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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: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 13 2015, @12:33PM
A population drug-idled and addicted is hardly a population able to take advantage of fundamental liberties. If you believe in some kind of Randian "freedom", I'm surprised you have gotten through life.
Wrt mass surveillance -- how does drug prohibition --ie policing dangerous substances-- equate with it? The government (especially the UK government) bans things all the time-- guns, media that offends people, types of alcohol, etc. I'd hazard a guess you're all right with banning at least one of those in practice.
And, wrt to the other guy saying "troll": are you that encapsulated in a bubble/hugbox, you can't imagine anyone legitimately has a differing point of view to you? I think all those gewg posts have given you a false impression of the world.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anal Pumpernickel on Saturday June 13 2015, @04:33PM
A population drug-idled and addicted is hardly a population able to take advantage of fundamental liberties.
That's their choice. It isn't your place to send government thugs to take away their liberties whilst claiming to be protecting their liberties.
And that's nonsense, anyway. Can drug addicts exercise freedom of speech? Yes. The freedom to control their own bodies? Yes. Privacy rights? Yes. There are no rights that drugs stop you from exercising, and even if there were, it's ultimately your choice whether or not you want to take advantage of them.
Wrt mass surveillance -- how does drug prohibition --ie policing dangerous substances-- equate with it?
It's the same mentality that safety is more important than freedom; that we should act like worthless cowards and surrender our liberties in order to be more 'safe'.
I'd hazard a guess you're all right with banning at least one of those in practice.
I'm not fine with banning any of those, because I'm not a freedom-hating authoritarian.