DRUG POLICY TARGETS MINORITIES

Drug policies of the federal government negatively affect medical
patients in need of medication and cause minorities to be prosecuted
more than other drug offenders, according to a new book written by U
professors.

Drugs and Justice: Seeking a Consistent, Coherent Comprehensive View,
a book written by seven authors and four contributing authors from
the U and Utah's legal community, says government drug policies are
"incoherent" and explains why these "unjust" policies continue.

"Our legal system is a little schizophrenic -- with regards to drug
policy it has multiple personalities," said Troy Booher, one of the
book's main authors and a professor of law and political science at the U.

The book says different groups within the government and community
have their own perspectives about how drugs should be regulated,
which complicates drug policy.

The Drug Enforcement Administration thinks the best way to solve drug
abuse is to make drugs illegal -- but if heroin is prohibited,
morphine for surgical pain will be more difficult to access, said
Arthur Lipman, another author of the book and a professor of
pharmacotherapy at the U.

The Federal Drug Administration and the DEA consider drug policy from
their own perspectives and rarely communicate, he said.

Another problem with drug policy is that the use of powdered and
crack cocaine are prosecuted differently. The punishment for crack
cocaine use, which typically involves blacks and Hispanics, is 10
times greater than that for powdered cocaine, which is more typically
used by white people, Lipman said.

"Should blacks and Hispanics be punished (more heavily) than
middle-aged business men using cocaine for parties?" he said.

The seven authors realized several years ago during a seminar that
many students had a close-minded view regarding drug policies.

"We realized that the way people saw drug policy was very biased --
they see it from a very narrow perspective and ignore larger issues,"
Lipman said.

The book covers all types of drug use, including prescription
medicine; drugs available over the counter; alternative drugs;
sports-enhancement drugs; social drugs such as alcohol or tobacco;
and illegal recreational drugs.

"We're trying to show in the book that when we talk about drugs, we
should look at all of them before making policy decisions," said
Margaret Battin, lead author of the book and a U philosophy professor.

Besides discussing inconsistencies in drug policy, the book advises
administrators that before considering drug policy decisions, they
should take into account every issue involved by working on an
interdepartmental system or by having a team of experts to give
advice, Booher said.

"Boards and panels making decisions on drug policy should include
experts from all of these areas." Battin said.

For example, drug enforcement authorities might view a particular
drug as addictive, but medical experts in pain management may view it
differently -- they don't see it as addictive, she said.

The book concludes by stating that "significant changes" in drug
policy are necessary and require that laws regarding drug
legalization or criminalization be rewritten to take into
consideration the concerns of different groups.

The authors plan to teach students new ways of looking at drug policy
through a new class starting Spring Semester that fulfills a science,
social science or humanities credit. The class, which is also
accepted as honors credit, will be taught by all seven authors at
various points throughout the term. The three original authors --
Erik Luna, a law professor at the U, Battin and Lipman -- will teach
the class with the other four authors assisting occasionally.

The book is unique in that the seven authors collaborated on the work
by sitting down in sessions and discussing the issues at length.

"Usually any collaboration between disciplines just has one
discipline asking another questions -- having five to six people in a
room all talking about a problem and writing something together made
the work more difficult, but easier to understand the issues," Booher said.

The book's other authors include Paul Gahlinger, a professor of
medicine at the U, Douglas Rollins, a U professor in pharmacology and
toxicology and Jeanette Roberts, a herbal drug expert at the
University of Wisconsin who did work in Utah as a medical chemist.