DON'T IMPORT FAILED U.S. DRUG POLICY

Re: Tories to shun 'safe drug' sites, May 23.

The Harper government's new "tough" anti-drug strategy and its retreat
from "harm reduction" measures, such as safe injection sites for
addicts, is sad news for Canada. As an American public health
professional who has studied these programs, it is clear to me that
they have already saved hundreds of lives and millions of taxpayer
dollars. This is in sharp contrast to the highly punitive American
approach that has cost tens of thousand of lives (through preventable
AIDS and overdose deaths) and squandered billions on mandatory sentences.

Many Americans of all political stripes now reject these policies and
all serious observers recognize their failure in the U.S. Why would
Canada want to embrace them now?

Ernest Drucker, professor of epidemiology and psychiatry, Albert
Einstein College of Medicine, New York.