Rethinking drugs policy

Late last year there was talk about significant changes to the classification of drugs in the UK. Last week a report was published that expanded upon this suggesting that government drug policy is failing and drinking and smoking should be considered as dangerous as many illegal substances.

The two-year study headed by academics, drugs workers, journalists and a senior police officer called for a radical rethink of government drugs policy. It said addiction should be treated as a health and social problem, not as a crime issue. In many areas of British life, the report concludes, the harmless use of drugs is possible, indeed common. Police efforts should be diverted elsewhere and the sale and use of most heighteners by most people tolerated. Pretty controversial stuff, and after the very tough measures that were handed out across the Mardi Gras period here in Sydney, pretty surprising.

At the heart of the study is a new drug classification system, an index of harms which would include alcohol and tobacco. The government is to be urged to consider a controversial plan to reclassify drugs according to the harm they do. The new ranking system would see alcohol placed high on the scale because of its links to violence and car accidents. Tobacco, estimated to cause 40 percent of all hospital illnesses, would also come before the class-A drug ecstasy.

The report also discussed a study that suggests classification should not be linked to penalties for drug possession but rather the relative risks involved in taking them. The study of 20 drugs, both legal and illegal, weighed up their physical harm, their relative addictiveness and the impact they have on wider society, to produce a new rational league table.

This Drugs League Table assessed the drugs in the following order from most to least dangerous: heroin, cocaine, barbiturates, street methadone, alcohol, ketamine, benzodiazepine, amphetamines, tobacco, buprenorphine, cannabis, solvents, 4-MTA, LSD, methylphenidate, anabolic steroids, GHB, ecstasy, alkyl nitrates, khat.

As you can see there are a couple of major surprises there and it would be difficult to imagine that this proposal would ever be picked up. However, it does raise the issue of where the harm actually is when it comes to drug use. Looking at the list, it would appear the addictiveness of the substance played a major part in where they appeared. This would be particularly true of ketamine for instance. Regardless of that, it is important to remember that drugs affect different people in different ways and that one man’s meat is another man’s poison.

Remember: if you do not want any negative consequences, do not use the drug and, no matter how many times you have used a substance, never be blas?/p>