it would benefit from being a late starter and being able to learn from others. When the state of Texas, which still imposes the death penalty, faced prison overcrowding similar to Britain's, the response was to outsource drug crimes to special courts and mandate treatment and rehabilitation. Recidivism rates fell by 30%, while the prison population fell by 15% since the system was introduced in 2007.

According to reports, Attorney General Shabana Mahmood will embark on an expedition to Texas to find out if this is really true. She travels with the atmosphere of Livingstone and explores the unknown Zambezi. Is Whitehall really that ignorant about reforms elsewhere in the world? I hope it also sends Mahmood to Norway, which is centuries ahead of Britain.

Nearly half of U.S. states have now legalized cannabis for recreational use, including most of the country's largest cities. But there is no question that many are now thinking about their regulatory methods. In 2020, the most progressive country, Oregon, also decriminalized possession of small amounts of hard drugs. But as chemical narcotics like fentanyl became more harmful and harder to control, deaths skyrocketed and social problems worsened in inner cities. Earlier this year, Oregon returned to criminalization.

Another liberal state, Colorado, has a decade of experience with cannabis and its taxes have increased the state's revenue by $2.3 billion since 2014. Drug abuse has not decreased, although drug tourism distorts the numbers. Still, Colorado, like most legalization states, believes it needs to update its regulations. Likewise, the legalization of cannabis in New York in 2021 has led to chaotic licensing and an outbreak of illegal outlets. According to reports, there are more cannabis stores than Starbucks stores there.

Other countries are also thinking about their reforms. In British Columbia, Canada, a heroin epidemic has been replaced by a fentanyl epidemic. The drug is so cheap that it pushes traditional illegal drugs like heroin and cocaine into the background. In the Netherlands, Amsterdam is increasingly averse to drug tourism. Even Germany's tentative reform steps involved bureaucracy over when and where it was allowed – for example, not in beer gardens. However, none of these places have returned to such prehistoric politics as Britain. Texas lawmakers are making no effort to audit Wandsworth Prison. British prisons are the country's largest drug dens.

People often harm themselves. They also harm themselves through alcohol, nicotine and food. We address these with tolerance, advice and regulation. When it comes to drugs, Britain sees incarceration as a solution. It is primitive, expensive and cruel. The task of the new government should now be to learn from others who have had the courage to try harder.