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 We in America are involved in a massive social blunder in our
handling of
the drug problem. In consequence, drugs are readily available
everywhere,
consumption rates are high, our indices of social pathology soar
above those of
all the other countries of the industrialized world, and we burden
the American
economy with costs that threaten our future economic competitiveness.
The common apology for the failure of drug control is the myth
that we are
doing the best we can with an intractable problem. Some critics
answer that myth
with another, according to which the failure of drug control measures
requires
the legalization of drug commerce. This booklet contradicts both
of those myths.
Both myths are disproved by the fact that, while American drug
control
measures have foundered, other countries are solving the allegedly
intractable
drug problem, and they are doing it in the context of general
drug prohibition.
The important lesson to be drawn from their experience has little
to do with
legality or illegality. Rather, the lesson is that great gains
against the drug/crime
epidemic are attainable through harm reduction and public health
measures we
in the United States have failed to employ.
This pamphlet analyzes and explains the successful experience.
It
generalizes from it, and systematizes it into a comprehensive
public health
strategy for control of the drug/crime epidemic. The resulting
strategy is
variously called public interest interposition, market interposition, public health
interposition and, simply, interposition. Each of those names tells something
valid about the character of this strategy. Regardless of name,
the strategy is
theoretically complete now and ready for implementation as soon
as public
consent can be secured.
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As to the last-named problem, a "conversion hypothesis" is provided
(toward the end of Part II of this pamphlet) to explain how public
consent for
interposition can be obtained. An essential precondition of the
conversion is the
emergence of a national drug policy leadership group for interposition.
This
group must be drawn from the several intelligentsias that have
special
information and expertise to contribute to formation of a future
workable,
rational and humane drug policy. These are the same intelligentsias
to whom
the public will look for guidance in the drug policy field. Because
interposition is
a public health solution, the initiative for formation of the
national drug policy
leadership group must come from the public health profession.
Before the other
intelligentsias will play their critically important roles, public
health
professionals must come forth, proclaiming the competence of their
profession
to control the drug/crime epidemic and petitioning society to
be given the tools
of interposition to work with. |
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