ABSTRACT
There are two main statutes regulating the availability of drugs in the United Kingdom. The Medicines Act 1968 governs the manufacture and supply of pharmaceutical products of all kinds, most of which are legal drugs. The second of the two statutes, The Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, is intended to prevent the non-medical use of certain drugs, some of which, because they have legitimate medical uses, are also covered by The Medicines Act. The law defines a series of offences, including unlawful supply, intent to supply, import or export, unlawful production and, perhaps the most frequently committed offence, unlawful possession. Heroin was first controlled by the 1920 Dangerous Drugs Act and Britain's first defined policy on drug misuse was set out by the Rolleston Committee in 1926. Most drug users are young people, but their drug use is by no means spread uniformly across the years.
