Try a little compassion

doi:10.1136/bmj.39402.572685.BE

BMJ 2007;335:1061 (24 November), doi:10.1136/bmj.39402.572685.BE

Letters

Should drugs be decriminalised?

Try a little compassion

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

The idea that the availability of drugs creates addicts is rubbishand backs up the panoply of sanctions that support the presentlaw.¹ ²

Most people accept that government is responsible for preventingthe actions of some people harming others. Thus, we can harmourselves by smoking, drinking, and overeating, but unless thesehabits damage others the law is indifferent, and rightly so.Laws arbitrarily criminalising the ingestion of some substancesare illogical and discriminatory. Another government responsibilityis to ensure that all available drugs are clean, relativelysafe, licensed, and strictly controlled. Illegal drugs absolvegovernment from this responsibility. Thus, the effects of theillegal filthy brown heroin and the sharing of "gear" in prisons(where there is still no needle exchange) is nobody's responsibility.

Our heroin addicts are a pretty docile lot, who cause littlemayhem compared with alcohol users, but the harm caused to them—HIV,hepatitis B, hepatitis . . . [Full text of this article]

Roger L Weeks, general practitioner

London SW14 7DF

roger@safescript.org