[pp.int.general] Petition: End the War on Drugs

[Pat Maechler aka Valio]

> I'd like to hear from others if they have other opinions.
> Raymond van Vugt (PPNL)

Pirate Party Switzerland adopted a position paper [1] some time ago
that opts for a regulated drug market, saying that marihuana shall be
handled like alcohol, hallucinogens and "party drugs" shall be allowed
within a controllable setting (e.g. medical personal present) and hard
drugs shall be only available to clearly addicted people upon
prescription as a mean for harm reduction (e.g. non-adulterated
heroine leads to death if overdosed, but is likely to be non-toxic at
all). Non-substance related addictions are mentioned as well, we're we
think repression is no option, but prevention and harm reduction.

I'm not that happy with the position paper, as it lacks a lot of
references, e.g. to prominent academic groups such as the Schildower
Kreis [2], concepts like drug autonomy [3] or recent research on drug
harms such as the studies by D. Nutt et al. [4][5]; on the other hand
I can live with that and I lacked the time to improve it yet myself
;-)

-pat (PPCH)

[1] http://www.piratenpartei.ch/Suchtmittelpolitik [German] position paper
[2] http://www.schildower-kreis.de [German] academic group
[3] http://www.drogenautonomie.info/ [German] explanation on drug autonomy
[4] http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(07)60464-4
[5] http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(10)61462-6