Printed from: https://www.cmf.org.uk/advocacy/clinical-practice/drugs/?index=10
After ten years of campaigning for the decriminalisation of Britain's most widely available drug, the Independent newspaper has decided to come clean. In dramatic fashion, its 18 March front page announced an apologetic U-turn over its position on the legalisation of cannabis.[1] Many of us recall their 1997 campaign: 'Today,...
Cannabis is a controversial subject. According to a UK Government advisory body,'cannabis does not pose a serious problem for previously healthy people'.[1] Yet the head of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime believes that 'cannabis [is] as bad as heroin'. [2] Acting on a 2002 recommendation of the...
'Yes!' John Latham is a GP trainer in inner-city Dublin Heroin addiction is a chronic disease with associated morbidity and mortality as well as forensic, public health and social consequences. Methadone has been increasingly used since Dole and Nyswander's original trial in 1965.[1] Its half-life is far longer than that...
The tobacco industry has been repeatedly embarrassed this year. In June, the cigarette manufacturer Philip Morris was ordered to pay $3bn (£2.1bn) in damages to a 56 year old American with lung and brain cancer, one of the largest awards ever made to an individual smoker. A separate judgement in...
Cannabis is the world's most widely used illegal drug. British school children have the highest (around 40 percent) and adults the second highest use compared with the rest of Europe.[1] About one in five 16-29 year olds have used it in the last year, one in eight within the last...
The treatment of addictions, including drug addictions, is part of the job of all doctors: ‘Drug mis-users have the same entitlement as other patients to the services provided by the NHS. It is the responsibility of all doctors to provide the care for both general health needs and drug related...
