Self regulation is necessary in war on drugs

BMJ 1998;316:706 ( 28 February )

Letters

Self regulation is necessary in war on drugs

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR $---$ In their editorial on why Britain's drug czar must not wage war on drugs Strang et al strongly advocate a pragmaticapproach by the government to the national and international drugproblem.¹ In doing so they seem keen to protect the relativemedical autonomy in treatment of addicts afforded by the "Britishsystem."² They call for a maintained emphasis on evidence basedtreatment, rehabilitation, and preventive strategies and quotethe success of the needle and syringe exchanges, as well as thetolerance of injectable heroin and methadone prescribing, as examplesof this pragmatic approach.

As well as advantages, however, there are surely disadvantages afforded by a system largely devoid of regulation. The mostfrequently expressed concern is that of widespread diversion ofprescribed drugs to the black market.³ As a profession, weseem to be doing little to rebuff such criticism. The recentlypublished results from a survey . . . [Full text of this article]

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Why Britain's drug czar mustn't wage war on drugs: John Strang, William B Clee, Lawrence Gruer, and Duncan Raistrick
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