Regulate drugs to cut crime says GP representative

Date published: 09/11/2007

A GP representative has called for sensible regulation of drugs to cut crime and raise billions of pounds.

Dr Kailash Chand, British Medical Association Council Chairman for the North-West, said the prohibition of drugs had failed.

Instead, he suggested they could be heavily taxed and regulated just like alcohol and tobacco, with money ploughed back into education and other rehabilitation programmes.

Dr Chand made his views known in an article in the British Medical Journal (BMJ).

He said regulation and control would cut burglary, gun crime, bring women off the streets, more than halve the prison population, and raise billions in tax revenue.

Dr Chand said legislation would mean drug users could buy from places where they could be sure the drugs had not been cut with other substances.

And there would be clear information about the risks involved and guidance on how to seek treatment.

But Joseph Califano, Chairman of the National Centre on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, argued neither legislation nor decriminalisation is the answer.