New classification system for drugs of misuse called for
Drugs of misuse should be classified according to the harm they pose
rather than the penalties attached to their trafficking and possession,
the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee has concluded (PDF 1.3MB).
“The classification system purports to rank drugs on the basis
of harm associated with their misuse but we have found glaring anomalies
in the
classification system as it stands and a wide consensus that the current
system is not fit for purpose,” the committee says in a report
published this week.
“Decoupling penalties and the harm ranking would permit a more
sophisticated and scientific approach to assessing harm, and the development
of a scale
which could be highly responsive to changes in the evidence base,” the
report says. The committee suggests that a revised classification system
could emphasise the link between misuse of the drug and criminal activity
or make a clearer distinction between what should be taken to constitute
possession rather than supply.
The committee also argues that alcohol and tobacco should, on the basis
of the harm they cause, be included in any ranking of drugs.
“It would be unfeasible to expect a penalty-linked classification
system to include tobacco and alcohol, but there would be merit in including
them in a more scientific scale, decoupled from penalties, to give the
public a better sense of the relative harms involved,” the report
says. |
The
Pharmaceutical Journal
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