Passports & Driving Licences To Be Removed From Illegal Drug Users, Boris Johnson Says

Boris Johnson is set to kick-start a ten-year plan to combat drug-related crime with offenders potentially being relieved of their passports and driving licences.

The crackdown will also include football-style travel bans, harsher sentences for drug dealers and measures to break up County Lines gangs.

He told outlets:  “Drugs are driving a lot of misery and we can fix it. They’re not going to make you happier. They’re not going to make you more successful. They’re not going to make you cooler. They’re bad news,”

“Most of the crime driven by drugs is generated by 300,000 heroin and crack cocaine users – tragic people who have lost their way in life. You can lock them up again and again and we do but they come out again and reoffend so we have to rehabilitate them.”

Johnson also insisted that he would be “keeping nothing off the table” in regards to punitive measures.

“The country is ­littered with victims of what’s happened. We are going to look at new ways of penalising them. Things that will actually interfere with their lives so we will look at taking away passports and driving licences.”

Johnson also promised “record” funding for addiction treatment and recovery services, with more money promised for the 50 local authorities with the worst drug issues including Middlesbrough, Blackpool and Liverpool.

In July the government announced it would establish a new unit to help end illegal drug-related illness and deaths.

As part of the wider attack on crime, pestering women in the street or in pubs could also be outlawed in a bid to combat sexual harassment in public.