Five year old Dillon Hull was a casualty in a war we cannot win.

He is a victim of the futility of our drug prohibition policy. His is the same fate as those who were gunned down by gangsters in America during alcohol prohibition in the twenties. For the same reasons.

Nowhere has a policy of prohibitionig a drug in demand worked. Especially where there is a ready supply and huge profits to be made. The evil drug trade is a many headed beast. Cut one head off and two others grow. Profits drive the increased drugs use. In the USA, switching from an illegal alcohol market to a legal one in the thirties cut alcohol deaths and robbed the gangsters of their profits.

Drug prohibition here is building up an empire of armed criminals. Every year drugs deaths and addiction increase. The best chance of reducing drug abuse is to collapse the present illegal, irresponsible armed black market by replacing it with a legal market that can be rigorously policed, regulated and controlled.

All drugs are dangerous. Their use should be discouraged. Alcohol and tobacco are lethal addictive drugs. No one in their senses wants to prohibit them. If we did we would new black markets with wine and tobacco barons gunning one another down on the streets. We have lost the battle in Britain. Last month the Government told me that 50 % of young women and 70 % of young men have used illegal drugs. At raves it's a phenomenal 90% who break an unenforceable law. Without a new approach, it will be even worse next year and the year after.

Young people put two fingers up to the older generation. They say that illegal drugs are their drugs of choice. We can rant back at them. Tell them not to do drugs. Useless. They answer that the drugs of choice our generation are also addictive and lethal.

MPs preach at young people "Don't do Drugs." They do it from any of the 16 bars in the Commons, with a fag in one hand a whisky in the other and a couple of paracetamol in their pocket.

Is the answer to get tough, crack down on pushers and users ? No ! All that has been done and failed.

America has had a 20 year war against drugs. they spent a phenomenal $85 billion, their armed services have bombed and defoliated the drug crops. Some drug users get longer prison sentences than murderers. They have had three drug Czars. The result ? Drug use, Drug crime, Drugs deaths are the worst they have ever been..

We had tried 'tough' policies here to keep prisons drugs-free. Disaster. It's easier to get drugs in prisons than on the streets. If we cannot keep drugs out the secure, guarded prisons, what hope is there of keeping our clubs, schools and raves drug free ?

Decriminalisation is not a free for all. It's a market that will be licensed. Anyone dealing with minors or vulnerable people would be closed down. That would kill the criminal drug trade. It would drugs out of the hands of kids who can get them now.

Decriminalisation is the best hope of reducing drug abuse. Amsterdam has cut drugs use among the Dutch youth. Drugs aren't sexy there any more. No longer a way of rebelling against an older generation.

Our policy is, "Its not working, so we don't fix it." We have a choice. Either we continue to abandon our kids to the mercies of the evil, criminal and irresponsible drug pushers or protect them from themselves with a legal market .

We must first debate the issue in a Royal Commission.