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War on Drugs - Public Health Based Regulation Needed for all Substances

The news release below and recent discussion paper from the Health Officers' Council of BC
(see http://www.phabc.org/modules.php?name=Contentpub&pa=viewdoc&cid=11 ) are to bring attention to the serious impact that inadequate, inappropriate, and ineffective regulation of psychoactive substances (illegal drugs,alcohol, tobacco,and certain prescription drugs) is having on Canadians. Your attention and assistance to publicizing this issues is appreciated.

Thank you,
James Lu, MD, MHSc
Chair, Health Officers' Council of BC

NEWS RELEASE

Increasing the War on Drugs will not reduce drug-related crime or drug use - Public Health Based Approaches Needed

For Immediate Release February 4, 2008

VANCOUVER - As Canadian and U.S. drug policy experts gather here to provide advice to a United Nations conference on drug control and Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy rally in Ottawa to oppose the federal government's recently announced anti-drug strategy, BC Health Officers reiterate that a health-based approach to addiction is required to deal with social and criminal issues.

"Imitating the U.S. approach by escalating the war on drugs as the federal government is doing will not reduce drug-related crime or drug use," says Dr. Richard Mathias of the Health Officers' Council of BC. "We only have to look south to the United States to see how policies like mandatory minimum sentences for drug-related crimes and coercive addiction treatment have failed."

A particularly alarming aspect of the new federal drug policy is abandonment of effective harm reduction programs that have proven successful across the country in saving lives and reducing the transmission of HIV and Hepatitis C, said Dr. Mathias as the Health Officers' Council released a discussion paper on regulating psychoactive substances including alcohol, tobacco, cannabis, opiates and stimulants.

Research by the Canadian Centre for Substance Abuse shows that nearly 50,000 deaths every year are linked to psychoactive substances; and the current ineffective policies and programs governing them cost the economy some $40 billion. The Health Officers' Council paper emphasizes the need to regulate all psychoactive substances from the perspective of improving and protecting public health, said Dr. Mathias who is also a professor of medicine at the University of British Columbia.

"The current punitive approaches to illegal drugs are not effective, waste valuable public resources and actually increase rather than reduce harms," Dr. Mathias explained. "It is time to apply our energies to new and innovative approaches that are supported by scientific evidence rather than continuing to pour tax dollars into the same ineffective and harmful programs and expecting different results."

The health-based approach advocated by the Health Officers' Council is supported by a wide range of individuals and organizations, including leading academics, policy makers and community groups.

"The federal government's mandatory minimum proposals will increase incarceration rates of people with low-level involvement in drugs, with no evidence that these harsh measures will actually affect the drug trade," said Professor Neil Boyd, Associate Director of Simon Fraser University's School of Criminology. "These policies will stress already overcrowded jails and put newly incarcerated people at increased risk of many social and health problems such as HIV and hepatitis which are seen at high rates in jails."

Howard Sapers, Canada's Correctional Investigator who reports to Parliament, says that in federal prisons the incidence of HIV is 7 to ten times higher and Hepatitis C is 30 times higher than in the general Canadian population.

Such evidence shows that the real problems are our current inappropriate and inadequate regulation and mismanagement of drugs, said Gillian Maxwell, chair of Keeping the Door Open: Dialogues on Drug Use, a Vancouver organization dedicated to improving approaches to drug control.

"Our current drug policies are not helping people who use drugs or the communities where they live," said Ms. Maxwell.

"It is irresponsible to allow such ineffective and harmful measures to continue and a waste of valuable public resources. We need to expand the public dialogue to explore more creative solutions and the Health Officers' Council discussion paper will help us better understand what public health-based regulation of substances could look like", she added.

The Health Officers Council of BC is a registered society of public health physicians who advise and advocate for public policies and programs directed at improving health. They have been calling for public health approaches to all drugs (including tobacco and alcohol) for many years to reduce the enormous societal problems associated with drugs and their control measures. Public health approaches seek a balance between minimizing the harms associated with substances and their control policies, allowing for non-harmful and beneficial use and adoption of policies that benefit society.

For more information please contact:

Dr. Richard Mathias 604 822-4757, 604-822-2772
Professor Neil Boyd 778-782-3324
Gillian Maxwell 604-728-7792

The latest Health Officers Council discussion paper, Regulation of Psychoactive Substances in Canada - Seeking a Coherent Public Health Approach, will be posted at:

http://www.phabc.org/modules.php?name=Contentpub&pa=viewdoc&cid=11

http://kdo.carbc.net/Home/tabid/37/Default.aspx