HOW should we react to the growing popularity and availability of 鈥渓egal highs鈥�? These plant products and chemicals have effects similar to banned drugs such as LSD, ecstasy and amphetamines, yet are available for sale from regular shops or internet retailers in many countries. They are even taxed. Some will say that it is irresponsible even to report on these drugs, as we have done in this issue (see 鈥淟egally high鈥�). Not everyone will have heard of substances such as BZP and salvia, the argument goes, so publicising their existence can only help to promote their use, with possible risks to people鈥檚 health and to law and order.
Could there, however, be a deeper reason behind people鈥檚 hostility to the legal availability of mind-altering drugs? The idea that governments are not intervening to prevent people getting off their heads can evoke feelings of unease in some. It is hard to see any rational basis for such fears. They are a variation on the 鈥測uck factor鈥�, a gut feeling that something is wrong even though you cannot explain why. Some may say that the yuck factor is a useful guide to decision-making 鈥� a reliable indicator that you have crossed into morally unacceptable territory. No one would suggest that morality has no place in policy-making, but even from that standpoint the yuck factor rarely stands up to scrutiny.
Too many policy responses to drugs have been based on gut feeling. Earlier this year, the UK parliament鈥檚 Science and Technology Select Committee released the report Drug Classification: Making a hash of it, which concluded that UK policy was largely ad hoc, and insufficiently based on evidence of harm and deterrence. You鈥檇 be hard pressed to squeeze a cigarette paper between policy in the UK and that of other western countries.
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The US and Australia have been swift to clamp down on legal highs, and the UK seems ready to follow suit. They are all falling into the same trap: making policy according to what appears palatable, rather than basing it on hard evidence. Governments clearly have a duty to control dangerous substances, but rather than follow knee-jerk public reaction they should seize the opportunity to seek out the best information available and use it to support an open debate. Suppressing information about illegal drugs does little to prevent their use. Why should it be any different with legal ones? If we are ever going to arrive at a rational and workable drugs policy, we need an informed debate on the harm that may or may not be caused by these substances.
