In Parliament

10 Year Drug Strategy Welcomed 16 April 2008

Jessica hails New 10 Year Drug Strategy

Labour has announced its new 10 year strategy on cutting drug related crime and disorder. The strategy, entitled Drugs: protecting families and communities' is clear with in its intent: help fewer people to start taking drugs, ensure we have communities free of drug related crime and  increase the pressure on drug dealers.

A number of key measures will help to ensure we can achieve these bold aims;

• Extending police powers to seize the assets on arrest rather than on conviction. This will mean more money being put back into the community.
• Widening in the kind of assets liable for asset recovery and a removal of the twelve year limit in which proceedings must be taken.
• Asset seizure agreements with key countries so dealers can't travel abroad.
• Expanding work with other countries to prevent drugs reaching the UK.
• Ensured tough sanctions for drug dealers importing and supplying.
• Great efforts to identify the drug-misusing offenders which cause most harm to the communities.
• Improved prison treatment programmes with increased community sentences.
• The police will be encouraged to make full use of crack house closure powers as well as powers to close cannabis factories to bring respite to communities.

Jessica Morden MP said "I am very pleased with these new proposals. It is important that we up the ante on drug dealers and plough any assets they gained from drugs into the community; this will show that drug crime does not pay."

Jessica continued "It is vital that our communities see tougher action on criminals who do so much to destroy their areas. The dual action on drug dealers themselves and making our communities safer will be highly effective: tackling the source, helping the victims".