World
Health Organisation quotes
United Nations quotes
EU quotes
EMCDDA quotes
What is a drug?
What are the costs of drug
consumption?
What are the benefits of drug
consumption?
What other factors lead people to
consume drugs?
How should Government, business &
individuals regulate the trade and consumption of
drugs? Tony Blair on alcohol
How does familiarity affect
risk perception and risk tolerance?
Who is responsible for
individual health choices - voluntary risks v imposed
risks?
Human
rights
Public attitudes to drugs
Prevalence of use among young
New Scientist: "The legality of alcohol
is tacit admission that the quest for intoxication is
part of human nature".
Does increased drug
use inevitably lead to increased drug harm?
Consider car use and
car harm. Since 1922 car use has increased 25-fold
but car harm has been reduced by a factor of 2. The
reason? - increased regulation reduces harm. The
environment is made safer (safer roads), the harmful
object is made safer (safer car design), and the user
of the car is made safer (education, driving tests).
Regulatory improvements offset the risk of increased
harm: improvements to the environment (road or market
place), the object’s design (vehicle or drug
quality/quantity) and the education of the user
(driver training or drug user education).
Would legalisation
increase drug availability?
Drug-taking is an
adult activity like sex and products and services
should only be available from licensed premises
dedicated to that adult activity, with no access to
young people (e.g. tobacconists, off-licenses, pubs).
This represents the ideal restriction of availability
for an integrated drugs strategy including both
traditional and non-traditional drugs, a balance
point to aim for. Legal drugs are too available
through excessive licensing, illegal drugs too
available through lack of regulation: 200,000 legal
drug dealers while 12 year olds have no problem
getting illegal drugs. Crucially all enforcement
efforts could be focused on preventing young people
obtaining drugs. Evidence shows a strong link between
early drug use, of both legal and illegal drugs, and
later drug problems.
Drug trends toward
integration:
The
Government’s modernisation program will
eventually lead to integrated, evidence-based drug
regulations. Drug regulation trends of the last few
decades show convergence upon the targeting of
legislation against harm to others only, using
education to encourage personal responsibility for
health through informed choice. This trend toward
integration is a foreseeable risk to current drug
regulations. The discrimination between traditional
and non-traditional drugs is not based on drug risks
but on public risk tolerance, a factor that has
changed considerably over the last 40 years. The
fundamental problem is that all drug availability has
increased, whether legal or not.
Types of harm to
others:
Businesses involved
in production and trade of substances for consumption
(food & drugs) may impose unacceptable risks on
others in many ways. Legislation regulating
production includes laws requiring ingredients lists,
health warnings and adequate quantity and quality
control throughout production, distribution and the
consumption period (e.g. ‘sell by’ &
‘best before’ dates). Legislation
regulating trade includes advertising and sales
restrictions of products that may cause significant
harm. Self-harm does impose a social cost in terms of
health treatment. Government may tax the trade
relating to activities that risk self-harm to cover
the cost of drug-related services, including
regulatory costs. Taxation of alcohol and tobacco
covers the cost of all required drug-related
services. Legislation regulating consumption includes
drug-driving, fire risk on public transport,
anti-social behaviour, and soon smoking in enclosed
public places.
Business influence
on policy making:
It is not clear what
influence the traditional drug industry has in
shaping policy toward competing non-traditional drug
industries. A World Health Organisation Committee
"found that the tobacco industry regarded the
World Health Organization as one of their leading
enemies, and that the industry had a planned strategy
to "contain, neutralise, reorient" WHO's
tobacco control initiatives". The Department of
Health’s Dangerousness of Drugs says
"a powerful lobby, the alcohol industry, has an
obvious interest in minimising the number of deaths
that are attributed to alcohol. This political
pressure acts only to confound what is already a
complex question of aetiology".
NGOs may regulate
one day:
Alongside health
warnings on products could be contact details for an
umbrella organisation concerned with that product.
Such an umbrella organisation would include all
organisations concerned with that product. For
tobacco this would include ASH (‘anti’),
Forest (‘pro’) and the NHS (treatment).
This would provide an important single link between
consumer, organisations and Government. Consumers
could find out further information and advice about
rights, responsibilities and risk. The umbrella
organisation may then be able to co-ordinate public
involvement in Government policy-making aiding the
co-production of policy. Ultimately a significant
proportion of policy-making might be devolved to
these umbrella organisations which would then attempt
to resolve conflicting views, taking this burden from
Government.
Safer alternatives,
free competition
When cannabis
becomes legally available those who consume alcohol
excessively should be targeted to switch to cannabis.
Integrating
substance use policies:
The harmful use of
substances, food and non-medicinal drugs, is the
largest source of lifestyle health problems. Harmful
substance use is often a response to stress. Some
individuals may find that consumption reduces stress.
This negative feedback reduces their primary cause of
substance use and so may lead to a re-balancing of
the individual’s state. However if stress is
chronic and this response to stress continues then
dependence is likely. Dependence leads to long-term
consumption and all the health risks and stress that
entails. This positive feedback increases the causes
of consumption. The benefits of drug use must be
properly considered and the boundary between
reasonably safe use and harmful use clearly defined.
Dieters show the same relapse rate as those
attempting to break their dependency on drugs. The
Strategy Unit’s Addictive Behaviours – a
review of research says "what are the main
harmful addictions? Smoking, illicit drug use, and
drinking, but possibly also over-eating leading to
obesity?". An integrated systems strategy is
required for cross-cutting issues such as substance
consumption especially in light of their common
non-linear effects due to feedback. The prohibition
of only non-traditional drugs remains a barrier to
joined-up policy. The word ‘substance’ can
not be used to identify cross-cutting substance use
issues since the word is currently used to mean only
‘legal and illegal drugs’.
Standard risk
assessment for all consumed substances
A common risk
assessment framework is required for all substances
produced and supplied by organisations and consumed
by individuals, food and drugs.