Sir Ian Gilmore
Yet another leading medical expert has come out to call for the decriminalisation of personal drug use.
Sir Ian Gilmore is the outgoing head of the Royal College of Physicians, a professional body which represents 20,000 medical professionals in the UK. He has a long standing interest in drugs policy stemming from his background as a liver specialist. In an email to all members, he wrote:
“I personally back the chairman of the UK Bar Council, Nicholas Green QC, when he calls for drug laws to be reconsidered with a view to decriminalising illicit drugs use. This could drastically reduce crime and improve health.”
The report he refers to was produced for lawyers, and also argues for an end to prohibition, estimating its cost to the economy at £13 billion a year. Sir Ian also endorsed an article published in the British Medical Journal by Steve Rolles of Transform Drugs Policy which called for a regulated drugs market.
He said:
“Everyone who has looked at this in a serious and sustained way concludes that the present policy of prohibition is not a success. There are really strong arguments to look again. Every day in our hospital wards we see drug addicts with infections from dirty needles, we see heroin addicts with complications from contaminated drugs.”
He went on to argue that this was a result not of heroin itself, but of the prohibition policy which forces addicts on to a black market of dirty heroin.
What this news tells us is that, despite the crazy propaganda from the likes of the Daily Mail and The Sun, SSY’s position on drugs is a mainstream view shared by health professionals, scientists and anyone who has made any kind of serious inquiry into drugs policy. Prohibition has done untold harm, and caused far more people to use dangerous drugs and suffer serious health problems or die than otherwise would have done. Health professionals can see that.
Perhaps it’s time for a major broad campaign that brings together all those who want to see an end to prohibition, and is capable of demonstrating just how much support there is for the idea amongst those who know what they’re talking about.
Entries (RSS)
I had been one of the less radical types in the SSY with regard to drug legalisation up until recently. What really changed my mind was Angus MacQueen’s ‘our drugs war’ on 4od; that pretty much shows exactly how pointless our desire to proibit drugs really is, and how doing so invariably makes things worse for everyone except organised criminals.
Legalise drugs now!
Although all these arguments are sound, we never really look at the real terror behind prohibition, which isn’t the fact that drugs themselves are illegal, but people who love certain states of mind, thoughts, passions and PLANTS are being criminalized and looked down upon. Drug legalisation will mean more than anything, an end to the oppression of certain people whose voices don’t matter because they are deemed “high”. I urge people, like Terence McKenna once said, to come out the closet and say “I’m stoned and I’m proud”, we’re not idiot druggies who contribute nothing, we can be intelligent open-minded people with great ideas. End the scare tactics and misinformation sites like Frank, spread the truth and reduce harm with erowid.
Might start contributing more when I start at Cali..
i’m no fan of this ‘how-can-they-possibly-ban-PLANTS-cos-plants-are-all-totally-kosher’ argument. some plants are actually pretty fucking dangerous
Yeah, but I don’t think that’s the gist of what Ross is saying. He’s arguing that we shouldn’t criminalise altered states of consciousness.
Besides which, should the government ban giant hogweed or nettles? No, we should work together socially as a society so that people know about the dangerous plants.