"HARM REDUCTION" STRATEGY WON'T WORK

The so called harm-reduction approach to drugs confuses people with
terminology. All drug policies claim to reduce harm. No resonable person
advocates a posistion consciously designed to be harmful. The real question
is which policies actually decrease harm and increase good. The approach
advocated by people who say they favor harm reduction would in fact harm
Americans.

The theory behind what they call harm reduction is that illegal drugs cannot
be controlled by law enforcement, education and other methods; therefore,
proponents say, harm should be reduced by needle exchange, decriminalization
of drugs, heroin maintenance and other measures. But the real intent of many
harm-reduction advocates is the legalization of drugs, which would be a mistake.

Lest anyone question whether harm reductionist favor drug legalization, let
me quote some articles written by supporters of this position. Ethan
Nadelman, director of the Lindesmith Center, a Manhattan based drug research
institute, wrote in American Heritage ( March 1993 ): " Should we legalize
drugs? History answer 'yes'." In issues in Science and Technology ( June
1990 ) , Nadelman aligns his own opinion with history's supposed verdict: "
Personally, when talking about legalization, I mean three things: The first
is to make drugs such as marijuana, cocaine and heroin legal." With regards
to lables, Nadelman wrote: " I much prefer the term ' decriminalization ' or
' normanalization '."

People who advocate legalization can call themselves anything they like, but
deceptive terms should not obscure a position so that it can be debated
coherently. Changing the name of a plan doesn't constitute a new solution or
alter the nature of the proplem.

The plain fact is that drug abuse wrecks lives. It is criminal that more
money is spent on illegal drugs than on art or higher education, that crack
babies are born addicted and in pain and that thousands of adolescents lose
ther health and future to drugs,

Addictive drugs were criminalized because they are harmful; they are not
harmful because they were criminalized. The more a product is available and
legitimized, the greater will be its use. If drugs were legalized in the
United States, the cost to the individual and society would grow
astronomically. In the Netherlands when coffee shops started selling
marijuana in small quanties, use of this drug doubled between 1984 and 1992.
A 1992 study by Robert MacCoun and Peter Rueter from the Univerisity of
Maryland notes that the percentage of Dutch 18-year-olds who tried pot rose
from 15 percent to 34 percent from 1984 to 1992, a time when the numbers
weren't climbing in other European nations. By contrast, in 1992 teen-age
use of marijuana in the United States was estimated at 10.6 percent.

Many advocates of harm reduction consider drug use part of the human
condition that will always be with us. While we agree that murder,
pedophilia and child prostitution can never be eliminated entirely, no one
is arguing that we legalize these activities.

Some measures proposed by activists, like herion maintenance, veer toward
the absurd. The Lindesmith Center convened a meeting in June to discuss a
multicity herion maintenance study, and a test program for heroin
maintenance may be launched in Baltimore. Arnold Trebach argues for heroin
maintenance in his book " Legalize It? Debating American Drug Policy " : "
Under the legalization plan I propose here, addicts...would be able to
purchase the heroin and needles they need at reasonable prices from a
nonmedical drugstore."

Why would anyone chose to maintain addicts on heroin as opposed to oral
methadone, which eliminates the injection route associated with HIV and
other diseases? Research from the National Institute for Drug Abuse shows
that untreated addicts die at a rate seven to eight times higher than
similar patients in methadone-based programs.

Dr Arvin Goldstien, in his book " Addiction: From Biology to Drug Policy,"
explains that when individuals switch from herion to methadone, general
health improves and abnormalities of body systems ( such as hormones )
normalize. Unlike heroin maintenance, methadone maintenance has no adverse
effects on cognitive or psycomotor function, performance of skilled tasks or
memory, he said. This research indicates that the choice of heroin
maintenance over methadone maintenance doesn't even meet the criteria of
harm reduction that advocates claim to apply.

Treatment must differ significantly from the disease it seeks to cure.
Otherwise, the solution resembles the ciricular reasoning spoofed in
Saint-Exupery's " The Little Prince " by the character who drinks because he
has a terrible problem, namely, that he is a drunk. Just as alcoholism,
heroin is no cure for heroin addiction.

As a society, we are successfully addressing drug use and its consequences.
In the past twenty years, drug use in the United States decreased by half
and casual cocaine use by 70 percent. Drug-related murders and spending on
drugs decreased by more than thirty percent as the illeagal drug market shrunk.

Still, we are faced with the many challenges, including educating a new
generation of children who may have little experience with the negative
consequences of drug abuse, increasing access to treatment for 4 million
addicted Americans and breaking the cycle of drugs and crime that has caused
a massive increase in the number of people incarcerated. We need prevention
programs, treatment and alternatives to incarceration for non-violent drug
offenders. Drug legalzation is not a viable policy alternative because
excusing harmful practices only encourages them.

At best, harm reduction is a halfway measure, a halfhearted approach that
would accept defeat. Increasing help is better than decreasing harm. The "
1998 National Drug Control Strategy "- a publication of the Office of
National Drug Control Policy that presents a balanced mix of prevention,
treatment, stiff law enforcement, interdiction and international
cooperation-is a blueprint for reducing drug abuse and its consequences by
half over the coming decade. With science as our guide and grass-roots
organizationa at the forefront, we will succeed in controlling this problem.

Pretending that harmful activity will be reduced if we condone it under the
law is foolhardy and irresponsible.


Checked-by: Melodi Cornett