Bereaved families demand reform to UK’s outdated drug laws

“It’s been ten years since my daughter died,” says Anne-Marie Cockburn, a softly spoken woman wearing a T-shirt reading, ‘My daughter’. “It feels very distorted to say that number. But it has been ten years since I last held my child’s hand.” Cockburn’s daughter, Martha, died at the age of 15 after taking MDMA. Today, her bereaved mother is part of Anyone’s Child, a network of families impacted by drug-related deaths. When I meet Cockburn, she is standing outside Parliament alongside 150 others, many of whom are wearing similar T-shirts: ‘My son’, ‘My nephew’, ‘My friend’. All are united not only by the pain of losing a loved one, but in their belief that the UK’s drug laws were to blame for their deaths. In the 52 years since the Misuse of Drugs Act was introduced, both the availability of drugs and our understanding of them have radically changed. But the prohibition model still stands. Drug production and distribution are in the hands of criminals, many users are ignorant of what they are taking, and addiction is still treated as a criminal matter, rather than a health issue.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/uk-drug-laws-killing-people-reform-needed-legalisation-scotland-cannabis-mdma-racist-discrimination-/

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