Report shows drug strategy ‘lack of evidence’

31 January 2010
A Home Office report on value for money in drug strategy spending demonstrates the lack of evidence behind the strategy, according to Transform.

The report, which was produced before the Home Office’s public consultation on the ten-year drug strategy in 2007 (DDN, 30 July 2007, page 4), took two years for Transform to obtain under the Freedom of Information Act. Keeping the report out of the public domain was ‘purely political’ says Transform, as it provides a ‘stark contrast to the absurd rose-tinted picture painted by the 2007 consultation document’. The Drugs value for money review: July 2007, it says, demonstrates the lack of meaningful evaluation behind the existing strategy and shows that most of its associated costs – £2bn out of a total of £3bn in 2005/06 – are related to law enforcement.

The report, which is stamped ‘this is not a statement of government policy’, says ‘Policies to reduce the availability of drugs produced the greatest analytical challenge. The absence of robust and recognised measures of success, combined with a limited base of research evidence makes it particularly difficult to draw conclusions about supply side policies.’ ‘The withholding of this report demonstrates yet again how the government is committed to the rhetoric and fantasy of success of the current strategy, whilst doing its damnedest to keep the truth out of sight of the public,’ said Transform’s head of policy and communications Danny Kushlick. ‘Ultimately we are being duped into supporting a policy that is demonstrably failing to deliver anything even approximating to value for money.’ Drugs value for money review: July 2007 available here


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