Government approach to illegal drugs further undermined

4.33.33pm UTC (GMT +0000) Fri 23rd Mar 2007

Commenting on the report in the lancet by Profs Nutt and Blakemore on a new scientifically-based scale of harm of drugs, Dr Evan Harris, Liberal Democrat member of the Science and Technology Committee which issued a report last year calling for the Government to abandon the ABC system in favour of a more evidence-based approach, said:

"This report further undermines the credibility of the Government's approach to illegal drugs where their classification system bears no relation to the health risks, social harms and NHS burden of each drug.

"In particular the Government's position on ecstasy which is a class A drug and which successive Ministers have refused to consider re-classifying whatever experts say"

"It is clearly time for Government and opposition politicians to base drugs policy on science and rationality and not counter-productive populism".

Related Link:

The Commons Science and Technology Select Committee's fifth report of session 2005-06 'Drug classification: making a hash of it?'.