UK fight against drugs a `failure'

British attempts to persuade thousands of young people to stay away from drugs have failed and done nothing to curb the soaring popularity of illegal substances, a devastating report will warn this week.

The number of young people using cocaine and cannabis has increased rapidly over the past 20 years despite high-profile campaigns, such as the ?9 million (US$17.8 million) "Frank" initiative aimed at 11 to 15-year-olds, an in-depth examination of official efforts to tackle Britain's chronic drug problem showed.

It is also expected to find that Britain's "unusually severe drug problem compared with that of our European neighbors" is linked to social and economic deprivation, that punitive laws have had little effect, and that police efforts to disrupt drugs trade have failed.

The report will be launched on Wednesday by the new UK Drugs Policy Commission. Its members include distinguished figures from the worlds of health, policing, drugs research and academia. They include David Blakey, a former president of the Association of Chief Police Officers, Annette Dale-Perera of the tax-funded National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse, and Colin Blakemore, chief executive of the Medical Research Council.

The study, An Analysis of UK Drugs Policy, has been written by two internationally respected experts, Peter Reuter of Maryland University in the US and Alex Stevens, a senior researcher at the European Institute of Social Services at Kent University.

Their are a scathing indictment of decades of education, prevention and awareness-raising campaigns intended to warn youngsters about the perils of narcotics. The three main strategies into which successive governments have ploughed tens of millions of pounds -- mass media campaigns such as "heroin screws you up" in the 1980s, initiatives in schools aimed at pupils as young as seven, and targeting of vulnerable groups -- have made little or no difference, it says.

"Prevention is cited as the main policy area aiming to reduce drug initiation and continued use. The policy is predicated on the assumption that prevention efforts reduce drug use, but there is as yet no clear evidence showing that prevention has had this effect in the UK," the authors conclude.

The National Institute of Clinical Excellence recently drew similar conclusions about the usefulness of drugs prevention campaigns.

"It now seems that what might be termed `recreational' drug use has become firmly established as an experience that many young people will go through" because consumption of illicit substances is now so common in their age group, the document says.

Failure deter drug use has contributed to Britain developing the most chronic drug problem in Western Europe, the report says.

The report cites an array of official statistics charting the steady growth in Britain's drugs culture. For example, according to the 2005 British Crime Survey, 40.4 percent of 16 to 19-year-olds have used drugs at some point in their lifetime, as have 49 percent of 20 to 24-year-olds, 51.6 percent of 25 to 29-year-olds and 45.8 percent of 30 to 34-year-olds.

Cannabis by young people remains around 50 percent and the consumption of cocaine has increased.

The Home Office rejected the new body's findings on Saturday night.

"The British Crime Survey shows that drug use has fallen by 16 percent since 1998 and drug use among adults has fallen by 21 percent. We are determined to build on this progress by continuing to take more drugs off our streets, put more dealers behind bars and make sure young people are informed about the harms drugs cause," a spokesman said.

Danny Kushlick, director of the pro-legalization Transform Drugs Policy Foundation, said the new study backed his views.

"Misuse of drugs is related significantly to social ill-being and social deprivation. You cannot deal with that stuff with education and prevention or through teaching younger and younger children. You deal with it by redistributing wealth and improving wellbeing," he said.