“We don’t want to fight addicts; we want to fight addiction. We need to manage addiction.” The credo of the drug policy of Iran, according to The New York Times.
Sphere: Related ContentFriday, June 27, 2008
Monday, June 23, 2008
More Pain Relief Needed. Use Afghanistan's Opium.
On May 8, 2008, I met in Washington with a delegation of narcotics officers and prosecutors from Afghanistan who were guests of the United States Department of State to learn about American anti-drug policy.
In a tone that I hoped was sympathetic to the teachings of Islam, and the violence and political instability that surrounds the production of opium and heroin in Afghanistan, I criticized prohibition in general and American anti-drug policy in particular.
The delegation received my comments very favorably. In Q & A, I was asked about the requirement that the enormous quantities of opium seized by Afghani law enforcement must be destroyed. Why, I was asked, can the opium not be sold to legitimate pharmaceutical companies?
I noted that there is a global crisis of insufficient pain management. (The International Herald Tribune and The New York Times reported on the human suffering that this causes in September 2007). The World Health Organization has major efforts committed to address the cancer pain crisis.
I noted that the "Western powers" in the early 20th Century, as part of their economic domination of much of the rest of the world, created international legal organizations to determine which countries could grow opium and how much.
My recollection was that only India, Australia and Turkey are allowed to grow opium for the international trade. It is outrageous, I said, that the "Saudi Arabia of opium" can't sell its opium to international pharmaceutical firms at a time when there is an enormous unmet demand for pain relief, and Afghanistan's people and government need legitimate sources of revenue to rebuild their nation and establish security.
To my knowledge, the United Kingdom has not been a pharmaceutical opium producing country.
But according to the Daily Mail on June 23, 2008, the United Kingdom of Great Britain was recently permitted to start growing opium for the medical trade.
Why should this be permitted to the British farmers and not to Afghani farmers?
This new development should be seen by Afghanistan as a precedent to change the international agreements to permit Afghanistan to supply opium to the legitimate market.
Allowing such legal cultivation would be politically and economically devastating for the Taliban and their terrorist allies, al Qaeda. It would increase the supply of pain killers available to the seriously and terminally ill in the developing world. It would help restore peace and end hunger in Afghanistan. And it would also save lives of American and NATO soldiers in Afghanistan.
Saturday, June 14, 2008
"Legal Drugs Kill Far More Than Illegal, Florida Says"
In Florida last year, there were 2,328 deaths due to "strong painkillers" like Vicodin(R) and Oxycontin(R), 743 deaths due to benzodiazepine-class drugs like Xanax(R) and Valium(R). Cocaine caused 843 deaths, methamphetamine caused 25 deaths, heroin caused 93 deaths, and marijuana zero deaths, according to the 2007 report by the Florida Medical Examiners Commission reported in The New York Times ("Legal Drugs Kill Far More Than Illegal, Florida Says," p. A10, June 14, 2008). "Drugs Identified in Deceased Persons by Florida Medical Examiners, 2007 Report" is 43 pages long.
Sounds like a public health problem, but the Times' Damien Cave can only quote law enforcement officials such as Sergeant Lisa McElhaney, in the Broward County Sheriff's Office, for her insight: "The abuse has reached epidemic proportions. It's just explosive."
However we should give the Times' Damien Cave a great deal of credit for taking the initiative to put the fact that marijuana caused zero deaths in the middle of story. That fact is obtained from the medical examiners' report only by deduction. It was not stated as a finding or a conclusion.
It is worth noting that the number of cocaine deaths has grown almost continuously from 821 in 1993 to 2179 in 2007.
Deaths among older drug users; and the political misrepresentation of who is dying
It is also significant that in 2007 the number of persons found with lethal levels of cocaine in their body under age 18 was 4, ages 18 to 25 was 96, and among persons older than 35 was 582.
Consider this fact and the mantra of politicians defending unjust laws such a mandatory minimums. This is Senator Hatch on PBS Frontline's "Snitch" in 1999:
Sen. ORRIN HATCH (R), Utah: Well, we found- the reason why we went to mandatory minimums is because of these soft-on-crime judges that we have in this society, judges who just will not get tough on crime, get tough especially on pushers of drugs that are killing our youth. And so that's why the mandatory minimums, so that we set some reasonable standards within which judges have to rule, rather than allowing them to just put people out on probation who otherwise are killing our kids.
The consequence of social misclassification of the problem
In covering this report, could the reporter have asked doctors, public health specialists or health educators about the meaning of such data and what could be done about it? No.
Michael Aldrich, Ph.D., explained very cogently -- about four years ago in San Francisco -- that for the society a tragic consequence of misclassifying the "problem" of drug misuse as a criminal problem has meant that for decades we have consulted the wrong "experts," such as police sergeants. In general, our police "drug experts" are untrained, unqualified, and fundamentally ignorant about the causes of these kinds of deaths and the various means that a public health expert might suggest to address the problem.
What could we do to reduce these deaths?
I'm not a doctor or a public health expert. But I would ask such professionals, "Is it possible that we could save lives and prevent some of these deaths by educating drug users on safer drug use practices?"
Could family practitioners talk with teenagers and young adults in a way that acknowledges that they might be using "legal" drugs socially and not medically, and that non judgmentally advises them about how to minimize the dangers? Not in the current drug paradigm. Such counsel would risk prosecution and loss of medical licenses for "sending an inconsistent, don't do drugs message."
When a physician prescribes Xanax or Oxycontin to a person, might it make sense for the physician to call in all the family members aged 14 and older to talk about the risks to family members and guests having such a drug sitting in a parental medicine cabinet? Sphere: Related Content
Blind to prejudice, you can say or hear "Infested by the druggies" and not blink
The Saturday Profile in The New York Times on June 14, 2008 is of Fadela Amara, the French Secretary of State for Urban Policy in the government of President Nicolas Sarkozy. Amara is a strong advocate for the immigrants in France, many of them Muslim. She tells of her radicalization at age 14 when her 5-year old brother was killed by a drunk driver, and the police used racist remarks toward her parents.
In Steven Erlanger's profile, Ms. Amara is working with a street theater group, the Company of Contrarians. The founder of the company, Neusa Thomasi, 46, was born in Brazil. Ms. Thomasi says, as quoted by the Times reporter,
"Immigrants understand the problems of immigrants," . . . describing the need, echosed by Ms. Amara, "to reoccupy public spaces infested by the druggies and the criminals.""Infested by the druggies." How is this term different from a racist slur?
Ms. Amara says,
Our tenets defend equality, condemn cultural relativism and combat archaic traditions. . .This is why I claim the heritage of the French Revolution. I'm universalist. I believe strongly in the values of the republic -- liberty, equality, fraternity -- and secularism.I wonder, how do Ms. Amara and other self-proclaimed claimants to the values of the French republic -- liberty, equality and fraternity -- think the families of drug users hear the phrase "infested by the druggies"? Sphere: Related Content
Friday, June 13, 2008
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
