Drug prevention: Now is the time for change
Recently, a report on drug prevention was published by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD). Many of you know that I have been calling for more resources, understanding and priority status to be given to drug prevention, a vital component in our fight against illegal drugs and the criminality which accompanies it. Unless we are direct and honest with our young people about the detrimental impact illegal drugs and other harmful substances can have not just on their lives now but in the future, then we’re already fighting a losing battle. That’s why I welcome this report which supports the key issues I have been raising about the need for effective prevention.
In it, the ACMD review the efficacy of long-term drug prevention for young people (11-24 year-olds), concluding that it does work and not only benefits the target group, but also wider society. Importantly, it also addresses the key issue I have repeatedly raised, that there is no allocation of dedicated funding and therefore no national co-ordinated prevention system. As I have previously stated, when it comes to tackling illegal drugs, prevention is the orphan at the feast and that must change.
In Dorset, due to the lack of any national programme on drug prevention, I have helped to fund a number of educational inputs through different organisations, one of which being in collaboration with The Talkabout Trust, which supports young people to make safer choices around alcohol, nicotine, vaping and illegal drugs. Following a successful trial last year, the programme has been extended to schools across the county and is going some way to fill the vacuum, providing meaningful and effective prevention education. I firmly believe it is crucial all children in Dorset are given the same messages to prevent any young person slipping through the net, so it is pleasing – and vital – that this material is being distributed to our young people. Learn more about some of the other projects below.
However, we need co-ordination from a national level for local implementation and importantly we need funding. If we’re able to turn just a handful of young people away from the dangers these substances cause, then we’re preventing serious problems down the line, problems which ruin lives and cost money whether in terms of treatment or the wider impact on society. The report explicitly mentions the cost-effective nature of prevention due to the high cost of illegal drugs use to society. This ranges from costs to policing, the criminal justice system, drug treatment, treatment of infectious diseases linked to drug use and child and adult social care, not to mention the health harms both physical and mental these dangerous and illicit substances can cause.
Another reason prevention is so vital is the link between illegal drugs and violent crime. We know illegal drugs are linked to offences from violent crime to anti-social behaviour, theft, shoplifting and vehicle crime, and I believe that if we were to have an effective prevention programme, it could – and should – have an impact on the prevalence of these crimes as well.
I have always said that the issue of drugs is not one for policing alone – it needs true, robust, skilled partnership work backed up by national investment. This is now supported by this report, which advocates a whole-system approach to drug prevention. In Dorset, through the Dorset and BCP Combating Drugs Partnership we are working with a range of partners including both local authorities, Dorset Police and SW Regional Organised Crime Unit, prisons, probation services, Public Health Dorset, NHS Dorset, Dorset Healthcare, drug and alcohol treatment providers, people with lived experience and Dorset Combined Youth Justice Service. This partnership was created in response to the national 10-year Harm to Hope drugs strategy, and has three main ambitions - break supply chains, deliver a world class treatment and recovery system and achieve a generational shift in the demand for drugs. So much of this report supports and correlates to the work we are doing to improve the picture in Dorset that I would urge the Government to take these recommendations seriously and get to work. Without this, both treatment and enforcement – two out of the three fundamental elements for effectively tackling drugs – will always be less impactful. It is time to return to what we know works – and has proven to work in the past - and steer our young people away from a path which many will not recover from. I call on the Government to look at this with some urgency; we’re doing the work in Dorset, now it’s time for national action.
David Sidwick
Dorset Police and Crime Commissioner