Get-tough policy on drugs 'failing'

And Government-backed education and prevention programmes designed to steer youngsters away from drugs appear to have had "very little impact" on experimentation with illicit substances.

The report, commissioned for Wednesday's launch of the independent UK Drug Policy Commission, found that the UK has the highest levels of problem drug use and the second-highest rate of drug-related deaths in Europe.

Around one-quarter of 26 to 30-year-olds have tried a class A drug at least once, and around 45% of young people have used cannabis. The total value of the UK market for illicit drugs is estimated at £5 billion a year. Drug-related causes lie behind the deaths of 34 per million of the UK's adult population.

And the 0.85% addiction rate seen among the UK population is twice or more that in comparable European countries such as France and Sweden (0.4%) or Germany and the Netherlands (0.3%).

England's 327,000 problem drug users commit "very high" numbers of crimes - mostly shoplifting - to fund their habits, said the report, entitled An Analysis Of UK Drug Policy.

With around one-fifth of all people arrested thought to be dependent on heroin, the total cost of drug-related crime in England and Wales alone is estimated at more than £13 billion.

The report's authors, Professor Peter Reuter, of Maryland University in the USA, and Alex Stevens, of the University of Kent, noted that policies like needle exchanges, drug rehabilitation and the prescription of heroin substitute methadone, have had positive results - including keeping HIV rates among injecting users down below those in comparable countries.

Certain types of drug treatment have been shown to be cost-effective, with savings of more than £3 for every £1 spent, mainly because of reductions in crime.

But the report said that not enough is known about which elements of drug policy work, why they work and where they work well.