Analysis: Practice - Substance misuse - A mixed decade for drugpolicy

With this year marking the end of the UK's current 10-year drug strategy, charity DrugScope held a conference last week to discuss the "past, present and future" of the UK's drug policy. So what has the strategy achieved?

Martin Barnes, chief executive of DrugScope, says: "It would be wrong not to acknowledge the positives. There has been an increase in funding of young people's treatment and prevention work and drug use has started to come down."

But he also argues that recent cuts to the Young People's Substance Misuse Grant are "indefensible". Barnes says: "It's counter-intuitive to the Government's emphasis on prevention work and it comes on the back of a recognition that there needs to be an improvement in the quality and consistency of the treatment of young people."