Why treat doctors like pushers?

Harsher laws and enforcement procedures are making Canadian physicians more vulnerable to conviction as drug traffickers. The authors question this development on the grounds that it extends a drug prohibition policy that has failed in the past and has incurred intolerable social costs. To help envision an alternative, the authors discuss conflicting claims about the British tradition of permitting doctors to prescribe narcotics to addicts. They conclude that, with some restrictions, allowing Canadian doctors to prescribe narcotics according to their judgements of patient needs would be more efficacious than increasing the penalties they face for violating nonmedical norms.