Professor Alex Stevens:

Some activities are so harmful that they need to be illegal. For example, I would not advocate for the legal supply of arsenic in pharmacies. That would predictably lead to increased numbers of deaths. The question as to what the right model is for the supply of substances such as cocaine or lower strength coca products, or heroin or lower strength opium products, is very much an open one. We do not know what the most effective ways of distributing these substances would be in the context of the balance of individual freedom with public health harm. The only way we can find that out is by trying out some ways of doing that, and I suggest we try out the least risky ways first and then move gradually, if those least risky ways work, to more potentially risky ways. That means, for example, that we start, as I said, by decriminalising the possession of all drugs, because there is no downside to that, and then experiment with legal but quite limited ways of supplying cannabis to people, after which we might move to supplying, in quite limited ways, low-strength coca and opium products to people. As we build the evidence base, we will learn about what the actual dangers and actual benefits are. At the moment, we are operating in the dark on these issues because we have refused to take the steps that would enable us to develop the knowledge.