British Medical Journal calls for legalisation of drugs

The British Medical Journal has called for the legalisation of illicit drugs for the first time.

Prohibition laws have failed to curb either supply or demand, reduce addiction, cut violence or reduce profits for organised crime, the journal argued, saying the so-called 'War on Drugs' had been a failure.

It said the ban on the production, supply, possession and use of some drugs for non-medical purposes was causing huge harm. 

“There is an imperative to investigate more effective alternatives to criminalisation of drug use and supply," the BMJ said in an editorial.

The paper’s editor-in-chief, Dr Fiona Godlee, and features and debates editor, Richard Hurley, pointed to the fact drug use has grown substantially worldwide, with a quarter of a billion adults worldwide having potentially taken illegal drugs such as cannabis, cocaine or heroin in 2014.

In the same issue, former Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg and Baroness Molly Meacher said the UK’s drug policy has been irrational for 55 years and argued this was the right time to establish a wider review of drug policy. 

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