Conservatives accused of suppressing report calling UK drug laws ineffective

A groundbreaking Home Office report which concluded that tougher enforcement of drug laws does not lead to lower levels of drug use was “suppressed” by the Conservatives, a Liberal Democrat minister has said.

Norman Baker, the Liberal Democrat Home Office drugs minister, said the report, published on Thursday, had been suppressed not by the home secretary, Theresa May, but by the Conservatives.

In support, Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg said there had been a lot of “foot dragging” over the publication of the report but urged the Tories to “have the courage just for once to break some of the taboos about Britain’s ineffective drug laws”.

The deputy prime minister accused Downing Street of being frightened to open its eyes to the way in which Britain’s drugs laws leads to 2,000 deaths a year while “the pushers, the Mr Bigs and the criminal gangs get richer and richer”.

The government’s first evidence-based survey examined international drug laws and said there was no evidence that tough enforcement of laws on personal possession led to lower levels of drug use. The Home Office document brings to an end 40 years of almost unbroken official political rhetoric that only harsher penalties can tackle the problem caused by the likes of heroin, cocaine or cannabis.

The report was signed off by May and Baker and was published on Thursday alongside an official expert report calling for a general ban on the sale and trade in legal highs, although Baker has said it had been ready for publication since July.

The Lib Dem Home Office minister said: “The reality is that this report has been sitting around for several months. I’ve been trying to get it out and I’m afraid that I believe that my coalition colleagues who commissioned the report jointly don’t like the independent conclusions it’s reached.

“It was suppressed, not by Theresa May, it was suppressed by the Conservatives and the reality is that it has got some inconvenient truths in it.”