YORK-BORN actress Dame Judi Dench and Sir Richard Branson have called for the Government to consider decriminalising drugs as its current policy was condemned as a failure.

The Global Commission on Drug Policy, whose members include former United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan, warned that major policy reforms were needed to help reduce the prison population and stop wasting millions of pounds.

It comes as Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke plans to divert more people with drug problems away from prison and into treatment as part of a “rehabilitation revolution”.