Former Royal College of Physicians president backs review of drugs laws

Vader

Vader

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17 August 2010
Former RCP president backs review of drugs laws
Decriminalising drug use could drastically reduce crime and improve health, the outgoing president of the Royal College of Physicians has said.

Sir Ian Gilmore said the laws on misuse of drugs should be reviewed but that drugs should still be regulated.

He had formed his view after seeing the problems caused by dirty needles and contaminated drugs, Sir Ian said in a parting e-mail to 25,000 RCP members.
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Sir Ian Gilmore said drug prohibition was "not a success"

But the government says it does not believe this is the right approach.

In the e-mail, which Sir Ian said expressed own views rather than those of the RCP, he wrote that he felt like finishing his presidency on a "controversial note".

He endorsed a recent article in the British Medical Journal by Stephen Rolles from the drug research charity Transform, which argued that the policy of prohibition had harmed public health, encouraged organised crime and fuelled corruption.

Sir Ian told the BBC: "Everyone who has looked at this in a serious and sustained way concludes that the present policy of prohibition is not a success."

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Sir Ian Gilmore

"There are really strong arguments to look again."

Sir Ian said he had a longstanding interest in the subject, stemming from his work as a liver specialist.

During that time he was used to seeing intravenous drug users who had developed hepatitis C, and people coming into A&E units "day-in and day-out".
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BBC News, 17/08/10
 
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Cocaine should be legal, says top doctor

Cocaine should be legal, says top doctor
James Kirkup
Telegraph
August 17th 2010

"Professor Sir Ian Gilmore said making drugs such as heroin and cocaine legal would “drastically” cut crime and addicts’ health problems.

State-regulated use of drugs would also save money and avert the need to try to stop drug production in countries such as Afghanistan, he said."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/7949342/Cocaine-should-be-legal-says-top-doctor.html
 
People want drugs - people GET DRUGS!

A SIMPLE concept that the public at large DON'T GET. Is it better to supply from a) a regulated system or b) unregulated system (fueling gun crime, gangs, BAD drugs with impurities and toxic compounds)

I even like it how the current drug body have completely watered down his statement such that it is meaningless when what he is saying is quite BOLD. As above "smart guy"
 
There was a "Think of the children" mother on the ch4 news debate, who's son became "addicted to Cannabis" - She's written a book incidently 8)

But yes, a bloke who's switched on and not part of the Daily Fail masses.
 
monstanoodle said:
There was a "Think of the children" mother on the ch4 news debate, who's son became "addicted to Cannabis" - She's written a book incidently 8)
Click to expand...

I saw that. She was a bit mental I reckon - obviously had a bee in her bonnet.
 
The Daily Mash summed it up perfectly:

THE campaign to legalise drugs was today backed by someone whose only qualification is to know exactly what he is talking about.

Professor Sir Ian Gilmore, the outgoing president of the Royal College of Physicians, admitted he did not expect his views to be taken seriously because all he had done was spend 30 years becoming a world class consultant and public health expert, before sitting down and thinking about the issue of drug misuse for absolutely ages.

He said: "I haven't done anything particularly onerous such as waiting my turn to be handed a safe parliamentary seat before confronting the incredibly demanding task of doing whatever the Daily Mail tells me to.

"My comments are nothing more than the sort of off-the-top-of-the-head ramblings one consistently hears from hippy dippy chief constables, members of the government's scientific advisory panel on getting off your tits and silly little people like Sir Nicholas Green QC, the chief druid at the UK Bar Council."

Professor Gilmore added: "The only people now opposing the legalisation of drugs - and thank goodness - are MPs, your grandmother and Peter Hitchens, that religious chap who is perilously close to being too insane for the Mail on Sunday."

Senior Tory backbencher Denys Finch-Hatton, said: "I do find it disturbing when dangerously under-qualified people get involved in subjects on which the Daily Mail has already made its position perfectly clear.

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/...the-royal-college-of-physicians-201008173007/
 
Silverfox said:
The Daily Mash summed it up perfectly:

THE campaign to legalise drugs was today backed by someone whose only qualification is to know exactly what he is talking about.

Professor Sir Ian Gilmore, the outgoing president of the Royal College of Physicians, admitted he did not expect his views to be taken seriously because all he had done was spend 30 years becoming a world class consultant and public health expert, before sitting down and thinking about the issue of drug misuse for absolutely ages.

He said: "I haven't done anything particularly onerous such as waiting my turn to be handed a safe parliamentary seat before confronting the incredibly demanding task of doing whatever the Daily Mail tells me to.

"My comments are nothing more than the sort of off-the-top-of-the-head ramblings one consistently hears from hippy dippy chief constables, members of the government's scientific advisory panel on getting off your tits and silly little people like Sir Nicholas Green QC, the chief druid at the UK Bar Council."

Professor Gilmore added: "The only people now opposing the legalisation of drugs - and thank goodness - are MPs, your grandmother and Peter Hitchens, that religious chap who is perilously close to being too insane for the Mail on Sunday."

Senior Tory backbencher Denys Finch-Hatton, said: "I do find it disturbing when dangerously under-qualified people get involved in subjects on which the Daily Mail has already made its position perfectly clear.

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/...the-royal-college-of-physicians-201008173007/
Click to expand...

Haha, beaten to it. I was just about to post that in here.

Brilliant take on the whole thing.
 
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