§ Mr. FlynnTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what assessment he has made of claims in the Police Foundation's report on the results of cannabis decriminalisation in the Netherlands. [120448]
§ Mr. Charles ClarkeThe committee of inquiry set up by the Police Foundation has produced a thorough report with a large number of recommendations and the Government will give it careful attention. However, the Government have made it clear that they do not support the Inquiry's recommendations on the re-classification or depenalisation of cannabis.
The Government have a clear and consistent view about the damage which drugs can cause to individuals, their families and the wider community, the link between drugs and crime—and the corresponding need to maintain firm controls. The Government are opposed to any lessening of controls on currently illicit drugs but favour a wide-ranging approach—we see a need for a balance of policies involving supply reduction, demand reduction and harm reduction.
The Police Foundation's report acknowledges that there are significant contradictions between Dutch drugs policy—under which small-scale possession and supply of cannabis remains illegal but the laws are not enforced—and international agreements. The Preamble to the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs 1961, states that effective measures against abuse of narcotic drugs require co-ordinated and universal action and that such action calls for international co-operation guided by the same principles and aimed at common objectives. The Government support these principles and have no intention of breaching their obligations under the 1961 United Nations drugs convention which commit the international community to working together against the illicit drug trade. It naturally follows from this that the Government also have no intention of allowing for the systematic non-enforcement of the law.