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Drug abuse should be treated as a health issue, says Norman Baker MP
There is "no obvious" link between tough laws and levels of illegal drug use, a government report has found.
Liberal Democrat Home Office minister Norman Baker said the report, comparing the UK with other countries, should end "mindless rhetoric" on drugs policy.
He accused the Conservatives of "suppressing" the findings for months.
Tory MP Michael Ellis said the Lib Dems had "hijacked" it for political gain. The government says it has "no intention" of decriminalising drugs.
"The prime minister thinks the current approach the government is taking is the right one and isn't going to change," said a Downing Street spokesman.
The row comes ahead of a debate on government policy on drugs in the House of Commons later.
The Home Office report compared the UK's approach to drug misuse with that of 13 other countries.
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9 have sanctioned "drug consumption rooms", including Canada, Denmark and Switzerland
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8 are trialling the treatment of addicts with pure heroin rather than methadone, including Switzerland, the Netherlands and the UK
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4 have special "drug courts", where people pleading guilty to drug offences can opt for treatment rather than prison, including the US
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1 has set up "dissuasion commissions" - Portugal
After examining a range of approaches, from zero-tolerance to decriminalisation, it concluded drug use was influenced by factors "more complex and nuanced than legislation and enforcement alone".
But it found there had been a "considerable" improvement in the health of drug users in Portugal since the country made drug possession a health issue rather than a criminal one in 2001.
The Home Office said these outcomes could not be attributed to decriminalisation alone.
But Mr Baker believes treating drug use as a health matter would be more effective, "rather than presuming locking people up is the answer".
Analysis Danny Shaw, BBC home affairs correspondentThe divisions within the coalition could not be more sharply exposed.
The official Home Office position is that its drug strategy is working.
Norman Baker, the Liberal Democrat minister with responsibility for drugs, says "radical" change is needed.
Mr Baker's claims have been fuelled by his department's own report, which finds no link between how tough a country is on drugs and how many people use them.
It's an important finding, but the study also makes clear that drug policy is highly complex - approaches which may work abroad can't necessarily be implanted into the UK.
The Home Office barely mentioned the report in its press release, focusing instead on plans to change the law on legal highs.
Mr Baker's intervention has ensured the report takes centre stage.
Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg accused the Conservatives of a "totally misplaced, outdated, backward-looking view".
He said the "war on drugs is not working" and evidence showed addicts must be dealt with as "people who need treatment so they don't remain hooked".
Mr Baker said: "We've had what I would call mindless rhetoric over the last 40 years which has tended to say there is only one solution and anyone who offers any alternative must by definition be 'soft on drugs'."
He said government health and education policies were succeeding, and any move to decriminalise drug possession must go along with a "tough regime" of health treatment, and police action against dealers.
He said the Conservatives had "suppressed" the report, preventing publication for "several months", because of the "inconvenient truths" it contained.
But Mr Ellis, a member of the Home Affairs Committee, called Mr Baker's comments "naked political posturing".
He said the Lib Dems had "hijacked" the report and were "spinning it" for political reasons.
"Their frankly pro-drugs policy is dangerous and irresponsible," he added.
Danny Kushlick, the founder of the group Transform, which has been campaigning for the legal regulation of drugs in the UK for almost 20 years, said the report was an important step.
"For the first time in over 40 years the Home Office has admitted that enforcing tough drug laws doesn't necessarily reduce levels of drug use," he said.
Analysis Matthew Price, Europe correspondent, BBC NewsBack in the 1990s Portugal was struggling with a heroin epidemic of almost epic proportions. One person in every 100 was a heroin addict.
Not everyone agreed with the approach that was adopted to try and end the problem. In fact, many on the right wing of politics were appalled when prosecutions for people using drugs were ended.
They didn't like the idea that addiction would be treated as a health issue, rather than a criminal one, that addicts would be given treatment and healthcare to help them overcome their addiction. Those voices have been silenced now.
15 years later, and the number of people hooked on heroin has been halved, and there have been good results in terms of Aids infection, hepatitis infection and the like.
Back in the 1990s "we feared that Portugal could turn into a paradise for drug users", says Dr Jaoa Goulao, Portugal's national co-ordinator on drugs and drug addiction.
Thanks to the policy, that didn't happen, he says.
The report said it would be "inappropriate" to compare the success of drug policies in different countries because data collection and many other factors differ between each one.
But it said "some observations can be made" and it is "not clear" decriminalisation has an impact on levels of drug use.
"Looking across different countries, there is no apparent correlation between the 'toughness' of a country's approach and the prevalence of adult drug use," it stated.
Legal highsA separate Home Office report has called for a blanket ban on all brain-altering drugs in a bid to tackle legal highs.
Currently, when a legal high is made illegal, manufacturers are avoiding the law by tweaking the chemical compound and creating a new substance.
The government will consider legislation introduced in Ireland four years ago that bans the sale of all "psychoactive" substances but exempts some, such as alcohol and tobacco.
Have you had a serious drug habit? How was your addiction treated? You can email your experiences to haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.
If you are willing to be contacted by BBC journalists please include a telephone number.
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