Effective Drug Control: Toward A New Legal Framework

• understands drug use as a complex, multi-faceted phenomenon that encompasses a continuum of
behaviors from severe abuse to total abstinence, and acknowledges that some ways of using drugs
are clearly safer than others;
• establishes quality of individual and community life and well-being – not necessarily cessation of
all drug use – as the criteria for successful interventions and policies;
• calls for the non-judgmental, non-coercive provision of services and resources to people who use
drugs and the communities in which they live in order to assist them in reducing attendant harm;
• ensures that drug users and those with a history of drug use routinely have a real voice in the
creation of programs and policies designed to serve them;
• affirms drug users themselves as the primary agents of reducing the harms of their drug use, and
seeks to empower users to share information and support each other in strategies which meet their
actual conditions of use;
• recognizes that the realities of poverty, class, racism, social isolation, past trauma, sex-based
discrimination and other social inequalities affect both people’s vulnerability to and capacity for
effectively dealing with drug-related harm;
• does not attempt to minimize or ignore the real and tragic harm and danger associated with licit
and illicit drug use.
261 Robert J. MacCoun and Peter Reuter, op. cit., pp. 391-92, citing J. Braithwaite, Crime, Shame and
Reintegration, Cambridge (UK): Cambridge University Press, 1989.
262 Harry G. Levine (2002), op cit., p. 173.
263 Donald MacPherson (2001), A Framework for Action: A Four-Pillar Approach to Drug Problems in
Vancouver, City of Vancouver, Four Pillars Drug Strategy, April 24, 2001, at
http://www.city.vancouver.bc.ca/fourpillars/pdf/Framework_REVISED.pdf.
264 Id. at 4.
265 City of Vancouver, Four Pillars Drug Strategy, Harm Reduction Fact Sheet, last updated July 1, 2004, at
http://www.city.vancouver.bc.ca/fourpillars/pdf/Factsheet_harmreduction.pdf.
266 “Clean pipes for crack addicts,” Edmonton Journal, August 27, 2004, p. A8.
267 Kate Foster, “Heroin kits on demand for Scots prisoners,” The Scotsman, October 17, 2004.
268 Czech Deputy Prime Minister Petr Mares has stated that “what [we’re] trying to do is to build a barrier
between those who are experimenting with marijuana and those who are offering hard drugs. I don't like
our kids to get in contact with drug dealers and I believe that, well...let them have an opportunity to raise
two or three marijuana plants and smoke them. It's better than to try to buy it on the streets.” Brian
Whitmore, “With a velvet approach, Czechs look to revamp vice laws,” Boston Globe, July 6, 2003, p. A5.
269 The Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act of 2000, http://www.prop36.org/about.html.
270 Douglas Longshore, Ph.D., Darren Urada, Ph.D., Elizabeth Evans, M.A., Yih-Ing Hser, Ph.D., Michael
Prendergast, Ph.D., Angela Hawken, Ph.D., Travis Bunch, and Susan Ettner, Ph.D. (2004), Evaluation of
the Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act: 2003 Report, Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs,
California Health and Human Services Agency, September 23, 2004.
271 The latest survey of U.S. drug courts is found in C. West Huddleston, III, Karen Freeman-Wilson and
Donna L. Boone (2004), Painting the Current Picture: A National Report Card on Drug Courts and Other
Problem Solving Court Programs in the United States, Alexandria: National Drug Court Institute.
272 Robert J. MacCoun and Peter Reuter (2001), op. cit., p. 209.
273 Id. at 298.
274 Wendy Pryer, “Secret Soft Turn on Hard Drugs,” The West Australian, July 26, 2004.
275 Australian Institute of Criminology (2004), Illicit Drugs and Alcohol, available at:
http://www.aic.gov.au/research/drugs/types/cannabis.html.
276 Okey Ndiribe, “Lagos and the Hard Drugs Menace,” The Vanguard (Nigeria), August 11, 2004.
277 Muawia E. Ibrahim, “Drug Abusers to be Treated as Patients,” Khaleej Times (UAE), June 28, 2004.
278 Robert J. MacCoun and Peter Reuter (2001), op. cit., pp. 213, 235.
279 “Belgium: New package of drug laws enter into force,” European Legal Database on Drugs, February 6,
2003, at
http://eldd.emcdda.eu.int/databases/eldd_news_detail.cfm?id=02/06/2003BELGIUM:%20New%20package
%20of%20drug%20laws%20enter%20into%20force.
280 Giles Tremlett, “Lisbon takes drug use off the charge sheet,” The Guardian (UK), July 20, 2001, p. 20.
281 “No More Jail Terms for Drug Possession,” The Moscow Times, May 14, 2004.