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New report calls for alcohol tax to fund rehabilitation

A 'treatment tax' should be added to the cost of alcohol in shops to fund a new generation of rehabilitation centres and stem the tide of Britain's addiction problem, according to a new report by the Centre for Social Justice.

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Norman Baker: Drug use is primarily a health issue

A review by the Home Office, expected to be approved within weeks, has suggested that the people who run websites offering legal highs and the owners of head shops should face tougher penalties under consumer laws.

Liberal Democrat minister Norman Baker Credit: PA

Norman Baker, the Liberal Democrat minister in charge of the review, also wants responsibility for drugs policy to be moved from the Home Office to the Department of Health. His party says the key to tackling drug addiction is rehabilitation rather than criminal penalties. Speaking to the Sunday Times (£), Mr Baker said:

It is time to face the fact that drug use is primarily a health issue and the way of reducing drug use is to deal with it as health issue.

Sunday is my birthday and we are having a family gathering and there’ll be an empty chair there. You just never recover from that.

– Norman Baker

Full recovery from addiction 'preserve of the wealthy'

The director of the Centre for Social Justice has argued that poorer people are unable to get adequate treatment to tackle addictions. Christian Guy said:

Addiction rips into families, makes communities less safe and entrenches poverty.

For years full recovery has been the preserve of the wealthy – closed off to the poorest people and to those with problems who need to rely on a public system. We want to break this injustice wide open.

– Christian Guy, Centre for Social Justice director

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Alcohol 'treatment tax' urged to fund rehabilitation

A 'treatment tax' should be added to the cost of alcohol in shops to fund a new generation of rehabilitation centres and stem the tide of Britain's addiction problem, according to a new report.

The Centre for Social Justice says the cost of addiction is rising because it is fuelling an increase in hospital admissions Credit: PA

The Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) said a levy on alcohol sold in shops could add 2p to a can of lager and 9p on a bottle of wine. It claimed that " costs of addiction are rising with alcohol-related admissions to hospital doubling in a decade."

The report suggests that 300,000 people in England are addicted to opiates and/or crack, 1.6 million are dependent on alcohol and one in seven children under the age of one live with a substance-abusing parent.

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