Report warns that lenient sentences glamorise drug use and send message to young people that stars receive special treatment
LENIENCY towards celebrities who abuse drugs is sending out the wrong message to children and young people, the United Nations drug-control agency said yesterday.
The International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) warned that allowing famous people,
such as singers Pete Doherty and Amy Winehouse and supermodel Kate Moss, to get away with drug crimes had a damaging effect on impressionable youngsters and undermined faith in the criminal justice system.
Professor Hamid Ghodse, INCB member, said: "They get more lenient responses by the judiciary and law-enforcement, and that is regrettable.
"There should not be any difference between a celebrity who is breaking the law and non-celebrities.
"Not only does it give the wrong messages to young people, who are often quite impressionable, but the wider public become cynical about the responses to drug offenders."
He suggested drug-abusing celebrities from the worlds of music and sport were treated with leniency, but was unwilling to name specific individuals.
"A number of people have got a lenient response in the UK and around the world," Prof Ghodse said at the launch of the INCB's annual report.
The document said: "Depending on how the authorities respond in the case, the media reports and associated internet chatter often reflect or generate perceptions that the system has treated the celebrity… more leniently than others. The authorities… should ensure that public celebrities who violate drug laws are made accountable."
The report also expressed concern about rising opium production in Afghanistan – an issue which Britain has taken a lead in combating.
Prof Ghodse, a former chairman of the INCB and professor of international drug policy at St George's University, London, said he believed international forces in Afghanistan had lost control, with opium production rising to 8,200 tonnes last year.
The total in the previous 12 months was 6,100 tonnes, and just 185 tonnes in 2001 after a crackdown by the Taleban, which then had political control of the country.
"It is not only drug agencies that can tackle this issue; it has to be with the rest of the elements that are trying to help," he said.
The INCB called on Asian governments to set up or strengthen controls on the chemical acetic anhydride, which is used to manufacture cocaine from the opium crop.
Tougher limits on the chemical could reduce amounts being smuggled into Afghanistan for use in illicit heroin factories, the organisation said.
Britain remains one of the countries with the highest rates of abuse of cocaine, along with Spain and Italy, the report said.
It reproduced previously published Home Office data, which showed that cocaine use in England and Wales rose from 2 per cent to 2.4 per cent in 2005-6 for people aged 15 to 64.
While Prof Ghodse welcomed figures which indicated a continuing fall in cannabis use in the UK, he repeated concerns about a rise in the drug's strength.
Home Office data revealed earlier this year that powerful "skunk" varieties accounted for just 15 per cent of cannabis seizures in 2002, but now make up between 70 per cent and 80 per cent.
The INCB oversees how governments adhere to international drug-control treaties.
PUBLIC BATTLESAMY Winehouse was questioned by police last month after video footage emerged of a woman, alleged to be her, apparently smoking crack cocaine and speaking of having taken Ecstasy and valium.
Singer Pete Doherty's drug abuse has also been well-publicised. He has frequently escaped jail sentences after being caught with illegal substances. In October 2007 he was handed a suspended prison term for drugs and motoring offences after he admitted driving while uninsured and with no MoT while in possession of crack cocaine, heroin, ketamine and cannabis.
He was sentenced to four months in jail, suspended for two years. An 18-month drugs supervision order had been lifted days before – six months before it ended.
His one-time girlfriend, Kate Moss, escaped prosecution when a newspaper printed a photo in September 2005, in which she appeared to snort cocaine.
The full article contains 700 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
