Murnaghan 29.06.14 Interview with Sir Richard Branson on the war on drugs

ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOTT MURNAGHAN: Strong words, the war on drugs has failed and we need a new strategy.  That’s the claim made by a group of celebrities and cultural figures who wrote to the Prime Minister this week. They also called for drugs possession to be decriminalised and one of those names was the businessman, Sir Richard Branson.  He joins us now via Skype from the British Virgin Islands and a very good morning to you Sir Richard, I know it is early morning there, thank you for getting up so early to talk to us and I noticed you are getting in a bit of an early morning coffee in there.   

SIR RICHARD BRANSON: It’s tea actually!  Yes, I’ve been part of the so-called Drugs Commission which was set up by fifteen ex-presidents from various different countries around the world and I’m the nominal entrepreneurial businessman on the Commission and we spent the last two years looking at the war on drugs, doing a lot of in depth studies on it on a global basis and a regional basis and it is obvious from those reports that the war has failed.  It hasn’t decreased the number of people who are taking drugs, in fact the numbers are increasing and the number of casualties from people taking drugs has increased as well .  What the Commission has done is look at countries that have a different approach such as Portugal where they treat drugs as a health problem, not a criminal problem and they found that it worked there and they are managing to get on top of the problem.  So the Commission is urging countries around the world to treat drugs as a health problem in the future and not as a criminal problem and they believe that if you do that you’ll start to reduce the use of hard drugs and treat people with dignity.

DM: Sir Richard, in the letter you have got liberal use of prohibition and prohibitionist and that of course conjures up those images from the 1920s in America, 1920 to 1933 and the calamitous attempts to crack down on alcohol use.  Do you draw parallels?  Do you think it is equally or even more calamitous, this war on drugs?

SIR RICHARD BRANSON: Yes, I think the two things can be very much compared except that the war on drugs has continued for 60 years whereas the war on alcohol only took place for 15 years.  The war on drugs costs every single year about 360 billion, it’s going into the underworld’s hands as a result of the current policy.  In Britain you’ve got six black people to every one white person is actually searched on the streets by police looking for cannabis and in fact black people take less drugs than white people so it has become an element of a racial issue.  Then you’ve just got enormous amounts of people who are languishing in prisons all over the world who would be far better off if they actually had a drug problem at all to be in a drug clinic and it would actually cost the state about a third of the price that it does to put people in prison.

DM: But how do you address the whole issue of increased availability and maybe even affordability.  It is your contention that in some cases drug use might go down?

SIR RICHARD BRANSON: Yes, I mean let’s just take the hardest drug of all in Portugal, heroin.  They had an enormous problem twelve years ago and the government said look, we won’t send anyone to prison who is taking heroin ever again, in fact we’ll set up places around Portugal where people can come to get their fix, we’ll give them clean needles and when they come they will see a social worker and as soon as they are ready the state will help find clinics to get them off it.  Over the last twelve years they have reduced the use of heroin by something like 70%, breaking and entering in Portugal has disappeared because people no longer need to break and enter to get their drug fix because the state is supplying the drug.  Society has benefitted enormously, those individuals who had a problem are now useful members of society and back working in society and paying taxes again and it’s been a win-win all round.  Actually as important in this day and age, since you’ve just had Elton John on, obviously the gay community and the drug community in particular you’ve got HIV problems, with clean needles you are not going to be having people picking up HIV so it really does make much more sense for the drug problem to be treated as a health problem, where people who have a problem can come and talk about it rather than being criminalised. 

DM: You have got this thought out and cogent argument, I want to ask you about the reception you get for it.  Perhaps you’ve found this, I’ve found it as well, that when you talk about the war on drugs with politicians, some of whom will have admitted to taking soft drugs in the past, they say to you off the record yes, a lot of the points you are making are very, very true.  Senior police officers are much the same but if you try and have it in the open they clamp down, they say no, no, no, we couldn’t possibly decriminalise them.

SIR RICHARD BRANSON: You are absolutely right and if you look at people who are in the opposition parties, including David Cameron and other MPs, they wills actually that the war has failed and there needs to be a change of approach but when they get into power they seem to forget about what they said when they were in opposition.  If you talk to pretty much any individual MP they know that drugs should be treated as a health problem and not a criminal problem and there are very, very few that hand on heart believe otherwise yet they just don’t have the courage to do something about it.  There are signs around the world that things are changing – in Germany, in Switzerland, in Portugal, in various states in America and some countries in South America.  So I think things are changing but it would be really good if a country like Great Britain could be bold or at the very least just come out with a statement saying we’ll treat drugs as a health problem and not a criminal problem. They don’t have to legalise marijuana although the Drugs Commission, most members feel that as far as marijuana is concerned it actually makes sense to regulate and tax it but at the very least they should come out and just say let’s treat all drugs as a health problem so that people can come forward who’ve got a problem and be helped.    

DM: Sir Richard, very good to talk to you and very good to see you there drinking your English breakfast tea I hope there at very early hour in the morning there in the British Virgin Islands.  Sir Richard Branson there on his proposals that the war on drugs should end and that the possession of drugs should be treated very differently.