PASSPORTS will be seized from middle-class cocaine users who fuel street crime under a tough new crackdown on drugs.
Courts will be given power to impose football-style travel bans on posh users caught with Class A substances.
Ministers believe fines are a poor deterrent for well-off professionals who peddle coke at swanky clubs and dinner parties.
So they plan to hit them where it hurts — by stopping them from going on holiday or driving and hitting them with night-time curfews.
Boris Johnson will announce the measures as part of a ten-year blitz on drugs to be launched this week.
He aims to target supply chains with action to stop drugs getting into prison and to break up County Lines gangs that exploit children.
But he is also determined to cut off demand with a tougher range of penalties for lifestyle users. In an exclusive interview, the PM told The Sun on Sunday: “We need to look at new ways of penalising them — things that will actually interfere with their lives.
“So we will look at taking away their passports and driving licences. We’re keeping nothing off the table.”
Mr Johnson has put tackling drugs at the heart of his “levelling up” agenda as deprived areas are more likely to suffer crime caused by the trade. He has been spurred on by evidence that half of all murders, robberies and burglaries are linked in some way to drugs.
The PM is determined to hit those who feed demand yet never witness the murders, robberies and gang wars that result from their habit.
There are people who feel they are not part of the problem. I don’t want to stereotype it but I’m talking about lifestyle drug-takers.Boris Johnson
He added: “There are people who feel they are not part of the problem. I don’t want to stereotype it but I’m talking about lifestyle drug-takers.
“They think it’s a victimless crime. Well it isn’t.” He added: “We have got to say to them, look, you are helping to drive crime, you are helping to wreck lives and we can’t as a society go on like this.
“What I want to see is a world in which we have penalties for lifestyle drug users that will seriously interfere with their enjoyment of their own lifestyles.”
The new civil penalties will be modelled on sanctions already used against absent parents who fail to pay child maintenance and banning orders for football hooligans.
