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Originally Posted by kestrelx
Front page of the Times today...
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Smoking cannabis is no worse than eating junk food or gambling, according to a major report to be published today that calls for drug-taking to be decriminalised. The report, by experts including scientists and former senior police officers, says that illegal drugs are good for some people and that taking them is no different to moderate drinking. Calling for an overhaul of drug laws, the experts argue that the 50-year global “war on drugs” has failed and that a new approach is needed. But their demand that politicians accept that many Britons enjoy taking drugs and that drugs laws should be reformed will be strongly resisted at Westminster, where the Government remains opposed to decriminalisation. Police leaders, a former head of MI5 and the Government’s drugs advisers have questioned the current approach…
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Originally Posted by Margaret Pilkington
This is from a report by the UK Drugs Policy Commission.
I could not find it from the link you gave, but I found it in the Mail online.
The government are trying to rein in smoking and drinking and there is plenty of educational stuff about healthy eating, yet this group casually toss out a soundbite saying the taking of recreational drugs is no worse that these other life style choice...as if, in some way, that makes it all alright.
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This is one subject on which it is difficult if not impossible to change entrenched opinions on both sides.
However if an independent body comes up with the conclusions as reported by the Times, than surely it is at liberty to say so? There would have been no outcry if it had come to the opposite conclusion. According to the Mail article:
...it stopped short of calling for the decriminalisation of most drugs.The commission is an independent charity set up in 2007 to analyse drug policy in the UK. It is not funded by the Government and claims not to have any particular 'standpoint'.
It's time people were treated as adults and allowed to make up their own minds on this subject.
I just came across this book published about six months ago:
Drugs - Without the Hot Air: Minimising the Harms of Legal and Illegal Drugs [Paperback] by David Nutt
Sadly I think it's too late to order it from Amazon before I go on hols on Friday otherwise I would have taken it with me to read. I shall certainly do so when I get back.
Yes I know it's by the infamous Prof Nutt but at least he's not afraid to stick his head above the parapet. From the Amazon review:
Prof Nutt puts the case for an evidence-based scientific approach to drugs. In straightforward language for the lay person, he explains what drugs are, how they affect the body and the mind, and why people take them and get addicted to them. He shows how we can quantify the overall harms of a drug, addressing issues from direct danger of death, through to environmental, financial and family factors, to obtain a true indication of the overall effect of a drug. Then, working from the facts, he recommends how society ought to address drugs and drug-taking, to minimize the harms at every level. [my emphasis]
Surely this is what today's report is about, rather than a blanket ban which leads to bigotry and ignorance?