The RSA Commission report argues that UK Policy on the use of illegal drugs and other psychoactive substances should be based on five principles:
- It should be pragmatic, not moralistic, with means adapted to ends.
- It should be aimed, above all, at reducing harm.
- It should be honest in its statement of aims.
- It should be consistent and coherent.
- It should be assimilated into broader social policy, not ghettoized.
Drugs policy needs internal consistency, with equal weight being given to health imperatives and criminal justice imperatives and to the needs of drug-using offenders and non-offenders alike. Drugs policy must have some distinct identity of its own, with the problems related specifically to drugs recognized for what they are. But at the same time drugs policy needs to be part of a greater whole. Many of the worst problems surrounding drug use grow out of, and contribute to, other social problems—deprivation, family breakdown, unemployment, educational failure and social exclusion. To such social problems, the current strategy, with its emphasis on the criminal justice system, offers neither quick fixes nor slow ones.