Pubdate: Fri, 14 Mar 2014
Source: Independent  (UK)
Copyright: 2014 Independent Newspapers (UK) Ltd.
Contact:  http://www.independent.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/209

COMPOUND INTEREST

Legal Highs Blow Yet Another Hole in Our Drugs Policy

Professor David Nutt is rocking the boat once again.The former chief 
drugs adviser to the Government, who was sacked in 2009 after saying 
that tobacco and alcohol are more harmful than some illicit 
substances, has now added his name to a letter to The Lancet raising 
questions about the perceived dangers of so-called legal highs. In 
fact, many of the recorded fatalities were caused by substances that 
were already illegal, Professor Nutt and Dr Leslie King claim.

All of this only re-emphasises the confusion at the heart of the "war 
on drugs", and the extent to which it is failing. In this case it 
might be more accurately called the "war on legal drugs", as these 
synthetic substances, mimicking the effects of proscribed drugs, lie 
outside the law. There is a cat-and-mouse game being played here.As 
soon as one pharmaceutical compound is identified, catalogued and 
placed on a schedule of banned drugs, the makeshift labs create 
another, barely altered but strictly legal. Such activities only make 
a further mockery of a system already long since discredited.

As recent experiences in Colorado demonstrate in the case of 
marijuana, a sane and gradual process of legalisation does not 
trigger a collapse in civilised behaviour. It also, as it happens, 
creates a handy yield in tax revenue  not to mention the undoubted 
benefits from drug use being treated as a health issue, rather than 
as a simple criminal offence.

Legalised drugs would be far less adulterated, of consistent quality 
and subject to the kind of rational risk assessment that we apply to 
tobacco and alcohol. The result of the prohibition is criminalisation 
and a net increase in the harm done to individuals and society, both 
here and often in the poor countries where the drugs are produced. 
Meanwhile, in a spectacular illustration of the law of unintended 
consequences, the profits from this illicit trade fund all manner of 
terrorism and organised crime.

The war on drugs is being lost; the choice is only when we move to a 
more effective regulatory system. It should be guided by the 
conclusions of a royal commission. Sad to say, for all the 
contributions from experts such as Professor Nutt, there is little 
sign of progress.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom