Supporter: Ramsbotham

The former chief inspector of prisons has backed a think-tank's calls for a radical shape-up of UK drugs policy.

Sir David Ramsbotham, who retired this year as the prisons watchdog, backed a report on Tuesday by the Centre for Reform calling for doctors to be allowed to proscribe heroin more widely.

The think-tank's report, written by former Gwent chief constable Francis Wilkinson, argues regulation of the drugs market is an effective crime prevention measure. If the UK's £4.5 billion heroin market was countered by government control it would lead to a 20 per cent drop in crime, it is believed.

The report proposes for heroin to be supplied through a unit where counselling and medical treatment could also be offered. It also called on the home secretary to publish regular data on progress in tackling the problem.

Drugs campaigner, such as the group Reform, are now hoping to build on the home secretary's recent decision to re-classify cannabis as a class "c" drug.

The government's drugs advisor Keith Hellawell last week admitted the police had shifted their focus away from users to the dealers and were not arresting people for possessing small quantities of illegal substances.

Sir David Ramsbotham said his experience from prison visits had convinced him that the current drugs policy is not working and called for radical measures.

"Like many people I used to think that the use of all drugs should be banned. I began to see there was a much greater problem connected with drugs and their use - the misery they produce both within prison and in society as a whole. I believe that the time is right for something different to be tried, with the proviso that it must be introduced quickly and unequivocally," he said.

Wilkinson described efforts to prohibit the use of drugs during the 1990s as "entirely fruitless". Solutions adopted by some European countries would not solve the problem, as drug use will not be eliminate, but would cut crime and drug-related deaths.

"There is a higher prevalence of use, more money spent on drugs, a drug sub-culture which is becoming more normalised and more drug related illness and death. There is an urgent need to tackle it and reduce the damage being daily done to our society and thousands of individuals in it.

"British policy has lost its way and needs urgently to develop, learning from other countries which, ironically, learnt from the old British system," Wilkinson argued.