On selling the morning-after pill

There was an short bit in the 'News Bulletin' in today's Telegraph about whether pharmacists should be allowed not to sell the morning-after pill without a prescription.

Right now,pharmacists do not have to sell the pill; they can refuse on religious or moral grounds. For example, staunch Catholics running a pharmacy would be allowed to refuse to sell a morning-after pill as they believe in the sanctity and miraculousness of life. As the old saying goes, God gives life and therefore only he should take it away.
For some, the morning-after pill is a form of abortion. As debatable as this is, perhaps it is fair to give people a choice based on their beliefs.
Under current legislation pharmacists who refuse to sell the pill have to direct the customer to another pharmacy/provider of the pill. Hmm. Some academics have argued against this policy. They say that either the pharmacist should be required to supply the pill or refuse completely, without being required to direct the customer elsewhere.
Why? They argue that in directing the customer somewhere else it's essentially the same deal as giving them the pill in the first placed. A bit like a drug dealer saying, "No, I'm not selling you weed today, I'm opposed to people getting addicted to drugs and spending all their money on drugs instead of food and electricity bills. But Fred down the road's got some, if you want."

The fact that pharmacies are allowed to sell birth control without a prescription in the first place(this has been allowed since 2001) is controversial.
 
But what is exactly is wrong with what we have right now? If the pharmacists are deluding themselves that referral is not the same as supply, then let them be deluded. That way you get the best of both worlds; suppliers can keep to their moral and religious beliefs, and we can still prevent unwanted pregnancies.

It would a different case if the pharmacy was in a small town miles from anywhere, i.e if birth control wasn't available anywhere conveniently nearby. Right? Then, because the girl wouldn't be able to buy the pill, there might be unwanted pregnancies and painful, mentally scarring abortions.
Actually, the girl could just go to her doctor and get a prescription for the pill. The pharmacists can only refuse to sell the pill if the customer has no prescription. Therefore by simply getting a prescription the patient can get the pill from the exact same pharmacy.

Perhaps I haven't researched the subject enough, but it doesn't seem like the current situation is really negatively affecting anyone. If it were the pharmacists complaining about having to refer customers elsewhere, then I would perhaps understand. What's the point of refusing to supply the pill if you're just going to give them another way to get it? But it's not the pharmacists that are complaining. They're fine with the policy, or so it seems so far. Their hands are clean. Well, clean enough.  We shouldn't impinge upon someone's beliefs, regardless of what those beliefs are.

The piece in the Telegraph is based on a paper published by the Journal of Medical Ethics.(I've linked the free extract here, as the full article is available only to subscribers).
The paper is discussed in an article in the Huffington Post, if you'd like to find out a little more.
The American Pediatrics Journal has published a free(rather long) article on the same subject. There is also a related paper discussing the relationship between conscience and jobs in the Journal of Medical Ethics.
This case makes for interesting reading, at least. Perhaps the reason I don't agree with these researchers is that I haven't read their full paper(it's only available to subscribers or if you're willing to pay a fee). But I feel that the current situation is a neat, if slightly paradoxical, solution.

On drug users as 'patients' and not 'criminals'

How should we identify drug users?
Should we look at drug abuse as a criminal activity or a health problem?
There was an article in today's Telegraph about the negative aspects of identifying drug addicts as criminals. Prof. Dame Sally Davies claims that it would be much more effective to see addicts as 'patients' and, therefore, addictions as 'health problems'.
A report from the British Medical Association agrees, saying that drug users are often discouraged from seeking help because of the criminalisation of drugs(although exactly what kind of help would be offered isn't very clearly explained).
Martin Barnes, from the DrugScope charity, says that "drug misuse should be treated largely as a health and public health issue".
Personally I believe there is a problem in labelling drug addicts as patients rather than 'criminals'. The point of making drugs illegal is to discourage people from using them; taking a softer approach to drug users is therefore probably not a good idea, as people will be more inclined to do drugs because the consequences are less severe.

If we really wanted to 'decriminalise drugs', instead of identifying drug users as patients we should do something about the distribution of drugs in the first place. Personally I don't think we should both continue to ban drugs(but still widely available, with no limits placed on what is added/the amount of drug you are sold) and label drug users as 'victims'.

It goes back to the philosophical debate about the effectiveness of punishment; if there was a death penalty for drunk driving and therefore noone ever drove drunk, would it be fair? Should we continue the largely ineffective 'war on drugs' or try a much more radical approach, sweeping away old policies following the lesson of the Prohibition?

We shouldn't simply treat drug users as 'victims', because it creates the impression of helplessness. It encourages inertia on the part of the user, who convinces themselves that they cannot shift the habit without professional aid, and shifts the blame from the user to their situation. Whatever happens, the user is not at fault.In some cases, this is true. It is very easy to get addicted to drugs, and because they are ridiculously expensive(again due to their illegal status and therefore the lack of supply) it leads to a downward spiral. But it is also very popular amongst celebrities to use drugs, and then claim it was a 'mistake' and go to rehab to 'fix' themselves. This illusion created around the safety of drugs, and this dependency on intervention rather than self-help shouldn't be encouraged. Seeing drug abuse as a health problem rather than a criminal offence may help drug users come forward for help, but it also makes drug-taking seem less serious. Also, it all depends on what 'help' they can get from the  NHS or charities like DrugScope.
At best, this recommendation could encourage thousands more to kick the habit and get their lives back on track without putting themselves in danger by using drugs. It could encourage them to seek help where before they were too afraid of the implications of admitting to drug use.
In the long term, this could be a step in legalising drugs and putting regulations on distribution, manufacture etc.
At worst the concept could make illegal recreational drug taking forgivable and make it easier for people to get addicted to drugs like heroin because of the leniency of punishment. This would potentially create more drug addicts, who would feel safe in the knowledge that there would be very little punishment if they were caught.

Either way the drug debate is interesting, as is the question of how best to stop people putting themselves and others in danger through drug-taking, either indirectly or directly.

There's some similarities between this and the alcohol debate; New Scientist recently released an article about the potential effect of raising the price of alcohol. I may do a blog post on this later, but we'll see.