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For advert-free site go to www.palad.org.uk

PALAD believes that policy on all non-medicinal drugs should be integrated so that both legal and illegal drugs are included. All drugs can cause harm. Instead of discriminating between legal and illegal drugs, policy should discriminate between reasonably safe use and harmful use for each and every drug. It should encourage any healthy use, tolerate reasonably safe use, educate against use harmful to the user and legislate only against use harmful to others. A crime must involve someone harming another, not only themselves. People have a greater right to risk harming themselves than they do to risk harming others. There is no health justification for the restriction of free trade in illegal drugs within nations and internationally. We believe all tax revenue from the legal drugs trade, £20 billion a year, should be ring-fenced to fund drug education for all, treatment for users harming themselves and enforcement against users harming others.

All drugs can be used harmfully, not just illegal drugs. Alcohol Concern and ASH both feel that the prohibition of illegal drugs gives the false impression, especially to young people, that legal drugs are safer than illegal ones. The Home Affairs Select Committee report Government Drugs Policy: Is it Working? states that "legal drugs, such as tobacco and alcohol, are responsible for far greater damage both to individual health and to the social fabric in general than illegal ones". We agree with the Home Office guidance "we need to continue referring to alcohol, tobacco and caffeine as drugs" and the Government's 10 Year Strategy for Tackling Drug Misuse when it says "legally obtainable substances such as alcohol, tobacco ... should ... be addressed ... within the strategy". The Welsh Assembly's Tackling Substance Misuse in Wales states that "Substance misuse ... involves both illegal and legal substances" and that "This strategy covers the full range of substances that are misused in Wales".

The reality of drug use is that:

1. All drugs can cause harm.
2. Most drugs can be used relatively safely [tobacco seems to be the exception].
3. All drugs can cause harm to the user if used excessively.
4. All drugs can cause harm to others if used without consideration for others (drug-driving, passive smoking).

A fair and rational drugs policy that reflects this reality would:

1. INTEGRATE illegal and legal drug policies since all drug use may cause harm.
2. DISCRIMINATE instead between reasonably safe use, use harmful to user and use harmful to others.
3. TOLERATE reasonably safe use.
4. EDUCATE against harm to users.
5. LEGISLATE only against harm to others.
6. ELIMINATE unjustifiable barriers to fair trade.

Prohibitionists fear the legal introduction of more drugs into society believing this would increase the harmful use of drugs. Anti-prohibitionists support the rights of illegal drug users to take their drugs reasonably safely or only risking harm to themselves - equal rights with legal drug users. PALAD's focus attempts to resolve this conflict by defining and tackling drug harm alone for each and every drug while supporting the rights of all, especially users of legal drugs and young people, to take all non-medicinal drugs safely. It is vital that education, not legislation, is used to minimise self-harm through drug use. Only then can people take responsibility for their own health and exercise informed choice.
We believe mentioning the phrase 'drug legalisation' sends the wrong message to prohibitionists who may be genuinely concerned about limiting drug misuse; we prefer the phrases 'reformed drug policy' or 'proper regulation of illegal drugs'.

We believe that the integration of legal and illegal drug policy is the single most vital issue. Once that occurs then the subsequent policy steps above become inevitable.

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• Policy details
• Check you know the facts about drug dangers
• Background to drug issues