Some Hope in Harm: A Normative Evaluation of the UK Government’s Proposals to Bifurcate Drug Users, Dependent on Their Drug Use Status

2025/02/26 by Clothier, Ed

paper · doi:10.15124/yao-062g-z447

Abstract

The developed world has been moving away from treating drug use as a matter for the criminal justice system and toward treating it as a public health concern or a matter for regulation. However, the United Kingdom has proposed a novel approach to drug use splitting drug users into two subgroups, recreational users and drug-dependent users, proposing two separate legal regimes for the different subgroups. This article is interested in the moral justification for treating different groups of users differently under the law for ostensibly the same act. This article commits to a thick conception of the rule of law, (civic-equality-plus), arguing that the UK Government, and governments more generally, are justified in treating drug users differently based on their drug-use status subject to the streamlining of other areas of legislation, offering hope for jurisdictions where there may be staunch opposition to more progressive approaches to drug policy.

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