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What can only be described as a possible reverse for the W.H.O.
we now learn that Canada is seriously considering the legalisation
of "pot". This, despite the fact that the Middle East countries,
with more than 2,000 years experience of the effects of this drug,
are resolutely opposed to its use and who claim that it is an
important contributory factor in the production of the poverty,
squalor and ignorance from which many of their people suffer.
Harsh measures are still taken in Spain, France, Italy, Portugal and
Greece against those handling addictive drugs and in Turkey the
death penalty is a possibility for any person found manufacturing
them.
Recent statistics concerning addicts in this country tend to support
the contention of some experts that the "drug" situation has become
more or less stabilised. Cases known by the Home Office to be
receiving narcotic drugs on prescription at the end of 1970 totalled
1,430, a decrease of 36 (2.4%) from the previous year. Unfortunately
this is not likely to portray the true position for, contrariwise,
the number of persons found guilty of offences involving drugs
controlled under the various Acts rose by 2,249 (32.7%) to 9,160.
At 31st December, 1970, persons receiving "in-patient" treatment
in the London area for drug addiction numbered 86 (60 males and
26 females) whilst "out-patients" totalled 956 (771 males and 185
females), both figures showing increases over those for 1969. Some
61.6% of all "in-patients" and 70.6% of all "out-patients" were
between the ages of 18 and 24 years.
Two Greenwich residents, one as an "in-patient" and one as an
"out-patient", were notified as being under treatment at the end of
1970.
So far with this problem, what is incomprehensible is that in
persons with comparable personality structures and psychic need
and subject to similar social pressures, some will adopt and others
will reject drugs. With sufficient research an answer could, no
doubt, be found. Psychiatrists are interested in therapeutic aspects,
pharmacologists with the physical phenomena of addiction, psychologists
in personality studies and the sociologists are concerned
with all facets of the problem but lack specific research training.
Co-ordination would be essential—but who could undertake such
work? Treatment is highly specialised, long and tedious and very
much open to relapse with physical dependence being more easily
broken perhaps than the psychic.
As with so many other community health problems, our best
hopes lie in prevention.