§ 12. Mr. Ken Purchase (Wolverhampton, North-East)What proportion of people arrested by the police are addicted to heroin and other opiates. [48406]
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. George Howarth)The information that my hon. Friend seeks is not centrally available. However, a recent Home Office study on drug misuse by samples of people arrested in five cities showed that 18 per cent. tested positive for opiates; 11 per cent. admitted dependency on heroin; and a further six per cent. admitted dependency on methadone.
§ Mr. PurchaseThose are alarming figures, despite the fact that they are not as highly refined as the Minister 13 would like them to be. Will he undertake to oppose the legalisation of heroin and other opiates, not least because that might encourage international profit-seeking pharmaceutical companies to divert production into ever more expensive, highly addictive designer drugs, and those with personality disorders may be pushed into crime in order to afford the ever escalating cost of their fixes?
§ Mr. HowarthI agree entirely with my hon. Friend. The only certain result of legalising—or, rather, decriminalising—currently illegal drugs is that more people would use them. My hon. Friend is right to say that the companies that manufacture such drugs would inevitably spend large sums in aggressively marketing them and targeting a younger audience.
My hon. Friend is also right about so-called "designer drugs". I wish to make a simple point with which the whole House will agree: young people should not be deceived into believing that something labelled a designer drug is safe. All the evidence is that the results of individual cases are totally unpredictable. We have seen far too many examples of young people believing that it is safe to take one designer drug or another, sometimes with tragic consequences. No drug is safe. The only safe way to proceed is not to take drugs.
§ Mr. Humfrey Malins (Woking)Does the Minister accept that at least 50 per cent. of those who appear in court charged with domestic burglary are drug addicts who burgle to feed their habit? Does not that figure show that it is a critical problem in our criminal justice system, which is why it is important to ensure that firm treatment is available to deal with those people, particularly in prison? Will he couple that with his aim to make prisons drug-free zones?
§ Mr. HowarthThe hon. Gentleman raised his latter point ingeniously on the back of the question, but it is a fair point. The statistics that he quoted—court figures, showing that about 55 per cent. of those convicted of certain types of offences had committed the offence in circumstances that were drug-related—broadly bear out the Home Office research I mentioned, which shows that about two thirds of arrestees for acquisitive crimes are found to have been involved in drugs.
The links between drugs and, especially, acquisitive crime are now so firm that no one can doubt them. It is important that we act as decisively as possible; that is why, in the Crime and Disorder Bill, we are giving the courts the option of making a drug testing and treatment order. That will not be a soft option, but it will give courts the ability to catch those cases and, in suitable instances, to say to the offender, "You need treatment, but we shall not let you pretend that that is happening when it is not, so there will need to be proper testing to ensure that the treatment is going ahead." That is a good step forward, which has widespread support. I believe that it shows how determined we are to tackle that serious problem.