Holistic/Sustainable Formula to Drug Policy

“Addiction is a state in which an organism engages in a compulsive behavior, even when faced with negative consequences. (NIDA, 2007).”

The Problem of AddictionA misconception that people have about drug users is that they can easily stop

by changing their attitude.

Unfortunately, drug addiction is a disease and abstinence from drugs takes much more. The prolonged use of drugs affects brain activity and hinders their ability to withstand sudden desires.

Drug abuse and addiction is a cost for the entire society. An estimate of this cost for United States alone is $600 billion per year which does not cover other consequences such as family separation, domestic violence and loss of work.

Source: http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/understanding-drug-abuse-addiction

Addiction pushes demand for drugs and therefore, creating viable market opportunities for suppliers who can raise their prices since the demand is price and income inelastic

Key Causes of Addiction

Disintegration from family and society

Severe poverty

Violence in families

Easy access to suppliers of drugs

Needle Syringe Program-Access to syringes

-Reduction of blood-borne infections such as HIV and Hepatitis

Bourgois, P., Moss, B. & Moss, A. (2004)Rhodes, T., Singer, M., Bourgois, P., Friedmand, S.R., Strathdee, S. (2005)

DecriminalisationCriminalisation works against HIV prevention:

➔ Fear of police detainment and arrests (Cooper, Moore, Gruskin and Kriegerd 2005)

➔ Avoid carrying syringes

➔ Discourage the purchase of clean injecting equipment

➔ Results in higher levels of syringe sharing, and higher chances of HIV infection (Rhodes, Singer, Bourgois, Friedman and Strathdee 2005)

◆ e.g. Russia

DecriminalisationWhat is crime? (Lecture 1)

Drug use does not cause violence or harm to other persons in the way conventional crimes do

Social costs of reduced labour productivity, health and welfare services

Does criminalisation help solve the problem?

Root of the problem is addiction

Illness > Crime

➔ Public Health issue

DecriminalisationNetherlands (Bourgois 2008):

Decriminalisation of marijuana

Better regulated and facilitates treatment

Portugal (UNODC):Drug decriminalisation

HIV infections and drug-related deaths have decreased

Dramatic rise in use feared by some has failed to materialise

Drug Rehabilitation— A set of activities aimed at reintegrating and improving the functional capability of people to satisfy his or her needs and their inclusion and participation in the wider society

— It tackles the physical and the social characteristics of drug addiction

Removing the physical dependence on a drug may include the use of chemical replacements that hinder the effects of the addictive drugs

For example, methadone for withdrawal symptoms of heroin

Drug Rehabilitation - PhysicalThe War on Drugs strongly disagreed with using methadone to treat heroin addicts when it was known be effective. The Reagan and Bush governments proposed that the drug users either “just say no to drugs” or be imprisoned for long sentences.

Craig Reinarman & Harry Gene Levine (1997)

Taking the case of methadone,

Taking the Women and Heroin case study, these upper-middle class women took heroin as a means of escapism from cultural and patriarchal domination. However, as time passed, they had to be submissive to these same forces to get the drug.

The women saw that methadone was a “viable alternative to quit” and they thought that “they were taking steps towards their recovery”.

Friedman, J. and Alicea, M. (1995)

% of people using methadone in last 30 days versus heroin

Adapted from Ball and Ross (1991)

Drug Rehabilitation - PhysicalProblems with Methadone for Heroin Policy

In the Women and the Heroin case, the women regarded methadone as “medicine” and they might return to where they were without it.

These women were being exploited by clinical services saying that the only way to cure their addiction is to sustain their use of the drug lifelong even though they want to stop after sometime.

Policy RecommendationMethadone can be used as a form of drug rehabilitation but funding should be given to public health

facilities where there should be regulation to ensure these rehabilitation centres are not profit-driven only

Drug Rehabilitation - SocialDid you know?If you have an accident and break a hip, you will probably be given diamorphine, the medical name for heroin. Other patients around you in the hospital will be getting the same for pain-relief. The heroin given by the hospital staff will be much more purer than what can be bought on the street. Therefore, does that mean according to the effects of heroin, you will start going on the streets to try get the same once you are discharged? It will not happen. Canadian doctor Gabor Mate explains that medical users will return to their normal lives. The same drug, used for the same length of time, turns street-users into desperate addicts and leaves medical patients unaffected.

This is the same as the Rat Park experiment run by Professor Alexander. Rats were isolated and provided with heroin for 57 days. Some of them were then placed in Rat Park where they could interact with each other and rats that are not addicted. Initially they showed signs of withdrawal but then went back to normal life.

This was retrieved from Johann Hari (2015)

Drug Rehabilitation - SocialTherefore, the solution is not to keep drug addicts in isolated prison cells. When they are

released, they are further cut off because many firms will not employ them due to their criminal record which pushes them into dangerous work in order to survive. (Moore, L. & Elkavich, A, 2008)

So, the funds that are being pumped in to spend on arresting and jailing drug addicts should instead be used to reconnect them with their own feelings and the society. The most necessary step is to provide them housing, subsidised jobs and clinical access to reduce their addiction.

A successful case is where Portugal implemented this policy. They had one of the worst drug problems in Europe where 1% of the population were addicted to heroin fifteen years back. After failing by starting a drug war and the problem getting worse, there was a dramatic changeover once imprisonment was halted. (UNODC)

Cost Effectiveness of Drug Treatment

1 year of methadone for a heroin addict = $4,700

Imprisonment for this same heroin addict = $18,400

Every $1 that is used in treatment and rehabilitation can reduce up to $7 in costs for crime

Retrieved from http://www.drugabuse.gov/

EducationThe failure of the drug war has led to a shift in focus from locking up people to public health and “harm reduction”

This approach would put more emphasis on public education and the treatment of addicts and less punishment of consumers of “soft” drugs for personal use.

Governments should tax and regulate the drug trade and use the funds raised to educate the public about the risks of drug-taking and to treat addiction.

(Collins, 2014)

EducationThe new approach to drug education, reflected in the remodelled Drug Abuse Resistance Education, is more moral.

By role-playing, cops and teachers try to provide children with the confidence to resist pressures of all kinds, from drugs to internet bullying.

Rather than telling children that drugs are dangerous, teachers assure them that they are rare. Drugs are no longer treated as a unique, self-contained threat. (Economist)

The unified view of social theorists is by not completing school, students become separated from the wider community and therefore, the use of drugs increases. (Krohn et al., 1995)

EducationSuccess:

Methadone became popular again in the late 1990s.

Rather than emphasise the drug's addictiveness and long-term effects on the brain, as earlier anti-drug campaigns had done, the new campaign pointed out that methadone users often had rotten teeth.

In the past five years attitudes to the drug have hardened and the use has dropped steeply.

(Csete Joanne, 2014)

Conclusion

BibliographyCsete, Joanne (2014) ‘Costs and Benefits of Drug-related Health Services’, J. Collins, (ed.) Ending the

Drug Wars: Report of the LSE Expert Group on the Economics of Drug Policy. London: LSE Ideas.

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Krohn, Marvin, Thronberry, Terence, CollinsHall, Lori, and Lizotte, Alan. “School Dropout, Delinquent Behavior and Drug Use: An Examination of the Causes and Consequences of Dropping out of School.” In Drugs, Crime and Other Deviant Adaptations H.B. Kaplan (Ed.). New York: Plenum,1995

http://www.economist.com/node/13234144NIDA for Teens: The Science Behind Drug Abuse. National Institute on Drug Abuse. 2007

http://teens.drugabuse.gov/drug-factshttp://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/understanding-drug-abuse-addictionFriedman, J. and Alicea, M. (1995). Women and Heroin: The Path of Resistance and Its Consequences.

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