Pubdate: Mon, 12 May 2003
Source: Peak, The (CN BC)
Copyright: 2003 Peak Publications Society
Contact:  http://www.peak.sfu.ca/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/775
Author: Pete Lypkie

DRUGS: HARM REDUCTION THE BEST SOLUTION, U.S. ADVOCATE SAYS

Vancouver's drug policy is on the right track, says Ethan Nadelmann, 
executive director of the New York-based Drug Policy Alliance.

Nadelmann, who wrote the book Cops Across Borders and is sometimes called 
the "Drug Anti-Czar," addressed Canadian and American drug policies and 
proposed changes to Vancouver's approach to drug use at Simon Fraser 
University's Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue last Tuesday.

The harm reduction advocate stressed the importance of Vancouver's success, 
saying that the United States government had a tremendous interest in 
seeing Vancouver fail so the city would not provide an example of available 
alternatives.

"Vancouver is the first major outpost of the European sort of thinking . . 
. of pragmatic, science-based, public health driven, compassion-oriented 
drug policy," Nadelmann said.

Nadelmann asserted that current drug policies are rooted in racism and 
other forms of discrimination.

According to Nadelmann, drug use tends to be demonised when it is perceived 
to be a problem of black people or people living in poverty, instead of 
middle-class white people. One example he cited was the acceptability of 
white women using opiates during menopause in the 1950s. This was followed 
by the inappropriateness of using opiates when other drugs became available 
for that purpose. Views on opiates changed because of perceptions about the 
racial and economic groups who used them.

Harm reduction strategies, Nadelmann maintained, are the way to solve our 
drug problems.

"The challenge is not to get rid of drugs . . . but to accept the fact that 
drugs are here to stay," Nadelmann said.

"We must learn to live with drugs so that they cause the least possible 
harm and the most possible benefit."

In evaluating the effectiveness of drug policy, he said the wrong question 
is, "How many smoke or inject some drug?" According to the harm reduction 
advocate, the better question is, "Did cumulative death, disease, and crime 
go up or down?" The U.S. government's focus on abstinence, he said, 
prevents them from solving their major drug problems.

Nadelmann claimed that safe injection sites and heroin maintenance programs 
are win-win situations for both police and drug users, because they remove 
the incentive for crime and high black market prices, and respond to the 
myriad health risks associated with using dirty needles in the unsterile 
conditions of back alleys.

After his talk, Nadelmann participated in a one hour question and answer 
period with the audience, moderated by the CBC's Kathryn Gretsinger. 
Audience members challenged Nadelmann on a variety of topics.

Several people were concerned with the affect of new drug policies on 
Canada-U.S. relations, especially considering their differences concerning 
policies on other issues, such as national security.

Nadelmann compared the current predicament to the historical situation of 
slavery. When the U.S. pressured Canada to return escaped slaves, Canada 
decided not to give in because it was unjust. He said Canadians should do 
the same today and look to science-based plans for reducing harm rather 
than the U.S. methods of spending large amounts of money on ineffective 
enforcement and abstinence campaigns.

Others discussed controversial so-called drug courts that operate 
separately from the regular court system. Such a system is used in many 
countries to provide alternative sentencing options to people convicted of 
drug offences. Nadelmann commented that it is important to consider whether 
drug courts try to absorb treatment programs into the criminal justice 
system or if they allow offences to be treated as a social problem outside 
of the justice system. His main concern was that people's progress be 
evaluated according to their health and safety, rather than their 
production of drug-free urine samples.

Finally, Nadelmann stressed the importance of progress on these issues, 
since the death rate from non-therapeutic drug use far exceeds the death 
rate from SARS. Our society, he said, is much more willing to put time and 
effort into preventing the latter, while under-valuing deaths due to drug use.
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MAP posted-by: Alex