Regulating Pleasure: National Center for Public Policy Research Sponsors a Debate with Consumers, Public Health and Policy Experts at London's Royal Society of Medicine

When Setting Regulatory Policy, How Do We Protect Health and Consumer Freedom to Pursue Pleasure?

Jeff Stier

London, England - In a world first, a broad range of experts will meet in London July 13 at the Royal Society of Medicine to discuss and debate the best way forward for society to regulate consumption of pleasurable substances.

In the public health policy world, pleasure-seeking is pathologized as "addiction" and seen simply as a problem to solve. The symposium will include insights from policymakers, consumers and addiction-treatment experts, and start a constructive dialogue between various stakeholders in the public and the policy world.

It is habitually claimed that addiction to legally-available tobacco and alcohol and a range of illegal psychoactive substances leads to tremendous social and economic harm. However, policymakers' response to reducing harm from such consumption behaviors often manifests in prohibitionist actions.
"Regulating the pleasure drugs bring is a key responsibility that governments tend to duck. At one extreme they have failed to adequately regulate, and gifted the trade to corporates. At the other extreme prohibition has gifted the market to organized crime groups. Recent moves to legalize cannabis shows government can regulate pleasure whilst promoting citizen wellbeing," says keynote speaker Danny Kushlick, Director of External Affairs atTransform, an influential think-tank on drug policy..........To Read More....