Society seems to have a problem with deciding what to do with drugs. Certainly it seems that liberalization and legalization is increasingly possible scenario for the future. Status of cannabis in Netherlands, therapy models for heroin addicts in Switzerland, return of research on healthy participants with THC, LSD for anxiety related treatment and MDMA for post-traumatic stress disorder or all drugs decriminalization experiments in some Portugal cities... Those are just a few examples showing that open minded and objective approach to drugs can work better than law enforcement and criminalization.
There has been a heated discussion in the recent days inUK
Professor Nutts actually gave a very good review during this lecture which you can read in this briefing from Center of Crime and Justice Studies. I strongly recommend you to read it. Prof Nutt argue that such factors as harm assessment bias, media bias and political stigmatization are just some of the problems that so far prevented most countries from application of multicriteria decision-making in classification and general approach to drugs.
Governments applied this multicriteria decission-making model in case of nuclear waste disposal or terrorist threat assessment so why is scientists’ voice so badly ignored regarding drugs?
There has been a heated discussion in the recent days in
Professor Nutts actually gave a very good review during this lecture which you can read in this briefing from Center of Crime and Justice Studies. I strongly recommend you to read it. Prof Nutt argue that such factors as harm assessment bias, media bias and political stigmatization are just some of the problems that so far prevented most countries from application of multicriteria decision-making in classification and general approach to drugs.
Governments applied this multicriteria decission-making model in case of nuclear waste disposal or terrorist threat assessment so why is scientists’ voice so badly ignored regarding drugs?
Now that everyone under 40 has done _some_ kind of drugs we can at least do something about the incarceration aspect of drug abuse. How about a compromise: when Police finds drugs they get confiscated, but there is no further harrasment?
ReplyDeleteWell, you have this three shot system here in UK. After first time they caught you with drugs you get it confiscated and you get a warning. Second time - confiscated and £80 spot fine. Third time - prosecution. This is a sort of compromise, mostly applied for cannabis, and this year only 1% of people caught with grass got actually prosecuted...
ReplyDeleteImagine what if someone proposed the same kind of "three strikes" law for people who smoke cigs. Imagine if someone proposed the same kind of law for obese folks, or private stamp collectors.
ReplyDeleteYou call that a compromise? Because they could kill me on the spot instead of locking me in a small room for many years? Because I have some relatively harmless dried plant material in my pocket? Give me a break.
It's like a compromise that black people will remain slaves, but will be called "free companions" instead, and they can try to run twice before they get flogged.
Take it easy ;-) Certainly decriminalization would be the best ‘compromise’, but the problem is more complex. Society is not educated enough about drugs, and majority of population lives in the paradigm, where cigarettes and alcohol are considered harmless comparing to cannabis or ecstasy. There is a nice example in Prof Nutt's article, where he shows how many drug deaths in Scotland were reported in Scottish press between 1990 and 1999. He quotes that from total 28 deaths from ecstasy overdose, 26 were reported. However, in case of alcohol overdose, which killed between 2000-3000 people, none were really reported. Other examples: paracetamol – 1 newspaper report per 50 deaths, aspirin – 1 newspaper report per 265 deaths. Can you see a clear bias here? Of course cannabis were not reported because it doesn’t kill – you can’t die of cannabis overdose…
ReplyDeleteThe point I am making is that there is a massive bias in media and social consciousness of drugs, and this is the problem which should be addressed first. And that requires full acknowledgment of scientific perspective on drugs.