Nick Clegg is to speak at a conference next month set up to discuss alternatives to Britain’s failing drug laws and influence the international debate on drugs.
The provisional programme for the conference, which is to be hosted by the UK parliament’s Commons home affairs committee, includes officials from Mexico’s foreign ministry, legalisation campaigners such as Danny Kushlick of Transform, and health experts such as Professor David Nutt.
The conference will also form part of preparations for the UN general assembly special session on the world drug problem to be held in 2016.
Clegg’s speech is expected to provide the deputy prime minister and Liberal Democrat leader with an opportunity to renew his party’s commitment to radical reform of the drug laws as the election campaign intensifies.
The conference, which is to be held in Cambridge on 12 March, follows a report from the home affairs select committee two years ago, which called for a Royal Commission to consider all the alternatives to the current drug laws and argued for a fundamental review of all UK drug policy.
It also follows the Commons vote backing a call from the Green MP, Caroline Lucas, for an impact assessment of current laws and of the cost-benefits of the alternatives.
The conference is also expected to build on the Home Office international study published last year by the Lib Dem minister, Norman Baker, which showed there is no direct correlation between the severity of a country’s drug laws and levels of illicit drug use. The report triggered Baker’s resignation as a minister, after he criticised the Conservative home secretary, Theresa May, for holding back the findings for three months.
The conference programme includes a range of speakers covering a global approach to drugs, health and social harms, and experts on the crime and policing aspects of the problem. They include Andy Bliss, a chief constable and the Association of Chief Police Officers’ national lead on drugs, and Tony Lloyd, the former Cambridgeshire chief constable, who has publicly said that 40 years of drugs prohibition has failed.
They also include Neil McKeganey of the Centre for Drug Misuse Research, who has called for tougher action against legal highs, Molly Meacher, chair of the all-party group for drug policy reform, and Mike Shiner, who co-authored a Release report on the policing of drug offences.
The stated aim of the conference is to “consider how the government could reduce the various types of harm that are done by the consumption of drugs to users, to the society in which they live, and at the global level”.
The organisers hope to provide an opportunity to influence the British government’s approach to the UN special assembly next year as well as developing ideas for domestic policy.
Julian Huppert, the Lib Dem MP for Cambridge and amember of the home affairs committee, said its last drug report recommended that there should be a national study on the future of drug policy and this had been endorsed by May.
He said that as part of the contribution to that debate it was important to hear from a range of speakers, including those who had been long-term campaigners for alternative approaches.
