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

[Brian McNeil]

On Wed, 2011-06-01 at 09:31 +0200, Pat Maechler aka Valio wrote:
> > 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

Didn't Switzerland adopt a "prescribe heroin to addicts" approach a
number of years back?

I was under the impression it had, this then leading to the drug being
viewed as one for old people. As something "unfashionable" it lacked
uptake, and addicts were able to get clinical help with their addiction
to the extent they could contribute to society.

-- 
Brian McNeil.
-- 
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