Drug use/misuse

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Report from cross-party Parliamentary Group calls for radical drug policy reform

January 14, 2013 Drug abuse

A panel of peers from the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Drug Policy Reform today released a new report. It focuses on ‘legal highs’, but also makes a number of other recommendations including decriminalising personal drug use and introducing a ‘class D’ to the current classification system, to allow carefully controlled sale of those psychoactives considered to pose a relatively low risk of harm. It is the third major report in as many months to recommend sweeping changes to UK drug policy.

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Legal Highs May Be More Damaging When Made Illegal

January 11, 2013 Drug Legalisation

Legal highs are being driven into more harmful forms by current legislation. Several commentators think it is time we rethink the way we make laws that seek to control these designer drugs.

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Have We Lost the War on Drugs?

Have We Lost the War on Drugs?

January 7, 2013 Drug abuse

Professors of Economics Gary S. Becker and Kevin M. Murphy put forward the argument for ending modern prohibition from an economic point of view.

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Objections to Bolivia’s reservation to allow coca chewing in the UN conventions (UPDATED)

January 4, 2013 Drug use/misuse

The UK, America, Italy and Switzerland have all made objections to Bolivia’s reservation to the 1961 UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs that would allow the traditional habit of coca-chewing to continue.

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Croatia decriminalises drug possession

December 18, 2012 Drug use/misuse

The new law will come into effect on January 1st, at which point those found in possession of drugs will either receive a fine, be sent for rehabilitation, or ordered to do community service. Previously, anyone convicted of drugs possession could be sentenced to up to 3 years in jail.

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Nick Clegg Photo Courtesy: Press Association

Nick Clegg breaks government’s ‘conspiracy of silence’ on drug policy reform (UPDATED)

December 14, 2012 Drug Legalisation

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg today became the first serving government minister to break the taboo and state that current drug policies have failed.

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Just Say No to Drug War?

December 6, 2012 Beckley in the Media

Juan Manuel Santos, incumbent President of Colombia, which has fought a long-time war on drugs with the support of the U.S., has just signed a public letter questioning that war on grounds of efficacy, cost, side effects, and fairness.

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Comment: Politicians don’t have the guts to support us in public

December 6, 2012 Beckley in the Media

Politicians will say many things privately but never dare utter them in public, especially when in office. Only when they are out of power do they reveal their true feelings. And this is no truer than the when addressing the ‘D’ word – drugs. Support the regulation of drugs and your career could be over. Or could it?

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Benefits of drug use ignored, says lecturer

December 4, 2012 Drug use/misuse

Stuart Taylor, a senior lecturer at Liverpool John Moores University in England, says current government drug policy around the world has failed by not considering why people use illegal substances: “We focus on addiction and negativity. We don’t look at alien concepts like, do those who use drugs develop skills from their drug life that they take into their normal lives?”

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Prof. David Nutt and the Global Drugs Survey in the Guardian: “Drugs are taken for pleasure – realise this and we can start to reduce harm”

December 3, 2012 Drug use/misuse

The mainstream penalty-driven approach to drugs control is both morally and intellectually flawed. Morally, it ignores the use and, in some cases, promotion of drugs such as alcohol and tobacco that are much more harmful than most “illicit” drugs. Intellectually, it ignores the reasons people choose to take drugs, and why they value them. One of the most important motivations for taking drugs, which cannot easily be acknowledged by the authorities, is personal pleasure.

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