SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
UK Home Secretary Theresa May is continuing a trend of ignoring science advisers when it comes to drug policy:
Home Secretary Theresa May and her statutory advisers on drug policy look to be heading for a showdown over government plans to deal with so-called "legal highs". Some members of The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) are understood to be furious that they were not consulted on proposed legislation for a blanket ban on psychoactive substances. The relationship between the ACMD and ministers in various governments has long been strained. There have been sackings and mass resignations in the last few years, amid claims that expert scientists were being bullied and ignored because their advice didn't coincide with government policy.
Questions are now being asked as to whether the ACMD is being edged out of the drugs debate - 44 years after a Conservative government set it up to ensure science rather than politics dictated policy. In the House of Lords yesterday, a number of peers demanded to know why ministers had not asked the ACMD's opinion before drawing up the controversial Psychoactive Substances Bill.
"It is actually a legal requirement set out in the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 that the ACMD must be consulted before alterations to the Act or new legislation is brought in," Labour peer Lord Rea told the House. "Instead, a specially appointed expert panel was set up by the Home Office. I can only suggest that this was done because the opinion of the ACMD is often not exactly welcomed by the Home Office".
The principle which underpinned the drugs debate in the UK at that time [in 1971] was the longstanding and broadly accepted view that addicts were ill and required treatment rather than punishment. Known as the "British system", ministers felt a medical science-led approach was preferable to US-style prohibition. Roll the clock forward four decades and the government view seems to have turned around entirely in responding to the threat from so-called "legal highs". The bill to outlaw NPS prohibits everything "capable of producing a psychoactive effect" unless it is specifically exempted - and there are concerns that the proposals are being introduced without proper consultation with health experts.
A blanket ban on psychoactive legal highs with prison sentences of up to seven years was featured in the Conservative Party's election manifesto and the Queen's Speech.
Original Submission
(Score: 5, Informative) by c0lo on Friday June 12 2015, @10:40PM
Yes, they would. Not fantastically better (addiction is still addiction), as what Portugal experience have shown [mic.com] after 14 years of switching from making drug use a crime to a policy of harm reduction:
In regards with harm reduction [newyorker.com]:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by KGIII on Saturday June 13 2015, @04:06AM
You do not get AIDS or hepatitis from a dirty needle anyhow. You get those from contaminated needles. There is a difference as a dirty needle can be one you have used more than once.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 13 2015, @06:43AM
While you might be semantically correct, this is a very poorly crafted soundbite "You do not get AIDS or hepatitis from a dirty needle".
(Score: 1) by KGIII on Sunday June 14 2015, @08:38AM
You are correct. It would most certainly not make a good DARE poster. I have had three DARE shirts. One was legit, one said DARE to think for yourself, and the final one said DARE - Drugs Are Really Expensive. I liked to wear the legitimate one when I was tripping and/or going out to a show. You can get "cotton fever" (name used generically - it is frequently just foreign matter in the blood that the body is unhappy about) from dirty needles.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."