canberra drug law reform apgdlr 2006

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Drug law reform: current status, future prospects?

Australian Parliamentary Group for Drug Law Reform

Dr. Alex Wodak Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation

Canberra, 3 July 2006awodak@stvincents.com.au

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Topics

• Global situation• Growing support for harm

reduction • Increasing problems with War

on Drugs (WoDs)• Alternatives to prohibition• Why is opinion shifting?

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Topics

• Recent arguments for WoDs?• Where to from here?• Summary

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Global situation

• Steadily worsening: # countries; quantities, types drugs; adverse consequences

• Global drugs economy now $US 322 billion/year

• Growing indications political elites aware massive policy failure

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Growing support harm reduction

• Harm reduction debate is over: science won

• More countries adopting harm reduction policy, drug law reform

• International: WHO, UNAIDS, UNODC, World Bank, Red Cross

• Increasing adoption programs:– 25/25 EU members methadone, NSPs– 25/25 Central, Eastern Europe, C Asia

NSPs

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Harm reduction policy, programs: 2

• Asian countries switch: China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Burma, Taiwan, India

• Australia: oppose as political strategy, support as public policy

• Increasing international uptake, evidence controversial programs: e.g. prison methadone, prison NSPs, injecting rooms, heroin treatment

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Major recent harm reduction gains

• UNGASS AIDS 2001 ‘implement harm reduction programs by 2005’

• UN Commission Narcotic Drugs 2005 support harm reduction 17:3

• UNAIDS PCB 2005 support harm reduction 21:1

• WHO, UNAIDS, UNODC 2005 joint statement methadone treatment

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Major recent harm reduction gains: 2

• WHO adds methadone to Essential Drugs List 2005

• WHO rejects attempt INCB re-classify buprenorphine 2006

• Zig-zag gains, not straight line• Often major contradictions • 1300 delegates 93 countries at

2006 IHRC

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Increasing problems with WoDs

• Excessive reliance drug law enforcement impedes HIV controlFriedman et al Relationships of deterrence and law enforcement to drug-related harms among drug injectors in US metropolitan areas AIDS 2006, 20:93–99

– 89 large US cities– # drug injectors per capita – HIV seroprevalence among injectors – drug arrests per capita– police employees per capita– corrections expenditures per capita.

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Increasing problems with WoDs: 2

• No legal measure associated with injectors per capita

• All 3 legal measures positively associated with HIV prevalence among injectors

• Conclusions: – legal measures little deterrent effect

on drug injection – but may increase HIV– consider alternative methods

maintaining social order

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Increasing problems with WoDs: 3

• Growing concern seriousness HIV

• Growing evidence WoDs doesn’t work – ‘encouraging progress to still distant goals’ 2003

• Increasing # ‘narcostates’• Increasing income for

‘narcoterrorism’

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Increasing problems with WoDs: 4

• Endless supply new, more toxic drugs

• Pervasive police, official corruption

• Fiscal conservatives concerned ‘high taxing, big government’

• Drugs are a market: wherever strong demand, always supply

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Increasing problems with WoDs: 5

•Major new critiques: – ‘Strategy Unit Drugs Project

Phase 1 Report: Understanding the issues’ UK Blair Cabinet

– ‘Are We Losing the War on Drugs?’ David Boyum, Peter Reuter American Enterprise Institute

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New books alternatives to prohibition

• King County Bar Association• Chief Health Officers, Canada• Vancouver City Hall• Transform, UK

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Why is opinion shifting?

• Evidence getting much stronger

• E-mail, internet reducing ‘information asymmetry’

• Declining US prestige – ‘but the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy’ Downing Street memo, July 2002

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Recent new arguments for WoDs

• Australia’s heroin shortage– 80-90% reduction opium

production Burma from 1996– Heroin shortage other countries

supplied by Burma e.g. Canada– Was funding really increased?– Did drug law enforcement really

become more effective?

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Recent new arguments for WoDs

– Seizures data doesn’t fit– Why was amphetamine trafficking

also not affected?– Shift to amphetamine trafficking?– Increased consumption China?– Prediction 1996 Wardlaw– Amphetamine psychosis 60%

increase– Evaluation embedded?

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Recent new arguments for WoDs

• Cannabis psychosis– Science still disputed– If cannabis so dangerous, why let

bad guys regulate it?– Health effects still inflated, no

deaths– Problem distinguishing drug

effects from policy effects– Why tobacco, alcohol legal?

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Where to from here?

• Problem: politics and economics opposed

• What’s popular doesn’t work; what works isn’t popular

• Articulate alternative plans• Expand international network • Learn from history harm

reduction

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Where to from here?

• Progress on this issue only possible from centre-right?

• Can centre-left makes that easier?

• Major role business groups• Important UN review 2008: 10

years from ‘a drug free world: we can do it!’

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Summary

• Global situation steadily worsening: # countries; quantities, types drugs; consequences

• Massive failure policy increasingly recognised

• Ripe political correction but pragmatic approach opposed by morality based approaches

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Summary: 2

• Need approach economically & politically sustainable

• Compromise:– Drug users get some but not all

desired drugs – Community accept drug use

cannot be eradicated, partial eradication worse for everyone

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Summary: 3

• Slow evolution, not rapid revolution

• Other social policy changes very slow e.g. regulation sex, gambling

• Are communities ahead of politicians?

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Links

• Strategy Unit Drugs Project Phase 1 Report: Understanding the issues’http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Guardian/documents/2005/07/05/Report.pdf

• ‘Are We Losing the War on Drugs?’David Boyum, Peter Reuterhttp://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.22192,filter.all/pub_detail.asp

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Links: 2

• King County Bar Associationhttp://www.erowid.org/psychoactives/law/law_policy_proposal1.pdf

• Chief Health Officers, Canadahttp://www.cfdp.ca/bchoc.pdf

• Vancouver City Hallhttp://www.csdp.org/research/preventingharm_report.pdf

• Transform, UKhttp://www.tdpf.org.uk/Transform_After_the_War_on_Drugs.pdf