When asked how best to proceed with regard to the drug problem, Mark Kleiman (2008) said that there were things that we could do about drug policy that would reduce the numbers in prison, and the extent of drug abuse and drug-related crime, but legalisation was not one of them. Why? Because, he said, there was no public support for it, and anyway he thought that the legalisation debate was a distraction from doing the real work of fixing the drug problem. Distraction or not, for some it is an immediate and pressing matter. They see legalisation as the way out of a policy failure, the more optimistic believing that it is only a matter of time before the government realises its error. These include Richard Brunstrom, Chief Constable of North Wales, who said on a BBC News programme (1 January 2008) that it was inevitable that drugs would be legalised in the next 10 years. He acknowledged that his views were not popular, and indeed senior figures elsewhere endorsed that, saying that there was no inevitability about legalisation, but he firmly believed that public attitudes were changing.

He is not alone. Julian Critchley, a former senior civil servant who was responsible for coordinating the government’s anti-drugs policy, now says that legalisation would be less harmful than the current strategy and that his views are shared by the ‘overwhelming majority’ of professionals in the field, including police officers, health workers and members of the government (The Guardian, 13 August 2008). But how realistic are such hopes when faced with stern refusals from the government to change policy? Governments can of course change their minds, and sometimes do, but the point is forcibly made by the present government that it has no wish to alter course. Why? Because it says that the current system works: ‘The fact that drugs are illegal deters people from misuse and limits experimentation. The Law also provides opportunities through the Criminal Justice System to identify and engage drug-using offenders in treatment’ (House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee, 2002a). In this it finds support from some international organisations.