Drugs and Public Health
Principles:  Dr. Peter Lurie, Sr. Reseacher, Institute for Health Policy Studies, UCSF; Marsha Rosenbaum, Director, The Lindesmith Center

The American war on drugs has been lost, and hundreds of thousands of people who have HIV, who have cancer, and who are drug addicts are the casualties.  This is the strong message agreed upon from a former police chief, a state assemblyman, and several doctors, lawyers, businessmen, social workers, social rehabilitation specialists, and activists.

The twenty-five specialists who participated in Friday's roundtable discussion titled "Drugs and Public Health" shared their findings and frustrations from each of their professional perspectives.  They agreed that viewing drug use and addiction as a criminal, immoral act has been sorely ineffective in solving the problem, and they discussed intervention approaches they feel would be more effective in addressing the issue.

Dr. Peter Lurie, a senior researcher and physician at UC San Francisco's Medical College, said that it was clear that distributing clean needles to intravenous drug users helps stop the spread of AIDS and does not cause more people to shoot up.  Lurie cited six separate studies, including one by the federal government itself, which reinforced his claim, but said this information has been ignored.  Needle exchange programs are illegal everywhere in the U.S., except New York, which has limited provisions for them.

Physicians also advocated administering methadone, an opiate, to heroin addicts in treatment programs to keep them from using street drugs (and thereby support the illegal drug trade), and to stop the spread of HIV through dirty needles.  Dr. Lurie further recommended making it possible for all physicians, not just drug addiction specialists, to prescribe methadone, as they would prescribe drugs for any other illness.

Several physicians said that smoking marijuana alleviates pain and suffering, induces appetite, effectively treats depression, and makes other prescriptions more effective for some patients.  San Francisco physician Dr. Richard Cohen said he risks his medical license on a regular basis by recommending marijuana use to cancer and HIV patients.   Proposition 215, which would legalize prescribing medical marijuana, will be decided on by California voters next month.

Marsha Rosenbaum, Ph.D, director of the Lindesmith Center, a research and advocacy organization for decriminalizing drug use, said that programs such as the national Drug Abuse Resistance Education  (DARE) program, which inform children about the effects and dangers of drugs, are ineffective.  Rosenbaum stated that parents and teachers do not speak frankly with their children about their own alcohol and drug use, and do not admit the fact that many people use drugs like marijuana responsibly.  When young people find out that this is true, she said, they disregard the entire message, and the dangers.

Former San Jose and Kansas City Police Chief Joe  McNamara said that the reason why these treatments face so much opposition despite their demonstrated success stems from the wrongheaded and hypocritical attitude that drug use is immoral.  One politician, he said, distinguished drugs from alcohol and tobacco by saying "the use of those other drugs cause use you to lose your soul."  McNamara wryly noted that "no empirical evidence was cited."

--Michelle Ling
26 year old Graduate Student, UC Berkeley