IS BRITAIN'S drugs law out of date?

Certainly, it is a question that needs to be thoroughly examined as the very explosion of drugs abuse and all the associated death, misery and crime dispute the ability of the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act to contain what is now the country's gravest social problem.

But however wide-ranging, the study announced today by the independent research charity, the Police Foundation, into the effectiveness of the Act, the issue of the law's potency must inevitably fall upon two choices.

They are whether it should be toughened or relaxed.

True, the foundation's chairman, Viscountess Runciman, has, at the outset of this two-year inquiry, declared that its purpose is not to pave the way for the gradual decriminalisation of drugs, but, however objective its aim, it cannot ignore that consideration, nor escape the pressures of the liberal lobby pursuing that goal.

For that reason, even in the light of the evident necessity of a dispassionate and all-embracing review of the law's effectiveness, this study is bound to be regarded by many as a device for putting the decriminalisation case, no matter how balanced it may be by the opposite view. There are suspicions that there is an unwritten brief to have the law relaxed to accommodate a youth culture that is much more pro-drugs than when the law was enacted a generation ago.

Legislation must remain the major weapon against drugs. But it is not the only one.

And rather then having the narrow focus of examining the current law's effectiveness, this or any other inquiry ought to have the wider scope of looking at other methods of solving the problem.

To us, this would include not just increased policing and deterrent punishments to address the supply side, but thorough examination of education and rehabilitation schemes to diminish the demand for drugs.

And it would usefully involve study of community efforts to defeat an immense evil, rather than even considering surrendering to it.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.