Government drugs policy 'doomed to failure', says think-tank

The coalition government's proposals for treating drug addicts are 'doomed to failure', a think-tank has said.

The Centre for Policy Studies (CPS) says that, despite being well-intentioned, plans to introduce Payment by Results trials are unlikely to succeed.

Under the proposals, treatment providers who succeed in improving the health and employment prospects of patients would be rewarded.

But Kathy Gyngell, leading drugs analyst at the CPS, says the Payment by Results scheme will only work if rehabilitation is based on abstinence.


She also claims that the measure of success should be six months of abstinence from all drugs and alcohol.

Ms Gyngell also calculates that the current annual cost of maintaining treatment and paying benefits to problem drug users in England is £3.6 billion.

A spokesman for the Department of Health said that the government's 2010 drug strategy was 'fundamentally different' from previous ones.

'Instead of focusing primarily on reducing the harms caused by drug misuse, our approach will be to go much further and offer every support for people to choose recovery as an achievable way out of dependence,' he added.