So it looks like the ConDems are resurrecting a previous initiative of NL.
The Home Office said it was considering “some form of financial benefit sanction, if they [addicts] do not take action to address their drug or alcohol dependency.” The plans were outlined in a consultation paper on the government’s drug strategyfor England, Wales and Scotland, published today.
And it being a blast from the past.
The benefits scheme would be a revival of a previous Labour initiative aimed at helping drug users get back into work.
When NL first proposed this the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights questioned the legitimacy, justification and the proportionality on the clause on drug addiction when they were scrutinising the Welfare Reform Bill. They highlighted Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) – that provides for a right to respect for private and family life and this specific clause contravenes that. Again, I will use the same arguments that I did when NL proposed these attacks on people with drug and alcohol dependency.
It will be an attack on civil liberties. This utterly undermines and erodes the right to privacy especially having to declare whether you are a user. This further stigmatises people who are already marginalised, it is about coercion and control by the state; ‘do what we say or you’ll your benefits’…. And people will fall off the benefits radar (which ConDems won’t give a damn about). And it will also cause further poverty.
As Martin Barnes, the chief executive of the DrugScope charity says, there was “absolutely no evidence” that making benefits contingent on treatment would work for a “vulnerable and often marginalised group”.
“We seriously question both the fairness and the effectiveness of actually using the stick of compulsion – benefit sanctions – to link a requirement to undergo medical treatment with a condition of receipt of benefit,” he told BBC Radio 4′s Today programme.
“Also, we have to bear in mind that under the principles that are enshrined in the NHS constitution, medical intervention should be therapeutic, consensual, confidential – and I just don’t see that’s compatible with using the benefits system to require people to undergo a complex form of drug treatment intervention.”
Posted by harpymarx 
