The European Union's drug agency asked EU members today to face reality and scrap laws requiring automatic prosecution for minor drug offences, to which authorities are already turning a blind eye.
Only four of the bloc's 15 nations do not require criminal prosecutions for offences such as possession of drugs for personal use.
But the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction said all other members informally avoided prosecutions for such offences.
"Those member states . . . might wish to consider the case for putting police and/or prosecution practices on a more formal footing," recommended a study conducted by the Lisbon-based centre.
The study found an EU-wide tendency to drop minor prosecutions by giving drug users informal warnings and advice about treatment programmes or by making them throw drugs away.
The number of minor drug prosecutions was falling despite an escalation in drug crime, it said.
Spain, Italy, Portugal and Luxembourg do not consider possession of drugs for personal use a criminal offence, said the centre's Web site.
Earlier this month, Britain downgraded cannabis to a Class C drug, putting it in the same category as growth hormones.