NCJ Number
154030
Journal
Prevention File Volume: 10 Issue: 2 Dated: (Spring 1995) Pages: 11-13
Date Published
1995
Length
3 pages
Annotation
This article argues that the failure of the war on drugs to reduce the demand for or supply of illicit drugs in the U.S. necessitates a reconceptualization of American public policy on this issue.
Abstract
Politically safe solutions to the problem have generated serious social problems, such as prison overcrowding and the draining of national resources that would be better spent on education and social programs aimed at assisting the same youths who are being jailed for drug-related offenses. An alternative policy is harm reduction, which supports the diversion of resources to treatment and proven methods of demand reduction. Proponents of this approach also believe that alcohol and tobacco must be recognized as drugs having potential for considerable harm and treated as such in a national drug control policy. Some policies that would fall under a harm reduction approach include expanded methadone treatment for heroin addicts, a law enforcement focus on distributors and markets most closely associated with violence, an increased emphasis on reducing use of alcohol and cigarettes among adolescents, a reduction in the effort to control production of drugs in foreign countries, an enhanced effort to prevent the transmission of communicable diseases among drug users, dissemination of health information to drug abusers, prohibition or restriction of alcohol advertising, and increased expenditures to implement effective treatment and prevention strategies.