I missed this at the time, but it's too good not to share.

Last week, Sir Richard Branson, high-profile head of the Virgin Group, told a select group of senior British lawmakers that drugs should be legalized.

Branson began, naturally, with cannabis. He insisted that the decriminalisation, regulation and taxation of the drug libertarians have traditionally seen as a start-point for reform would reap widespread rewards for society as a whole. Responsibility for drugs policy should shift from the Home Office to the Department of Health, he argued, quite compellingly enquiring of his inquisitors whether, upon finding out that their own son or daughter had a drug problem, would they rather seek medical help or be having to deal with the police? Tellingly, they offered no answer. In Portugal, where even heroin addicts are hospitalised rather than arrested, drug use has fallen by 50% as a result of legalisation. Each year some 75,000 young Britons have their futures ruined by receiving criminal records for minor drugs offences. Treating drug users as patients rather than criminals would be an important first step to a more effective drugs policy.

...If the practical case for a more liberal drugs policy is fairly straightforward, the economic argument is somewhat more complex. Branson convincingly articulated the basics last week. Home Office figures show that £535 million of taxpayers’ money is spent each year on the enforcement of laws relating to the possession or supplying of drugs. Conversely, only 3% of total expenditure on drugs is through health service use, and just 1% on social care. A staggering 20% of all police time is devoted to arresting drug users and sellers. The balance between policing and treatment clearly seems skewed, but in this age of austerity these figures are especially unforgivable. At a time when the Coalition is controversially cutting welfare, why do we accept huge spending on a law and order policy that has failed to reduce the prevalence of drugs in society? As Branson succinctly puts it, the money saved through decriminalisation and taxation would surely be better spent elsewhere: ‘it’s win-win all round’.

The Independent's Alexander Wickham has more.