22 medical experts call for decriminalization of all nonviolent drug use

A group of 22 medical experts have called for the decriminalization of all nonviolent drug use and possession, The Washington Post reports. The experts cited the failure of the war on drugs, saying the United States needed to "move gradually toward regulated drug markets and apply the scientific method to their assessment."

The experts, who met at Johns Hopkins University and the medical journal The Lancet, said that current prohibitionist anti-drug policies "directly and indirectly contribute to lethal violence, disease, discrimination, forced displacement, injustice, and the undermining of people's right to health." The report is timed just ahead of a U.N. General Assembly Session on drugs, which will re-evaluate decades-old policies that many believe promote outdated and ineffective ways of thinking about drug use.

"The idea that all drug use is dangerous and evil has led to enforcement-heavy policies and has made it difficult to see potentially dangerous drugs in the same light as potentially dangerous foods, tobacco, and alcohol, for which the goal of social policy is to reduce potential harms," the medical experts write. The authors recommended trying varying degrees of full legalization and regulation, such as the decriminalization of marijuana that already exists in several U.S. states.

The experts also cited examples of successful drug decriminalization in places like Portugal, where drug use, overdose rates, and HIV infections among drug users have fallen dramatically.

"The idea that all drug use is necessarily 'abuse' means that immediate and complete abstinence has been seen as the only acceptable approach," commissioner Adeeba Kamarulzaman said in a statement. "There is another way. Programs and policies aimed at reducing harm should be central to future drug policies."