An alternative to the war on drugs
BMJ 2010; 341 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.c3360 (Published 13 July 2010) Cite this as: BMJ 2010;341:c3360All rapid responses
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I personally cannot understand at first sight why anybody would want
to climb Mount Everest. The dangers are well known and one risks life and
limb by freezing or slow, cruel suffocation. It is an act of no benefit to
Society; what lies up there is well documented, and following the fearsome
expense of trying to get as high as is humanly possible, what does the
intrepid adventurer have to show for it? Answer: the experience had a
meaning personal to them. Like taking drugs.
One can easliy bemoan the young or young-at-heart needlessly throwing
their lives away, but it is certain that they dream about it, have always
dreamt about it, plan to do it and will thus continue to climb Mount
Everest. And take drugs. This is an issue that rises above the morbidity
and mortality figures it creates. At a human level, if my children were
about to embark on a seemingly foolish venture, and their lives might
depend on the quality of line they chose, well I would want them to have
the best gear available. I would want it to have been manufactured to
recognised standards, quality controlled and its use and tolerance
predictable in the event of a crisis. I could not ever be at rest knowing
the stuff that they were using had been manufactured by some unregulated
cowboy and sold on by a criminal whose only interest was profit, with
never a thought for my loved ones' safety. I would wish to be certain that
they should know what they were using before risking their lives with it.
Falling and dying appear to come with the territory. Nobody will change
that. Better to have never gone? Obviously. But they still do.
After many years of treating the victims of their own, foolish
decisions, I have concluded that one can ban, one can lecture, one can
explain, but some people will still want to get high.
The English language does not offer me a word for describing people
who deliberately make something more dangerous than it need be. Such an
act should be unthinkable. And yet, this is what we are discussing.
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests
Mr Rolles omits to mention the major casualties of the war. They are
the countless millions mainly in the developing countries who have little
or no medical access either to opioids or clean needles where injections
would be appropriate for the relief of intense pain and distress and to
enjoy the ` euphoria and mental
detachment ` which these drugs induce ( according to the BNF ) especially
in terminal care. This is because many countries do not produce them and
ban or restrict imports often it seems to demonstrate their toughness on
` recreational` use. Also there is no country-wide mechanism for
distributing and administering them equivalent to that for controlled
drugs in the UK.
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests
Rx for the War on Drugs
The War on Drugs has failed because physicians have failed to cure addiction,
and because governments have failed to cure corruption. Clearly, addiction
and
corruption are deeply rooted in human nature, and resistant to all
intervention.
How can we cure addiction and corruption? We must understand that
addiction
and corruption are related, because both involve people wanting to get
something for free: addicts want the free high of addiction, and corrupt
public
officials want free money. Sadly, human nature is flawed by a greedy,
childish,
insatiable craving for fun and freebies. As Cassius said in Shakespeare's
Julius
Caesar, "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we
are
underlings."
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests