We are urging the prime minister to bring forward an all party commission to examine our drug laws which are simply not working

Baroness Manningham-Buller

I am an instinctive libertarian who abhors state prohibitions and tends to be sceptical of most government action, whether targeted against drug use or anything else.

David Cameron

Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself.

Jimmy Carter, 1977

"[The War on Drugs is] an utter failure... We need to rethink how we are operating in the drug wars because currently we are not doing a good job."

Barack Obama, 2004

I ask the Labour government not to return to retribution and war on drugs. That has been tried and we all know that it does not work.

David Cameron, 2002

"We have gone through a tremendous experience. We have lost our best judges, our best politicians, our best journalists, our best policemen in this fight against drugs and the problem's still there."

President Santos of Colombia

"That which is prohibited cannot easily be regulated."

 Beckley Foundation's Cannabis Policy: Moving Beyond Stalemate

In 2010, there were approximately 42,000 drug related murders in Mexico alone. These murders are a direct consequence of the US and Mexico's War on Drugs

The world need to discuss new approaches... We are basically still thinking within the same framework as we have done for the last 40 years.

President Santos of Colombia

Considering the range of social concerns in contemporary America, marijuana does not, in our considered judgement, rank very high.

US National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse, 1972

The Commission feels that the criminalization of possession of marihuana for personal is socially self-defeating

US National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse, 1972

The disparity in arrest and imprisonment rates for drug offences between white and black people in England and Wales is even greater than has been calculated for the US

Alex Stevens Report

African Americans are three times more likely to be arrested and ten times more likely to be imprisoned for drug offences than white Americans, despite the absence of evidence of higher rates of drug use or dealing

Alex Stevens Report

No one should be stigmatized or discriminated against because of their dependence on drugs

Ban Ki-Moon, Secretary General of the UN

The international drug control conventions are, with respect to cannabis at least, an utterly irrational restraint that has nothing to do with scientific or  public health considerations

Report of the Canadian Senate Special Committee on Illegal Drugs: Cannabis

Globally 210 million people use illicit substances each year

UN Office on Drugs and Crime

 The UK Government has estimated that over 50% of property related crime is committed by heroin and crack cocaine addicted users looking to fund their habit

UK Prime Minister's No. 10 Strategy Unit

 The UK, which compared to many European states has a very draconian drug policy, has some of the highest levels of drug use in Europe

European Monitoring Centre for the Misuse of Drugs and Drug Addiction

Banning without evidence of harm is misconceived and may cause more problems than it solves

Professor David Nutt

The War on AIDS is a public health emergency, not an appendage of the war on drugs

Lancet Volume 349

Portugal's strategic retreat has done more good in its 10 short years than 30 years of criminalisation

Chris Berg, Sydney Morning Herald

People don't take anything because it's legal, they take it because they like it

Fiona Measham, Sociologist

Moral outrage has turned out to be a poor basis for policy

The Economist

Because the illegality of drugs keeps the prices high, there are high salaries to be made in selling them

CATO Institute

If there War on Drugs were terminated, the main factor keeping race-based resentment a core element in the American social fabric would no longer exist

CATO Institute

The international community increasingly accepts that drug use is as much a public health problem as it is a public safety problem

US Department of State

The data show that the Portuguese decriminalisation framework has been a resounding success

CATO Institute

Switzerland stands out as a powerful case for how evidence-based drug policy can be developed and why change is necessary

Open Society Global Drug Policy Program

Moving from a sanction-oriented approach to a health-oriented one is in agreement with a large body of scientific evidence

UN Office on Drugs and Crime

Fighting a war on drugs by legalizing drug use and taxing consumption may be more effective than continuing to prohibit the legal use of drugs

Profs Gary Becker, Kevin Murphy, Michael Grossman

We know treatment works: for every £1 spent, £3 is saved in criminal justice costs

Bob Ainsworth

Existing evidence suggests that drug related violence and high homicide rates are likely a natural consequence of drug prohibition

Urban Health Research Initiative

Badly designed drug law enforcement practices can actually increase the level of violence, intimidation and corruption associated with drug markets

Global Commission on Drug Policy

The United Nations makes a conservative estimate that there are currently 250 million illicit drug users in the world - we simply cannot treat them all as criminals

Global Commission on Drug Policy

In a time of fiscal austerity, we can no longer afford to maintain multi-billion dollar investments that have largely symbolic value

Global Commission on Drug Policy

The belief that we all need to have exactly the same laws, restrictions, and programmes, has been an unhelpful restriction

Global Commission on Drug Policy

The drug conventions need to be subject to constant review and modernisation in the light of changing and variable circumstances

Global Commission on Drug Policy

Trying to manage drug addiction through punishment is ineffective

Global Commission on Drug Policy

The primary measure of success should be the reduction of harm to the health and welfare of individuals and society

Global Commission on Drug Policy

Drug policies must be based on solid empirical and scientific evidence

Global Commission on Drug Policy

There are 743 people in prison for every 100,000 Americans, a higher portion than in any other country and seven times as great as in Europe. Some 7.2 million people are either in prison or on probation or parole — more than 3 percent of all American adults!

Jimmy Carter, 2011

"The Global War on Drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world"

Global Commission on Drug Policy