British MPs Call for Drug Decriminalization

According to a recent report by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Drug Policy reform, the use of drugs should be decriminalized with the least harmful substances regulated and sold in shops. The report, Toward a Safer Drug Policy: Challenges and Opportunities Arising from ‘Legal Highs’, said that the 40-year-old Misuse of Drugs Act needs fundamental reform because it criminalizes young people for drug use, leaving them with reduced life prospects, while creating profits for illegal drug dealers. Instead, “low risk” drugs should be handled like cigarettes, with legal sales and warning labels, while higher risk drugs should be decriminalized. The report also called for the classification of drugs to be removed from the realm of politics and instead be based on scientific evidence. This is the third report in recent months to call for fundamental changes in British drug policy and a move away from a prohibitionist approach to a public health one.

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