LIMITED DISCOURSE

A Drug Awareness Event Steered Clear Of Health Care Perspectives

It was a familiar scene, a news conference called by a group named
Join Together Northern Nevada to raise awareness of the dangers of
drug use. This one, in the lobby of Reno City Hall on Nov. 18, dealt
with heroin.

In May 2007, it was meth and the release of a video, "Crystal
Darkness," which had been re-edited to tailor it to Nevada, something
that was happening in many states as part of a national campaign.

But like a Laurel and Hardy scene in which one bump under the sheet is
pushed down only to have another one pop up in a different place, each
burst of anti-drug awareness publicity simply reduces use of one drug
and leads to a rise in use of another. Meth use is down, heroin is
up.

At the Reno City Hall event, there were elected officials, drug-use
victims, publicists, drug program administrators, police
officers--everything except physicians. There were no health care
professionals at an event about a health problem.

Of course not," said Reno and Las Vegas physician Stephen Frye, a
former Nevada School of Medicine faculty member, who was interviewed
after the news conference. "You want politicians or police there to
tell us how prison is so wonderful. You don't want to ask a doctor.
It's been treated as a criminal justice matter instead of a health
care matter."

There was no missing the strong emotions in the room at the news
conference. Mayor Bob Cashell broke down crying when he discussed the
heroin ordeal experienced by his son and their family. "No parent
knows what to do," Cashell said. "We didn't know. Nancy and I didn't
have a clue. But it would have been so good to have a group like this
that could tell us or point out signs of what was going on."

The family of a young woman who died while using heroin was present
and talked about their experiences.

But there were questions asked from the audience that no one was in a
position to answer. One woman said when her son had a heroin problem,
one of the reasons he waited too long to seek help was that he and his
friends were scared to bring himself to the attention of authorities.
"If my son's friends were not afraid, he would be alive today," she
said.

She was given assurances by police spokespeople who were present that
he would have been treated sympathetically, and the mayor said, "When
they [police] understand the situation, they work with us."
Nevertheless, as long as drug use remains illegal, assurances at a
drug awareness news conference cannot necessarily be cashed at a jail
or in court. After the event was over, Frye was contacted and said
there is a better solution in other nations where drugs are legal:
"The people that are with them if they crash call 911, and they are
treated. They're not afraid to call because of illegality." That
simple policy choice was never mentioned at the Reno news conference.

As for the families who are damaged by drug use, Frye said, "The fact
is this drug war is deadly and devastating to our children."

But no one was present at the City Hall event to provide those
perspectives, and subsequent news coverage did not go beyond those
present at the event for views that go beyond enforcement and
treatment to prevention.

The event took place amid plenty of evidence of the continuing
ineffectiveness of the war on drugs.

Oct. 18, 2010: Dayton and Carson City drug bust, marijuana, meth and
cocaine taken, 10 arrested.

Oct. 29, 2010: Truckee drug bust, marijuana and paraphernalia taken,
three arrested, one of them a Nevadan.

Nov. 6, 2010: Bi-state drug bust, oxycordone taken, 27 Nevadans and
Alaskans arrested.

Nov. 8, 2010: Drug bust at Legacy High School in Clark County; heroin
taken, one student arrested.

In all likelihood, if this news conference had been held a year ago, a
different set of busts could have been cited and if one is held a year
from now there will be still another set. "I will tell you that
prohibition of drugs is an incredible failure," Frye said. "After
decades of prohibition, the United States has 60 percent of the
world's drug use, which means that our drug war has created a
monumental failure. The drug war kills more people than drugs."

Mayor Cashell said he wasn't altogether happy himself at the lack of
medical or other perspectives at the City Hall news conference. "I'm
not sure they were invited or not invited," he said, adding that when
he saw the lineup he had his staff call around to try to find a health
care professional. He also said he wants to hear other perspectives.
"We intend to bring all of those people in."

Frye said that in Las Vegas he finds more receptiveness to
anti-prohibition views. "The mayor opposes prohibition, [newspaper
executive] Tom Mitchell opposes it, so people get to hear that view."
He also said that reporters there seek out different views.

The exclusion of health care perspectives in drug prohibition is an
old story. In 1876, when the nation's first anti-drug law was enacted
in Virginia City, it was a response to inflammatory news coverage of
Chinese opium dens that did not include information from physicians on
the drug's properties. In 1937, when Congress outlawed marijuana, the
vote came after the floor leader of the bill lied to congressmembers,
telling them that the American Medical Association supported the
prohibition. He withheld information about the AMA's actual objections
to outlawing what was then a prescription medicine.

Frye said the only nations that have shown progress in reducing drug
use are those that have taken an approach different from that of the
United States.

In Portugal, AIDS is down, hepatitis is down, drug use is down. In
Switzerland, where on the day Obama was elected the Swiss public voted
for free clean needles and free heroin at a cost of a couple of bucks
a day, more than three-quarters of the people cleaned up their act.
The result was less drug use, not more."

Mexico, on the other hand, "has been following our example, and has a
huge drug problem."

Kevin Quint of Join Together Northern Nevada, the sponsor of the City
Hall news conference, said it was meant to be an awareness event, not
a dialogue. He also said his group has not been engaged with
anti-prohibition representatives.

We haven't done anything together," he said. "We'd sure be happy to
talk to them if they want to talk to me. It's not really part of our
program. Our function is not really to advocate for or against
legalization, though we have a position on marijuana."

The group's marijuana stance is that it "not be legalized for
recreational use," he said.

He said a dialogue with anti-prohibitionists is "not a part of our
conversations. If there's some kind of community dialogue we can have,
I'm willing, but I don't want to have some kind of war." He added that
when, several years ago, he was involved in those kinds of dialogues,
"My experience is that they devolve into negativity."