The drug debate is often simplified to prohibition vs decriminalisation

New legislation on drugs promises harsher penalties for people convicted of dealing to children or near schools.

The government also proposes broadening the definition of possession to include having an illegal drug in the bloodstream.

Danny Kushlick, of campaign group Transform Drug Policy Foundation, and David Green of right-leaning Civitas, the Institute for Study of Civil Society, disagree on the merits of the proposals.

This is yet another initiative that addresses the symptoms of the failure of prohibition rather than the causes of drug misuse and criminality associated with it.

The array of measures being announced is based on the illusion that demand and supply can be significantly reduced through increasingly draconian prohibition-based legislation.

Our drug policy must be based on the reality that drug use and misuse is here to stay

This is pure fantasy.

Drugs are now so deeply entrenched in contemporary culture that the supply cannot be eliminated and users cannot all be forced into abstinence.

Coerced treatment is a misnomer.

If it were a sincere treatment initiative it would be announced by Health Secretary John Reid and be based on improving health and wellbeing, rather than reducing crime.

Our drug policy must be based on the reality that drug use and misuse is here to stay.

Toughness and law and order rhetoric will rule until the public demand reforms

Increasingly the public recognises that the drugs war is being lost, that their communities are still rife with drugs and that alternatives must be sought.

It beggars belief that both Labour and Conservatives are backing a system that actually creates half of all property crime, almost all street prostitution and the major source of income for organised crime and terror groups.

Toughness and law and order rhetoric will rule until the public demand reforms that will take the trade from organised criminals, return it to government control and begin to deal with the real causes of misuse - poverty, deprivation, lack of opportunity and deep seated personal problems.

We do welcome the proposals to punish people convicted of dealing to children, or dealing near to schools.

That is because what is happening is we have people taking advantage of young people. That action can be construed to be wrong enough to merit punishment.

And we also welcome the measures to distinguish between those people who have drugs in small amounts, for personal use, and those who have drugs intending to deal.

Enforcement should be directed against the dealers

This is a distinction between those people who don't care if they cause harm to others, and those people who are weak.

The law does not make that distinction at the moment.

We are not in favour of legalisation, decriminalisation or any other liberalisation.

But enforcement should be directed against the dealers. For the most part, action against users should be limited to treatment.

We have argued against a ban on smoking, but drugs are different to smoking.

The government should be investing in a therapeutic community approach

The aim of law should be moral autonomy.

Smoking doesn't take away your capacity to be a thinking, valuing individual. Drugs do take that away.

As far as criminals go, the government should be investing in a therapeutic community approach.

There has been lots of research into this, mainly in the US.

It starts with a therapeutic community in prison - a group of drug addicts who help each other out.

When they are released, they have to be in some kind of half-way house for the therapy to continue and be effective.

The government has a small programme called the Rehabilitation of Addicted Prisoners Trust (Rapt) which does this kind of work.