Drug Experts Call for 'Third Way,' Neither
Drug War Nor Legalization (2 of 2)

WASHINGTON, Sept. 2 /U.S. Newswire/ The
following was released today by the Federation of American Scientists (2
of 2):

PRINCIPLES FOR PRACTICAL DRUG POLICIES 02 September 1997

As a step toward redirecting discussion and action around drug abuse
control into more useful channels, we propose the following as
reasonable and moderate principles for practical drug policies:

1. (Why drug policy?) Any activity that diminishes normal capacities
for selfcontrol can create dangers for those who engage in it and
for those around them. Drugs that threaten selfcontrol, either
through intoxication or through addiction, are therefore matters of
social as well as personal concern. This applies to licit and illicit
substances alike.

2. (Science and policy) Drug policies should be based on the best
available knowledge and analysis and should be judged by the results
they produce rather than by the intentions they embody. Too often,
policies designed for their symbolic value have unanticipated and
unwanted consequences.

3. (Minimizing overall damage) Drug control policies should be
designed to minimize the damage done to individuals, to social
institutions and to the public health by a) licit and illicit
drugtaking, b) drug trafficking, and c) the drug control measures
themselves. Damage can be reduced by shrinking the extent of drug
abuse as well as by reducing the harm incident to any given level of
drug consumption.

4. (Forms of damage) The forms of damage to be minimized whether
caused by drugs or drug control measures include illness and
accidents, crimes against person and property, corruption and
disorder, disruption of family and other human relationships, loss of
educational and economic opportunities, loss of productivity, loss of
dignity and autonomy, loss of personal liberty and privacy,
interference in pain management and other aspects of the practice of
medicine, and the costs of public and private interventions.

5. (Laws and regulations) Laws and regulations are among the primary
means of preventing drug abuse. Lifting prohibition on a substance is
likely to increase its consumption, perhaps dramatically. Some
substances present dangers such that even limited licit availability,
other than for medically supervised use, would be unlikely to yield
the desired minimumdamage outcome. Therefore, we cannot escape our
current predicament by "ending prohibition" or "legalizing drugs."

6. (Enforcement for results) Enforcement and punishment, like other
policies, should be designed to minimize overall damage. As long as
some substances are illegal or tightly regulated, there will be
attempts to evade those controls and therefore a need for enforcement
and sanctions, in some cases including imprisonment. The use of
disproportionate punishments to express social norms is neither just
nor a prudent use of public funds and scarce prison capacity.

7. (Stance towards users) Social disapproval of substance abuse can
be a powerful and economical means of reducing its extent. Such
disapproval should not be translated into indiscriminate hostility
towards all drug users based solely on their drug use. Persons who
violate the rights of others under the influence of intoxicants or in
order to obtain intoxicants are to be held fully responsible for
their actions, criminally as well as civilly.

8. (Tailoring policies to drugs) Because each substance has its own
profile of risks and patterns of use, different substances call for
different policies.

9. (What about alcohol?) Alcohol is familiar and widely accepted,
yet it shares the intoxicating and addictive risks of some of the
illicit drugs. Current policies make alcohol too easily and cheaply
available and allow it to be too aggressively promoted. The resulting
damage to users and others is very large. Taxation, regulation and
public information are all justified means to the end of reducing
that damage.

10. (What about tobacco?) Nicotine, as commonly used, is not an
intoxicant. But its addictive potential is great, and chronic
cigarette smoking carries severe health risks. The wide prevalence of
tobacco use under current policies makes cigarette smoking the
leading cause of preventable early death. More stringent regulation
is needed to protect the public health.

11. (Valuing treatment properly) Successful treatment for people
with substance abuse disorders produces benefits for those treated
and for those around them. Treatment episodes that reduce drug use
and damage to self and others but do not produce immediate, complete
and lasting abstinence ought to be regarded as incomplete successes
rather than as unredeemed failures.

12. (Prevention) For drug abuse as for other ills, the more
successful the prevention effort the less the need for remediation.
Developing and implementing effective drug abuse prevention
strategies, especially for minors, is an essential means of drug
abuse control. Prevention messages should accurately reflect what is
known about the effects and risks of the substances they discuss.

13. (Taking measured steps) Drug policies need to be updated as
social conditions change and the base of scientific knowledge grows.
Policy changes that can be introduced incrementally and evaluated
step by step are to be preferred over sweeping changes with less
predictable consequences.

14. (Integrity and civility) Debate about drug policies engages
deeply felt values and therefore often becomes heated and even
acrimonious. Civility and honesty about facts, proposals and motives
can serve both to improve drug policies and to advance the broader
public interest in healthy political discourse.

These principles may seem straightforward, hardly needing to be
said. That they are in fact controversial illustrates something
important about the way drugs and drug policy now tend to be
discussed.

The current drug policy debate is marked by polarization into two
positions stereotyped as "drug warrior" and "legalizer." This creates
the false impression that "ending prohibition" is the only
alternative to an unrestricted "war on drugs," effectively
disenfranchising citizens who find both of those options
unsatisfactory. Polarization and strong emotions give rise to
misrepresentations of facts and motives, oversimplification of
complex issues, and denial of uncertainty.

In the face of strong opposition, some of those who favor
fundamental changes in the drug laws have elected to concentrate on
more modest proposals which they intend as way stations towards their
unstated longerterm goals. Partly as a consequence, some of those
devoted to maintaining or intensifying present antidrug efforts have
taken to dismissing all criticisms of current policies even those
based on solid research showing that one or another policy or program
fails to serve its stated aim as mere fronts for a covert "
legalization" effort.

In this climate, every idea, research finding or proposal put forth
is scrutinized to determine which agenda it advances, and the
partisans on each side are quick to brand anyone who deviates from
their "party line" as an agent of the opposing side. As a result,
propositions of dubious validity achieve the status of loyalty oaths,
and questions that ought to be addressed on technical and practical
grounds (what works in prevention, how well interdiction performs,
which treatment approaches help which clients) are instead debated as
matters of ideological conviction.

The tendency in each camp is to focus on only one face of the
problem. One extreme talks as if the miseries surrounding drug
distribution and abuse are entirely the product of unwise policies.
The other is just as likely to say or imply that the damage comes
entirely from the drugs themselves. In fact, both drugs and drug
policies cause harm. Any policy, including inaction, does harm as
well as good. Once that is acknowledged, we can begin the hard work
of shaping policies that do more good than harm. That work will
demand reasoned analysis and scientific respect for evidence, and
doing it well will require learning from mistakes rather than denying
them.

Endorsements Principles for Practical Drug Policies 30
August 1997

Hamilton Beazley, former president, National Council on Alcoholism and
Drug
Dependence;

George E. Bigelow, professor of behavioral biology in the Department
of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins University
School of Medicine;

Joseph V. Brady, professor of behavioral biology in the Department
of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and professor of neuroscience,
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine;

William J. Bratton, CEO, First Security Consulting; former commissioner
of the New York
City police department;

Jonathan P. Caulkins, professor of public affairs, CarnegieMellon
University;

Philip J. Cook, professor of economics and policy studies and acting
director of the Terry Sanford Institute for Public Policy, Duke
University;

Harriet de Wit, associate professor of psychiatry, University of
Chicago;

John J. DiIulio Jr., professor of politics and public affairs at
Princeton University, and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution;

William A. Donohue, president, Catholic League for Religious and Civil
Rights;

Peter Edelman, professor, Georgetown University Law Center and
former assistant secretary for planning and evaluation, U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services;

Margaret E. Ensminger, associate professor of health and policy
management, Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health; joint
appointment in psychiatry, Johns Hopkins University School of
Medicine;

Marian W. Fischman, professor of behavioral biology, Department of
Psychiatry, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons;

Avram Goldstein, M.D., professor emeritus of pharmacology, Stanford
University;

Roland Griffiths, professor of behavioral biology, Department of
Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and professor of neuroscience,
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine;

Francis X. Hartmann, executive director, Program in Criminal Justice
Policy and Management, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard
University;

ChrisEllyn Johanson, professor of psychiatry and behavioral
neurosciences, Wayne
State University School of Medicine;

Reese T. Jones, M.D., professor of psychiatry, University of California,
San Francisco;

Carl Kaysen, professor emeritus of political economy, MIT, and former
director, Institute
for Advanced Study, Princeton;

David McLean Kennedy, senior researcher, Program in Criminal Justice
Policy and Management, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard
University;

Sheppard G. Kellam, M.D., professor of mental hygiene, Johns Hopkins
School of Hygiene and Public Health; joint appointment in psychiatry,
Johns Hopkins School of Medicine;

Mark A.R. Kleiman, professor, School of Public Policy and Social
Research, University
of California, Los Angeles;

Stanley Korenman, M.D., professor of medicine and associate dean, UCLA
Medical
School;

Robert E. Litan, director of economic studies, Brookings
Institution; former associate director, U.S. Government Office of
Management and Budget;

Glenn Loury, university professor, professor of economics, and
director of the Institute on Race and Social Division, Boston
University;

Robert MacCoun, associate professor, Graduate School of Public Policy,
University of
California at Berkeley;

Mark H. Moore, professor of criminal justice policy and management,
Harvard
University;

Dennis E. Nowicki, chief of police, CharlotteMecklenburg Police
Department, North
Carolina;

John O'Hair, prosecuting attorney, Wayne County (Detroit), Mich.;

Peter Reuter, professor of public affairs and criminology, University of
Maryland;

Thomas C. Schelling, distinguished university professor at University of
Maryland;

Charles R. Schuster, professor of psychiatry and behavioral
neurosciences and director of the Clinical Research Division on
Substance Abuse, Wayne State University School of Medicine; former
director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse;

Lewis Seiden, professor and chairman of the Department of Pharmacology,
University of
Chicago;

Solomon H. Snyder, M.D., distinguished service professor of
neuroscience, pharmacology and psychiatry; director, Department of
Neuroscience, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine;

George Vaillant, M.D., professor of psychiatry, Harvard Medical
School.

Editors: Some computer systems do not recognize the "at" sign. It
is an important
component of email addresses and should be used in place of the symbol
(At) in the
contact information above.

[Copyright 1997, Comtex]