Pubdate: Wed, 04 Jul 2001
Source: Guardian, The (UK)
Copyright: 2001 Guardian Newspapers Limited
Contact:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardian/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/175
Author: Owen Bowcott

EX-ENVOY TO COLOMBIA SAYS LEGALISE DRUGS

Britain's former ambassador to Colombia, who has witnessed at close 
quarters the spiralling cost of the war against cocaine and been at the 
heart of international initiatives to counter trafficking, yesterday called 
for legalisation of drugs.

Sir Keith Morris, who served in Bogota from 1990-94, argues in a Guardian 
article that the drugs war "is unwinnable, costly and counter-productive". 
He urges an end to prohibition and the establishment of a controlled, legal 
framework in which drug sales would be taxed for the common good.

The founder chairman of the British and Colombian chamber of commerce, he 
maintains contacts with Latin America, where governments have for years 
urged the west to help their drug-distorted economies by reducing the 
demand for illicit drugs.

He has also been privy to senior UK government thinking. While in Bogota he 
hosted visits from then home secretaries Kenneth Clarke and Michael Howard, 
and the then prime minister John Major.

Sir Keith's comments coincide with signs of a possible softening in 
official policy on drugs and a flurry of debate on the issue since the 
election. Last Sunday, Mo Mowlam, the former cabinet office minister who 
visited Colombia several times as the minister heading the war against 
drugs, urged decriminalisation of cannabis.

"This government believes in 'what works': drugs prohibition does not 
work," Sir Keith, 66 and now retired, said yesterday. "I'm encouraged that 
the government has started to relax the regime for cannabis.

"Now the principle of prohibition has in practice been abandoned, I hope 
the government will start a serious examination of the best way of 
controlling drug use within a legal framework. It will not be easy. Hard 
drugs users may have to register with GPs and get their drugs on prescription.

"Some soft drugs might be sold under a regime like that used for alcohol 
and tobacco and, as Mo Mowlam has proposed for cannabis, they would be 
tested for purity and taxed.

"The revenue would go to medical research and greatly improve education and 
treatment. There will be costs, probably, initially at least, greater use 
and addiction and problems quite unforeseen. But the benefits to life, 
health and liberty of drug users and the life, health and property of the 
whole population would be immense."

Sir Keith admits advocating legalisation has been personally difficult 
"because it means saying to those with whom I worked and to the relatives 
of those who died that this was an unnecessary war".

By coincidence, the police in Brixton, south London, chose this week to 
announce they will simply warn those caught in possession of small 
quantities of cannabis. In effect, they have turned their attention to more 
serious crimes.

In her column in the Sunday Mirror, Ms Mowlam wrote: "From my time of being 
concerned with the government's drug policy I have come to the conclusion 
that we must decriminalise cannabis. The trade needs to be legalised so it 
can be sensibly regulated.

"We could then have a tested product, which would be safer; outlets where 
other more dangerous drugs were not also available and it could be taxed." 
Any income, she suggested, would pay for improved treatment of addicts.

Since Ms Mowlam retired from parliament at the election, responsibility for 
government drug strategies has passed from the cabinet office to the Home 
Office.

Arguments for legalisation have more commonly come from the libertarian 
wing of the Conservative party. Last year, for example, the former Tory 
treasury minister, Philip Oppenheim, similarly warned "criminalising drugs 
hands massive profits to organised crime". Drugs are dangerous, he 
conceded, but "legalisation looks like the lesser evil".
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom