British Medical Journal: Drugs Should be Legalized, Regulated, and Taxed
The British Medical Journal (BMJ) has released a paper explaining why they are “firmly behind efforts to legalise, regulate, and tax the sale of drugs for recreational and medicinal use.”
“The war on drugs costs each UK taxpayer an estimated £400 a year”, states the BMJ. “The UK is now the world’s largest exporter of legal cannabis, yet recreational and medicinal use are criminalised. Scotland has the EU’s highest rate of drug related deaths, double that of 10 years ago.” They state that “The global trade in illicit drugs is worth £236bn, but this money fuels organised crime and human misery. Why should it not instead fund public services?”
According to the BMJ, “A growing number of countries are taking a more enlightened route,… In Portugal, where non-violent possession of drugs has been decriminalised, consumption hasn’t increased but drug related deaths have fallen considerably. In the Netherlands, the USA, and now Canada, regulated markets for the sale of cannabis generate substantial tax revenues.”
Meanwhile, in the UK, “vast sums are spent on prosecuting individuals and trying vainly to interrupt the flow of drugs into cities, carried along “county lines” by vulnerable children.” The BMJ notes that Law Enforcement Action Partnership “calls for legalisation and regulation. They say that the money could instead be spent on quality control, education, treatment for drug users, and child protection. Revenues could be diverted from criminal gangs into government coffers.”
They continue; “When law enforcement officers call for drugs to be legalised, we have to listen. So too when doctors speak up. Last month the Royal College of Physicians took the important step of coming out in favour of decriminalisation joining the BMA, the Faculty of Public Health, and the Royal Society of Public Health in supporting drug policy reform”.
The BMJ says that “This is not about whether you think drugs are good or bad. It is an evidence based position entirely in line with the public health approach to violent crime.”
The group concludes by stating that “The BMJ is firmly behind efforts to legalise, regulate, and tax the sale of drugs for recreational and medicinal use. This is an issue on which doctors can and should make their voices heard.”