Talk:Controlled Drug in the United Kingdom

Re 'prohibition' of cannabis
I read: Drugs which are not used medically, and thus their possession and supply is prohibited; e.g. cannabis and LSD and I dont think it is quite true. I believe Sativex, a cannabis-based medicine, may be supplied legally if presecibed on a named patient basis, using a prescription process which registers the patient's name with the Home Office. The Sativex, however, must be imported (from Canada), despite the fact that it is actually made in the UK. Laurel Bush 12:23, 31 January 2006 (UTC).


 * The quote is from the BNF and so is 'true'. However the Schedules give a general guidence and with Home Secretary approval the regulations can be ammended or exemptions given, as you mentioned. However in general, these drugs are not medically routinely used and a normal UK doctor would not consider using or be allowed to use such drugs. David Ruben Talk 16:59, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Would look better to me if the sentence took the form According to the BNF .... I am seeing a somewhat crude BNF interpretation of law rather than a clear statement of law itself. Laurel Bush (talk) 11:28, 4 September 2008 (UTC).

Article subject - Redirect to "Drug control law"?
I am not clear as to what the article is about. Is it all substances listed under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971? Or such substances when licensed as medicines? Or what? (I believe the listed substances may be licensed for a variety of purposes, including special purposes which include research and industrial purposes.) Is Controlled Drug defined by the act? I believe many so-called natural medicines are not listed under the act but are subject to the control of licensing systems, and increasingly so. Laurel Bush 16:27, 31 January 2006 (UTC).


 * The latter purpose such substances when licensed as medicines. The main article on the Act describes well the defined Classes of drugs (A, B, C..) rated upon their potential for harm. However in addition the Act makes provision for use of some agents for medicinal and research purposes. This was my intension in creating this article, specifically to help explain the [CD] mark applied against certian drugs in the UK.  The designation of 'Controlled Drug' imposes both restrictions on who may prescribe, the responsibilities placed upon the prescriber on whether to start treatment, dosages & quantities supplied, special regulations on how to fill out a prescription form, having ones own stock, disposal etc.


 * In practice the Act does not list individual drugs and their specific status, but rather granted the Home Secretary the powers to apply appropriate regulations (if I understood Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 correctly). So my aim was not to comprehensively list every drug, nor that within a particular schedule level, some drugs are exempt from some of the regulations.  This is far too complex and wikipedia is both not the place such complexity nor to risk being considered authoritative on some a medico-legal issue.


 * That said amongst doctors and patients in the UK, the term 'Controlled Drug' does refer to a specific set of medicinal drugs, and is therefore quite distinct from how I might interpret the terms 'Controlled substances' or illicit drugs in the media.


 * I hope this helps explain my intensions, please comment further if the direction/tone/explanation of any section is unclear.David Ruben Talk 16:54, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I am thinking now that controlled drug, in the UK, is anything classified under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, and is a set of substances quite distinct from but overlapping with drug and medicinal drug The article seems not to recognise this and to be rather confused about the subject Maybe better title for the article would be Controlled drugs in medical paractice Laurel Bush (talk) 13:02, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Or maybe the article should just become a redirect to Drug control law Laurel Bush (talk) 11:07, 16 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Think that the messy arrangement of articles covering these topics on 'drugs' has come about because different professions used the same (or similar) commons terms with some what different flavours of meaning.
 * A large part of the work has been done on WP by clinicians/ pharmacists who start of learning about the old 'Dangerous Drug act' which was replaced by the  Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. For them the main emphasis is on a list of certain drugs that they need to know the legal status of. However,  for those editors who are coming to this subject from the legal/law enforcement angle, it includes not only drugs but substances – lots of substances. See Home Office useful summary (PDF 29KB)
 * From the site: http://www.dhsspsni.gov.uk/index/pas/pas-precursor-chemicals.htm


 * I think it very important however, to keep some clear separation of the two views, even at the expense of suffering some duplication of the same info on different articles. I find it rather hard to justify this though. Perhaps I am thinking that it is easier in the medical sense to address 'mundane drug use,  self- medication and pathological drug/substance use. It can also better address  harm reduction issues. Where as, often in the law enforcement  sense all illicit use is  pathological use.
 * In logic, I suppose it equates to the need to keep ones premises separate to avoid generating nonsense.--Aspro (talk) 20:23, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Cheers I am thinking about the above Laurel Bush (talk) 11:08, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Maybe, actually, controlled drugs are drugs which would be prohibited except they are produced, supplied and possessed under licence (a pharmacist's label being the possession licence for a patient) Maybe Drug control law should be at Drug prohibition law Drug prohibition is currently a redirect to Prohibition (drug) Laurel Bush (talk) 10:53, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Schedule is a sourced name?
The article uses the word "Schedule". Is that in the UK sources, or is tht a re-use of the US and AU terminology? Today, it is not used in Drugbox list of options (see this documentation). -DePiep (talk) 11:02, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

- UK uses Classes, which are also decided by policy rather than science alone. See Nutt job loss on this. The article ths makes no sense. Also it contradicts the misuse of drugs act 1971 scheduled class c article as there all the benzos are class c. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.158.76.250 (talk) 02:15, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

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