After a 2-year review of the drugs problem in the UK, a prestigious commission established by the Royal Society for the Arts (RSA) has come up with a ‘radical rethink’ aiming to influence the impending major government review of the National Drugs Strategy.1 Unfortunately, the only radical measure it proposes is a determination to coerce all GPs into ‘treating’ drug addicts with heroin and methadone. As a measure of its commitment to this proposal, the RSA report declares twice in its five-page executive summary that GPs should not be allowed ‘to opt out of providing drugs treatment’.
In other respects the radicalism of the Facing Facts report is reflected in its insistence that the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 should be repealed — and replaced by a new Misuse of Substances Act. …