"Trish and Mark" <[log in to unmask]> on 01/22/2003 10:39:58 PM


War on drugs is futile, study says
Strategy keeps police busy, prisons full, researchers say

By Jennifer Campbell
Ottawa Citizen

The government is wasting hundreds of millions of taxpayers' dollars every year
on a drug strategy that's not working, according a paper published in today's
issue of the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

In fact, Canada's drug strategy, which the authors say keeps police busy and
prisons full, has done nothing to eliminate the problem of drug addiction and
exists at the expense of "proven and effective interventions."

Martin Schechter, the study's senior author and head of the department of health
care and epidemiology at the University of British Columbia, says the
government's "war on drugs" is actually to blame for many of society's
drug-related problems.

"If you look at all the harms associated with drug use, you need to ask, 'Is the
harm caused by the drug or the war on drugs?' " he said. "As a drug, heroin
gives a euphoric reaction and is highly addictive. You can say that but if you
look at the other problems -- HIV, hepatitis C, bacterial infections of the
heart -- all of those things are caused by dirty needles because the activity is
confined to alleys. The violence is caused by money. Corruption and crime aren't
a function of the drug, they're a function of the war on drugs."

The study, by researchers at the British Columbia Centre of Excellence in
HIV/AIDS and the University of British Columbia, looks at one of the country's
biggest heroin seizures -- 100 kilograms of uncut heroin seized more than two
years ago in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside -- and what effect it had on drug use
and drug prices. The size of the bust was not far from the total amount of
heroin seized by U.S. officials along the border with Mexico, where most of it
comes into North America, for all of 2000.

And the conclusion? The bust had zero impact.

The researchers had ready access to users because they are taking part in an
ongoing study of the drug population in this dangerous district. Every six
months, they interview subjects about their real-life drug situations. They ask
about price, quality and use.

When the heroin seizure took place during their study, they used it as a way of
measuring the impact it had on the drug's availability on the streets. They
interviewed more than 100 subjects before the seizure and more than 100 during
the month following the seizure. But contrary to the arguments put forth by
proponents of the war on drugs, the seizure had no effect on supply or quality.

"Our data show that the market for heroin in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside was
totally unaffected by the seizure," said Evan Wood, a researcher at the B.C.
Centre of Excellence in HIV/AIDS. After the seizure, the price of heroin
actually went down and overdoses increased slightly, he said.

U.S. studies have shown similar results, though the U.S. government continues to
spend US$18-billion a year on efforts to control the supply of drugs.

But those efforts appear to be futile, Wood said, because prices for drugs have
reached an all-time low and drug purity has reached an all-time high.

Wood and Schechter advocate treatment, prevention, education and harm reduction
over enforcement strategies. The authors point out that while Sheila Fraser, the
Auditor-General, recently estimated the annual cost to Canadian society from
illicit drug use at $5- billion, 95 per cent of the $500-million spent on drug
strategy goes toward enforcement.

"It's unfortunate that the government wants to spend the money in that way,"
Wood said. "Our study shows there's no evidence these methods are effective. Any
economist will tell you that you can't control a market from the supply side.
You have to control it from the demand side."

Schechter said he thinks the general population is ahead of the politicians on
this issue.

"Fifty years from now, I can tell you for sure, these approaches will have
stopped," he said. "The question is when. I'm optimistic because I see signs of
rational behaviour happening."

He pointed to the recent election of Vancouver Mayor Larry Campbell, who won the
vote solely on a "harm-reduction" platform.
Schechter said politicians need to start looking at drugs as a public health
issue, accept that drug addiction exists and that it will never go away. He'd
like to see it treated similarly to alcohol addiction.

The researchers say incarceration exacerbates the problem because diseases are
transmitted in jails. Canadian prisoners addicted to cocaine and heroin are at
increased risk of HIV.





© Copyright 2003 National Post









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