Prince William talks with volunteer Bernard Bristow during his visit to the Spitalfields Crypt Trust. Photograph: David Rose/AFP/Getty Images
The debate around the legalisation of drugs has been raging for decades with everyone from rock stars to the British Medical Journal wading in. Now a member of the royal family has joined the discussion.
But it was neither Prince Harry, famous for being a bit of a hellraiser, nor his notoriously outspoken father Prince Charles who brought the subject up but the normally reserved William who asked former addicts the “massive question” – should the ban on drugs be lifted?
The Duke of Cambridge spoke about the subject while on a visit to drug addiction charity the Spitalfields Crypt Trust in east London.
William asked three people who have been helped by the charity their opinions on whether drugs should be legalised.
He did not give his personal opinion but told the trio it was a “question I had to ask”.
Sitting in the trust’s art room, the duke said: “Can I ask you a very massive question? It’s a big one, there’s obviously a lot of pressure growing in areas about legalising drugs and things like that: what are your individual opinions on that?
“I know it’s a big question, but you seem like the key people to actually get a very good idea as to, you know, what are the big dangers there. What are the feelings?”
Heather Blackburn said she thought the legalisation of drugs was a good idea and that money was wasted on “drug laws”.
She added: “Most of the people I’ve known in recovery, 95% had massive trauma and terrible stuff happen to them and using drugs to cope and then you get put in prison, you don’t get the facilities and the actual help you need, you get punished … which is not going to help anyone taking drugs, it’s going to do even more harm, I think.”
She added that there should be more help, such as psychiatry, so people could turn their lives around earlier.
The duke then asked whether prison tackles the root cause of why someone is taking drugs, to which Blackburn replied: “No, it just punishes what you’ve done, not the reasons why.”
Recovering alcoholic Grace Gunn, 19, who is training to become a midwife, told the future king: “You can’t just say, you know, ‘drugs are illegal’ or ‘now we can all go and do drugs’, because it doesn’t stop the fact we’re a nation of people hurting, and we can’t undo all that overnight. It takes a long period of time.”
Jason Malham, a 45-year-old recovering heroin addict originally from Melbourne in Australia, said: “Personally, I believe that they should not be made legal.”
At the end of the discussion the duke thanked the group for giving him a “very useful little snapshot”, adding: “Talking to you and being here it feels like a question I had to ask, I appreciate your honesty.”
As he said his goodbyes William, in a jokey reference to the birth of his third childexpected next spring, told Gunn: “All the best with the midwifery – might see you sooner than you think.”
William’s question to the recovering addicts was welcomed by Danny Kushlick, head of external affairs at Transform, a charitable thinktank that campaigns for the legal regulation of drugs in the UK and internationally.
Kushlick said: “The protocol in the [Westminster] village is ‘we don’t talk about drugs’. That’s why we appreciate the courage and foresight of Prince William to be stepping into the debate where even seasoned politicians won’t go.”
The government’s drug policy is not likely to change in the foreseeable future. In its drug strategy, published in July it said: “We have no intention of decriminalising drugs. Drugs are illegal because scientific and medical analysis has shown they are harmful to human health.
“Drug misuse is also associated with much wider societal harms including family breakdown, poverty, crime and anti-social behaviour. We are aware of decriminalisation approaches being taken overseas, but it is overly simplistic to say that decriminalisation works.”
[“Source-theguardian”]