Psychedelics and cognitive liberty: Reimagining drug policy through the prism of human rights.
The International journal on drug policy March 1, 2016 C. Walsh 37 citations
Drug prohibition in the UK, particularly for psychedelics, violates the fundamental right to cognitive liberty protected by Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The paper argues that existing challenges to prohibition based on therapeutic or religious exemptions are insufficient; instead, the right to control one's own consciousness should ground a complete end to psychedelic prohibitions. This legal argument is supported by classical liberal philosophy: the state should only criminalize actions that demonstrably risk harming others. The authors recommend that drug policy activism move beyond harm reduction toward benefit maximization and consider a regulatory "third way" distinct from criminal or medical control. However, given the UK's authoritarian turn, underground movements may be the only near-term guarantor of cognitive liberty.