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UK: British Commission Urges Drug Law Overhaul

CommonDreams.org

Thursday 08 Mar 2007

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Experts Say Laws Should be Based on Science, Acknowledge Alcohol and
Tobacco Cause More Harm than Marijuana, Recognize that 'Total
Prohibition is Bound to Fail

LONDON - March 8 - An expert panel called for a complete overhaul of
British drug laws in a report released today, blasting Britain's Misuse
of Drugs Act -- which is similar in many ways to the Controlled
Substances Act in the United States -- as so unscientific and
unrealistic that it should be scrapped entirely.

The 335-page report was the result of two years of deliberations by a
panel of experts and laypeople convened by the Royal Society for the
Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce (RSA). U.S. drug
policy reformers urged that similar discussions -- focused on basing
laws on science rather than myth and emotion -- begin immediately in the
U.S. The RSA report stated:

* The idea of a drug-free society is an illusion. "The main aim of
public policy should be to reduce the amount of harms that drugs cause.
... [A]ny approach that has total prohibition as its principal objective
is bound to fail."

* A new drug law should focus on restricting behaviors that cause
harm, based on objective scientific evaluation of the harms of various
substances, including legal drugs like alcohol and tobacco.

* Marijuana (cannabis) "should continue to be controlled. But its
position on the harms index several places below alcohol or tobacco
suggests that the form this control takes might have to correspond far
more closely with the way in which alcohol and tobacco are regulated."

* "U.S. drug laws are more unscientific and irrational than
Britain's, so U.S. policymakers should be clamoring even more vigorously
and loudly for fundamental changes in our drug laws than British
policymakers are," said Rob Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana
Policy Project in Washington, D.C. "If our marijuana laws were based on
science rather than myths, we wouldn't arrest nearly 800,000 Americans
each year for a drug that's safer than tobacco or alcohol."

The full report is available at www.theRSA.org or
www.RSAdrugscommission.org

http://www.commondreams.org/news2007/0308-03.htm

 

 

 

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