The Lead Untangles: Is the Greens' drugs policy reckless or responsible?

As Zack Polanski pledges to legalise and regulate drugs, Sarah Sinclair dives into the detail of this controversial policy – what does the evidence say?

The Green Party’s historic victory in the Gorton and Denton by-election last week put drug policy back on the political agenda.

The heated by-election campaign saw the Greens come under fire from both Labour and Reform following leader Zack Polanski’s calls to “legalise” and “regulate” drugs. And – as the Green’s continue to poll well, and having firmly established themselves as a credible threat to Labour – it’s likely we will be seeing much more of this line of attack in the run up to the local elections in May.

The Green Party has previously campaigned to decriminalise drug possession in the UK, with Spencer telling the BBC it was a “conversation that we need to have.”

In 2024, the party proposed the establishment of a regulated market, a position reaffirmed by leader Polanski during his leadership speech in October. On a visit to the Gorton and Denton constituency on Sunday 22 February, he said he would “legalise, regulate and control” all drugs under a “public health, evidence-based approach”.

The Prime Minister branded the proposals “disgusting”, echoing comments made by Minister for Policing and Crime Sarah Jones that the “reckless” plans would lead to a “drugs epidemic”, with children’s playgrounds at risk of becoming “crack dens”.

Reform described the Greens as a “danger to society”, with a spokesperson telling the Daily Mail their “extreme policy” would be “an absolute disaster” for communities like Gorton and Denton.

Polanski described Labour’s comments on his policy as a “vile” attack on a party “trying to have a sensible grown-up conversation about a really serious issue.”

“We have the worst amount of drug deaths in the whole of Europe,” he said. “I think that fact’s often missing from this conversation.”

The facts

According to Jones, drug seizures are at a “record high” under Labour, which is taking a “common sense approach” to tackling drug-related organised crime while “investing billions in drug prevention and treatment”.

Yet drug-related deaths are currently at a 30-year high, with reports of a four-fold increase in fatalities from synthetic opioids. More than 300,000 adults were registered with drug and alcohol treatment services in 2024, according to ONS figures.

Meanwhile, the illegal drug trade continues to fuel violent crime, disorder, and child exploitation. In England, the Children’s Society estimates that 46,000 children are being exploited by organised crime and recruited into “County Lines” gangs, with those living in more deprived areas particularly vulnerable.

Drug policy experts argue that the current laws have failed to curb use (estimated to have risen by almost a third globally since 2016) or bring the illegal market under control.

“Ever-increasing record seizures are evidence of failure, not of success,” Neil Woods, a former undercover police officer who now advocates for drug policy reform, tells The Lead.

“Supply has increased because demand has dramatically increased. When celebrating huge seizures, police leaders are unironically creating market growth.”

What is the Greens’ drug policy?

The Green Party’s 2024 manifesto called for a National Commission to look at UK drug laws, paving the way for what it described as a ‘legally-regulated’ market.

This would see all drugs – including alcohol and nicotine – regulated according to the risks they pose, alongside a clear prevention strategy and increased funding for support and education.

Under the plans, local authorities would be responsible for regulating sales of cannabis and low-dose MDMA from licensed premises to those over the age of 18, with powder cocaine, amphetamines, and psychedelics dispensed over the counter in specialist pharmacies, and heroin maintenance treatment available through the NHS to patients with dependencies.

Hannah Spencer being sworn in after her landslide victory in Gorton and Denton. Pic: Flickr

“Everything we’ve done in the last 50 years to get organised crime under control has failed,” says Dr Alex Armitage, a consultant paediatrician and Green councillor in Shetland, who drafted the policy alongside Green Member of the London Assembly, Zoë Garbett, with input from experts and those with lived experience.

“The only way we can end control of the drugs market by organised criminals is to bring it into public hands.”

What would a ‘public health approach’ to drugs look like?

The Greens approach would frame addiction as a medical issue, rather than a moral failing.

The policy notes that “in the majority of cases” recreational drug use is “not harmful”, with harmful use “underpinned by poverty, isolation, mental distress, physical illness and psychological trauma.”

Prohibition only serves to deepen these problems, preventing people from accessing support, Armitage tells The Lead: “The UK spends around £15 billion a year on prohibition. We could spend a fraction of that keeping people who use drugs safe, and would reduce so much of the associated harm.”

Alongside creating a safe and legal supply through regulation in the long term, the Greens have called for the expansion of harm reduction services, such as drug consumption facilities and drug safety testing, as recently introduced in Scotland.

The party would also end criminal sanctions for possession of drugs for personal use and expunge criminal records, while increasing funding for locally provided, individualised treatment and support services.

What does the evidence say?

The Greens’ policy has been informed by research from overseas, such as Switzerland’s prescribed heroin programme, launched in 1994. An evaluation of its results found large reductions in illicit drug use and drug-related convictions and significant improvement in participants’ health and social status.

But it also draws on evidence collected in Britain, where until 1971 all doctors were permitted to prescribe heroin maintenance treatment for drug dependencies when withdrawal wasn’t feasible.

Dr John Marks, a former psychiatrist and well-known proponent of this approach, ran maintenance clinics throughout the North West in what became known as the Merseyside Experiment. His research found that mortality fell sharply compared to areas where only abstinence-based treatment was offered, alongside significant reductions in criminal convictions and rates of dependency.

The clinics were shut down in 1995, but Marks continues to advocate for this approach, saying: “Free markets promote consumption, black markets peddle consumption, regulated markets control consumption.”

In 2019, a heroin-assisted treatment pilot was launched in Middlesbrough. An assessment by the University of Teesside found that the majority who took part in the first year reported improvements in wellbeing and quality of life. Most either stopped or reduced their use of unregulated heroin, and there was a reported 60 per cent reduction in criminal behaviour. However, the programme was shut down after its funding was cut in 2022.

“Not all of this requires legislative change,” Woods explains.

”You can adapt the medical system to provide it.”

But Annemarie Ward, CEO of the UK addiction recovery charity FAVOR, has been critical of broader drug decriminalisation and legalisation models, arguing they increase availability and ‘normalise’ drug use.

“Legalisation may reduce some criminal justice harms, but it simultaneously normalises behaviours that trap vulnerable people longer,” she wrote on Substack on 22 February, pointing to research from Oregon in the US, which found an increase in drug use and overdose deaths after effective decriminalisation was introduced in 2020.

“Even advocates of reform increasingly concede that legal markets create new risks through commercialisation and increased availability. Legalisation does not eliminate the drug industry. It transforms it. It commercialises and normalises drug use.”■

About the author: Sarah Sinclair is a journalist specialising in health, drug policy and social affairs.

About The Lead Untangles: In an era where misinformation is actively and deliberately used by elected politicians and where advocates and opposers of beliefs state their point of view as fact, sometimes the most useful tool reporters have is to help readers make sense of the world. If there is something you’d like us to untangle, email ella@thelead.uk.

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