Safe Injection Facilities vs. Disease & Death: Which is Moral?
It soon becomes clear to almost everyone who takes a serious look at America’s illegal drug problem that it is really a relatively small one. Most of the problems we associate with drugs are actually caused by the prohibition of them. Most of the crime we call “drug-related” actually involves either the business of drug dealing or obtaining the cash needed to purchase these drugs; not people committing crimes because they are high. Perhaps one day America will come to terms with this inconvenient truth and drastically change our drug laws but what should we do in the interim?
Although relatively few in number IV drug users present a significant array of social and financial problems to the rest of society. Since the opiates, ( typically heroin) they inject is only obtainable through the black market purity varies from batch to batch making proper dosage impossible. That means addicts sometimes overdose and frequently “nod-off”. IV drug users passed out or even dead on the streets of our cities is a costly and socially unacceptable product of prohibition. Another cost is the spread of disease. AIDS and Hepatitis are spread through the sharing and improper disposal of used syringes and the generally unhygienic conditions in which poor IV drug users live. Of course legalizing, or at least “medicalizing” heroin, making pharmaceutical heroin available to addicts through clinics as is done successfully in Switzerland solves most of these problems. Addicts health improves. Dosage can be regulated so addicts can function instead of ODing, and they are in contact with medical professionals who can help them kick their habit when they get ready to do so.
America is another story. What passes for morality here prevents change. Anything other than some form of forced abstinence is looked at as enabling, no matter the cost in dollars, human misery, or the total inefficacy in solving the problem. There is however, an interim step that can be taken. A harm-reduction step that involves providing a place for these unfortunate addicts a clean place to inject… to dispose of their dirty needles… to seek medical help. Unfortunately most of the government’s reluctance to start these programs in the US stems from a fear of political backlash from misguided morality enforcers in the electorate.
The first such facilities opened in Switzerland in the mid-1980s. Since then, they have spread slowly and there are now 65 of them operating in 27 cities in eight countries: Switzerland, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Australia, Norway, Luxembourg, and Canada. Do they work? Data from Vancouver’s safe injection facility shows us the following:
- No fatal overdoses at the SIF.
- No increase in local drug trafficking.
- No substantial increase in the rate of relapse into injection drug use.
- Reductions in public drug use, publicly discarded syringes and syringe sharing.
- SIF users 1.7 times more likely to enter detox programs.
- More than 2,000 referrals to counseling and other support services since opening.
- Collaboration with police to meet public health and public order objectives.
So all you “moralists” out there… ask yourselves which would Jesus prefer; results like those from Vancouver above… or condemning those unfortunate IV drug users to a life of suffering, filth, and degradation while simultaneously spreading deadly diseases through the rest of the population?
Plan B for the UN… Wait ‘till you hear this!
The UN’s Office on Drugs and Crime has a new policy in Afghanistan. After years of trying to stop all poppy growing in the country, a failed policy that has cost thousands of lives, cost millions of dollars, created thousands of new enemies for the West, and, in all of last year only succeeded in destroying only 3.5 per cent of the country’s 157,000 hectares of poppy because eradication teams were either attacked or bought off by drug lords, they are now going to try their next best plan.
After the failure to destroy poppy fields in the south, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime says the answer is to stop the drugs from leaving the country. “Manual eradication is incompetent and inefficient,” the UNODC’s chief, Antonio Maria Costa, said during a visit to the western Afghan province of Herat. “So we want to see more efforts to stop the flow of drugs across Afghanistan’s borders and the hitting of high-value targets to create a market disruption. We want to create a flood of drugs within Afghanistan. There will be so much opium inside Afghanistan unable to go out that the price will go down.”
Of course this is straight from the mouth of the man who predicted the planet would be totally drug-free years ago so …
There are a host of problems lying in wait for the UN’s new plan - not least are the country’s thousands of miles of porous borders. Borders in mountainous regions accessible only by mule. Borders laced with caves to hide in. Border areas inhabited by fierce tribesmen who threw out the British, the Russians, and everyone else who has tried to interfere in Afghan politics for hundreds of years.
And, if the task doesn’t sound daunting enough The UNODC country chief, Jean-Luc Lemahieu, said the strategy of capitalising on falling opium prices could be torpedoed by Chinese drug dealers looking to supply China’s heroin addicts. “I think we have a two-year window before the Chinese pick up on the
Afghan market. Currently the Chinese dealers source their heroin from
the Golden Triangle. The networks have not yet been established.”
And why don’t we just buy the opium as we do from Turkey? Good question.
Congressman Rangel calls for decriminalization of Marijuana
I wrote recently about a shocking statement by NY congressman Charlie Rangel at a hearing on the hill. He said, apparently completely seriously when asked by Tennessee congressman Cohen, that no one is ever arrested for marijuana in New York City. Actually there are well over 30,000 such arrests each year in New York City making it the number one city for marijuana arrests in the entire country. Did he just not know this or was he being ironic?
Rangel was the Chairman of the House Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control in the 1980s. In 1988 he chaired two days of hearing designed to trash the idea of legalization. He has been a steadfast opponent of drug policy reform. He has certainly never complained about marijuana arrests before, even though the majority of those arrested in New York City are black or Hispanic. I doubt Rangel was suddenly trying to be ironic… he never struck me as that kind of a guy. It certainly sounds as though the congressman was, shall we say, a bit confused.
His next statement at that same hearing was truly a stunner. Now remember… Rangel has been a solid drug war congressman for his entire career in the House… Here’s what he said:
“There’s no question that with the limited resources we have and the
heavy strain that we put on law enforcement that we ought to
decriminalize it. I would suggest that we should do things to
discourage people from using cigarettes as well as marijuana.
But the whole idea that we have a law on the book that we have to go
to every research to see who has ever been arrested for it means that
it has to be reviewed and decriminalized.”
That is a pretty clear call for decriminalization of marijuana. “…we ought to decriminalize it” No question there. “…it has to be reviewed and decriminalized” Seems unequivocal. So why hasn’t the media picked up on this? A long standing voice for drug prohibition, a United States Congressman, Chairman of the House Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control, says, emphatically and in public that we should decriminalize marijuana and our press doesn’t notice?
The bigger question is still, it seems to me, about the first part of his statement. How is it that one of congress’ “experts” on drug policy… a voice that has spoken out tirelessly for prohibition for decades thinks that marijuana arrests don’t happen in his own district! Was it this sort of understanding of the real world that guided his efforts over the years? Was it this “expertise” that led him to push for legislation that did untold harm to millions of people, destroyed entire neighborhoods, and filled our prisons? I’m glad to hear the congressman call for ending marijuana prohibition at last. It’s a step in the right direction. But I’d sure like to hear an apology.
Congressman claims nobody is arrested for marijuana in the city that leads the nation in marijuana arrests
On May 21, 2009 at a hearing of the House Subcommittee on Crime, Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-NY, the very powerful 79 year old Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, ), said ““I don’t remember the last time anyone was arrested in the City of New York for marijuana. I mean, smoking marijuana on the streets of manhattan, the cop might say ‘Hey, don’t do it on my beat.’ But nobody’s getting arrested.” He probably can’t remember where he lives or what year it is either. New York actually leads the nation in marijuana arrests in spite of the fact that possessing under 25 grams of marijuana has been decriminalized since 1977!
Here’s the background: Back in 1977, shortly after passing the Rockefeller Drug Laws, the legislature noticed that a whole lot of nice white kids, some children of important people, were getting 25 year to life sentences for marijuana. Our legislators returned to the issue and removed marijuana from the statutes. They decriminalized personal possession of small amounts of the drug as long as it was not in public view. The obvious intent was to stop the arrest of large numbers of marijuana users as long as they remained discrete. Like many of these incremental reforms it sounds good when you are putting it together but doesn’t work at all.
Since then New York City has led the nation in marijuana arrests for marijuana in public view (MPV). Just last year a study was released that documented this extraordinary phenomenon. How is it possible that in 2006 alone more than 33,000 people were caught in the city with marijuana in public view?
Here’s how it works: Police roll up to a couple of men sitting on a stoop talking and ask them if they have any marijuana or other drugs on them. The officers explain that they should show them any contraband they might have because if they have to search them they are in big trouble. Believing he has only a decriminalized quantity of marijuana, perhaps only a single joint in his pocket one of the young men produces it and shows it to the police officer. The marijuana is now in public view! He is arrested for the misdemeanor charge of MPV, cuffed and booked, likely spends the night in jail awaiting arraignment.
So what’s the point? Why does the NYPD do this when it apparently violates the intent, if not the letter of the law? How is it that these arrests take place almost exclusively in Black and Hispanic neighborhoods? How much does this practice cost taxpayers and what is the benefit to the public? And, perhaps most significantly, How is it possible that New York City’s Congressman, a black congressman at that, is unaware that anyone is arrested for marijuana in New York City?
Obama might be a different color on the outside but he’s the same inside
It looks like Obama’s new Drug Czar, (and Obama for that matter), are drug warriors after all. All the encouraging talk and promises to revisit our nation’s drug policy were just that… talk.
In spite of rapidly mounting calls for serious change in this area the word from the White House has been more of the same. Demand reduction, interdiction, going after the Mexican cartels, the same stuff that has shown quite clearly that it doesn’t work for decades. That’s been the line from Secretary of State Clinton when she went to Mexico even after admitting that America’s drug policy for the last three decades has been a colossal failure. Now we have a new Drug Czar with a liberal reputation when it comes to drugs. In an interview a few days ago in the Wall Street Journal Drug Czar Kerlikowski proclaimed an end to the war on drugs. He said that the war metaphor was not helpful and things would be different. The pro-marijuana community rejoiced. This morning he clarified that statement. “It’s a dangerous drug” he said of marijuana, and regarding its medical benefits, he said, “we will wait for evidence on whether smoked marijuana has any medicinal benefits; those aren’t in.” Oh boy… here we go again. Politicians are so good at word games… torture , enhanced interrogation, you’ve heard it before.
Of course there is ample evidence testifying to marijuana’s efficacy in treating a host of disorders… nausea and loss of appetite due to chemotherapy, Multiple Sclerosis, Crohn’s disease, PTSD, the list is a long one. Even the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine looked at the research and agreed that smoking marijuana had medical value. !3 States recognized this and approved its medical use. But apparently, like all past administrations, all this is to be ignored.
In spite of growing calls by California’s Governor Schwarzenegger, former Senator Tancredo (R-CO), Senator Jim Webb (D-VA), U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen (D- TN), and many others in recent weeks to at least consider the idea of legalization of the drug Kerlikowski said the idea was “waving the white flag” and said “legalization is off the charts when it comes to discussion, from my viewpoint.”
Add to these hardly encouraging statements from Obama’s pick for Drug Czar the president’s laughing at and dismissing the number one most popular question to come to his own website from his supporters a few weeks ago…”would (Obama) support the bill currently going through the California legislation to legalize and tax marijuana, boosting the economy and reducing drug cartel related violence.” and it’s very difficult to be optimistic about significant change.
Promises are broken by politicians all the time yet the public is repeatedly fooled by them. For drug policy reform advocates it looks like the honeymoon with Obama is quickly coming to a close.
