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The Raelian Movement
for those who are not afraid of the future : http://www.rael.org
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Leading doctor urges decriminalisation of drugs
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/aug/16/drugs-decriminalisation-doctor-ian-gilmore
Former president of the Royal College of Physicians says blanket ban
has failed to cut crime or improve health
* Sarah Boseley, health editor
* guardian.co.uk, Monday 16 August 2010 19.59 BST
One of the UK's leading doctors said today the government should
consider decriminalising drugs because the blanket ban has failed to
cut crime or improve health.
"I'm not saying we should make heroin available to everyone, but we
should be treating it as a health issue rather than criminalising
people," said Sir Ian Gilmore, former president of the Royal College
of Physicians.
Gilmore put his position on the record publicly today after telling
fellows and members of the college last month in a statement that he
felt like "finishing my presidency on a controversial note".
He gave his backing to Nicholas Green, chairman of the Bar Council,
who recently suggested individual use be decriminalised.
"This could drastically reduce crime and improve health," said
Gilmore, who added that drugs should still be regulated.
He praised an article published on 13 July in the British Medical
Journal by Stephen Rolles, senior policy analyst at the Transform Drug
Policy Foundation, which, he said, clearly made the argument for
decriminalisation.
Rolles pointed out not only that criminalising drug use had
exacerbated health problems such as HIV, which can be spread by the
use of contaminated needles, but had created a much larger array of
secondary harms, including "vast networks of organised crime, endemic
violence related to the drug market, corruption of law enforcement and
governments, militarised crop eradication programmes (environmental
damage, food insecurity, and human displacement), and funding of
terrorism and insurgency."
Decriminalisation in Portugal in 2001, Rolles said, had led to a fall
in drug use among young people. A study by the World Health
Organisation, he added, has shown that countries taking tough action
do not have lower levels of drug use than countries with liberal
policies.
The editor of the British Medical Journal, Dr Fiona Godlee, gave her
personal support to Rolles' call for decriminalisation.
"He says, and I agree, that we must regulate drug use, not criminalise
it," she wrote in the journal.
Danny Kushlik, head of external affairs at Transform, which campaigns
for legalisation, said the intervention of senior medical
professionals was significant.
"Sir Ian's statement is yet another nail in prohibition's coffin," he
said. "The Hippocratic oath says: 'First, do no harm'. Physicians are
duty bound to speak out if the outcomes show that prohibition causes
more harm than it reduces."
He added: "With a prime minister and deputy prime minister both
longstanding supporters of alternatives to the war on drugs, at the
very least the government must initiate an impact assessment comparing
prohibition with decriminalisation and strict legal regulation."
Nicholas Green, chairman of the Bar Council, made his comments in a
report in the profession's magazine, in which he said that
drug-related crime costs the economy about £13bn a year. There was
growing evidence that decriminalisation could free up police
resources, reduce crime and recidivism and improve public health.
Last month, Professor David Nutt, who was sacked as the Labour
government's top drugs adviser after saying ecstasy was less harmful
than alcohol, said the UK needed a radical new approach to drugs laws,
which may include the regulated sale of some drugs.
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WARNING FROM RAEL: For those who don't use their intelligence at its full
capacity, the label "selected by RAEL" on some articles does not mean that I
agree with their content or support it. "Selected by RAEL" means that I believe
it is important for the people of this planet to know about what people think or
do, even when what they think or do is completely stupid and against our
philosophy. When I selected articles in the past about stupid Christian
fundamentalists in America praying for rain, I am sure no Rael-Science reader
was stupid enough to believe that I was supporting praying to change the
weather. So, when I select articles which are in favor of drugs, anti-semitic,
anti-Jewish, racist, revisionist, or inciting hatred against any group or
religion, or any other stupid article, it does not mean that I support them. It
just means that it is important for all human beings to know about them. Common
sense, which is usually very good among our readers, is good enough to
understand that. When, like in the recent articles on drug decriminalization, it
is necessary to make it clearer, I add a comment, which in this case was very
clear: I support decriminalizing all drugs, as it is stupid to throw depressed
and sad people (as only depressed and sad people use drugs) in prison and ruin
their life with a criminal record. That does not mean that there is any change
to the Message which says clearly that we must not use any drug except for
medical purposes. The same applies to the freedom of expression which must be
absolute. That does not mean again of course that I agree with anti-Jews,
antisemites, racists of any kind or anti-Raelians. But by knowing your enemies
or the enemies of your values, you are better equipped to fight them. With love
and respect of course, and with the wonderful sentence of the French philosopher
Voltaire in mind: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death
your right to say it".
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"Ethics" is simply a last-gasp attempt by deist conservatives and
orthodox dogmatics to keep humanity in ignorance and obscurantism,
through the well tried fermentation of fear, the fear of science and
new technologies.
There is nothing glorious about what our ancestors call history,
it is simply a succession of mistakes, intolerances and violations.
On the contrary, let us embrace Science and the new technologies
unfettered, for it is these which will liberate mankind from the
myth of god, and free us from our age old fears, from disease,
death and the sweat of labour.
Rael
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