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"Progress lies not in enhancing what is but in advancing toward what will be."
Kahlil Gibran
"Marijuana is a useful catalyst for specific optical and aural aesthetic perceptions and these perceptions remain valid in years of normal consciousness."
Allen Ginsberg
"Liberty does not exist in mere declarations of the rights of man. It consists in the translation of those declarations into definite actions."
Woodrow Wilson

Six Options for Controlling Drug Supply

Courtesy Transform - Working for an effective drug policy

There is a choice of regimes for controlling and regulating the production, supply and use of drugs. There are six basic models for distribution of drugs:

1) No regulation
Examples: raw magic mushrooms, poppies, fly agaric toadstools, datura, morning glory seeds.
Controls: no controls, legal or otherwise

2) Over the counter sales - supermarkets, grocers, health food shops
Examples: aspirin, paracetamol, poppers, glue, St John's Wort, tea, coffee.
Controls: Controls over production, limited controls at point of sale

3) Licensed sales
Examples: beer, spirits, tobacco.
Controls: Strict controls over licencee and purchaser e.g. age, state of intoxication

4) Pharmacy sales
Examples: Kaolin and morphine, codeine linctus, amphetamine-like decongestants, Dual products aspirin/paracetamol with dihydrocodeine.
Controls: Controls over pharmacist

5) Doctor's prescription
Examples: tranquillisers, anti-depressants, methadone, chlorpromazine, anti-psychotics, thalidomide, diamorphine.
Controls: Strict controls over doctor

6) Criminal marketplace (Prohibition)
Examples: LSD, heroin, cannabis, speed, crack.
Controls: Legal bans on production, supply and possession. Illegal production, supply and use in practice have almost no controls.

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