"Ex-minister in call to decriminalise all drugs"

From the BBC:

A former minister with responsibility for drugs policy has called for the decriminalisation of all drugs. Bob Ainsworth, who oversaw the issue at the Home Office in Tony Blair's government, said the approach of successive administrations had failed.

The Labour MP for Coventry North East, also a former defence secretary, said the current policy left the drugs trade in the hands of criminal gangs. Ministers have insisted they remain opposed to decriminalisation.

Mr Ainsworth is the most senior politician so far to publicly call for all drugs, including heroin and cocaine, to be decriminalised. He said he realised while he was a minister in the Home Office in charge of drugs policy that the so-called war on drugs could not be won. Mr Ainsworth has called for a strict system of legal regulation under which different drugs would either be prescribed by doctors or sold under licence.

It's a bit late now, but it's all good, I suppose.