What Theresa May didn't want you to see - Norman Baker reveals all on drugs report

Norman Baker has revealed that the report into effective ways of tackling drugs policy commissioned by Liberal Democrats in Governemnt had some of its conclusions removed by Theresa May, presumably for fear of upsetting the Daily Mail.

From the Guardian:

He said that drugs policy should be based "on evidence, not dogma" and that, although the Conservatives were opposed to liberalisation, they were losing the argument on the issue.

Under pressure from the Lib Dems, the Home Office commissioned a report looking at the international evidence on the impact of legislation on drug use. Theresa May, the home secretary, made no secret of the fact that she had no enthusiasm for the project, and when it was published in October, with Baker taking the lead in publicising it, Conservative ministers signalled that they would ignore it.

And those policy recommendations were:

But Baker revealed on Friday that the original draft had contained policy recommendations that, on May's orders, had been removed prior to publication.

He highlighted three key recommendations proposed in the original draft:

• Promoting the use of cannabis-based medicines, by removing the barrier to their development and allowing them to be prescribed for a range of conditions.

• Piloting a system used in Portugal, where drug use has been decriminalised, which involves "dissuasion commissions" assessing drug users and diverting them from the criminal justice system and into treatment.

• Encouraging more long-term heroin addicts to seek treatment involving clinically supervised diamorphine injections.

Baker - who resigned as a minister shortly after the report was published, saying he could no longer work with May - said the government now, finally, had evidence showing "what works" in relation to drug addiction, but that the Tories were ignoring it.

"The truth is Britain's drugs policies need radical reform," he said. "The mask has slipped - treating users and addicts as criminals instead of people who need treatment has failed. The Tories can deny reality if they like, but the tide is turning on this issue. I believe drugs reform is just a matter of time."

The snippy response of the Conservative press officer is brilliant in its irony.

Theresa May might try to ignore the evidence. The inescapable fact is that the evidence would not be there in the Home Office without the insistence of the Liberal Democrats. There's a long way to go to get a more sensible drugs policy implemented, but no Home Secretary can ever say "but nobody told us". Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats made sure of that.