Addiction treatment 'key to tackling crime'

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by Change | 4 Aug 2009

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Former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith has claimed providing better access to addiction treatment services should be the focus of government efforts to cut crime in the country.

Providing high standards of addiction recovery and treatment services should be a major focus for the government as it seeks to cut drug-related crime, an influential MP has claimed.

Former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith, who is currently chairman for the Centre for Social Justice, has argued that ministers should stop attempting to fight drug-related crime and should instead go to the cause of such illegal activities, offering help and support to drug addicts.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph, the MP claimed that the current drugs policy adopted by the government "fails to address the problems of drugs and alcohol in terms of breaking the cycle of addiction".

He added: "rehabilitation treatment has been marginalised, with only a tiny number of addicts helped to get off drugs."

Providing greater access to rehab clinics and other services that can help aid addiction recovery could be a crucial step in helping reduce the problem of drug-related crime, Mr Duncan Smith argued.

Last month, figures from the Home Office revealed the number of 16 to 59-year-olds using cocaine powder has risen from 2.4 per cent to three per cent over the past year, with a 1.5 per cent increase in the 16 to 24-year-old age bracket.

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