by J. McRee Elrod
First Unitarian Church of Victoria, January 12, 2002
Tacoma Unitarian Church, April 6, 2003
North Shore Unitarian Church, May 4, 2003
Kanloops Unitarian Fellowship, May 18, 2003
There are uncomfortable parallels between the wars recently undertaken: that against Iraq and that against drugs. Each produces stricken families mourning the list of their young sons and daughters to death or the prison system. Each produced collateral damage beyond deaths of civilians in the areas of conflict, from the rounding up of civil rights supporters in Cuba, Zimbabwe, and Belarus as the world’s attention is directed elsewhere, to the erosion of civil liberties in the United States with the opening of medical records to identify doctors to have prescribed and patients who have used medical marijuana.
When we attempt to express reservations about either, we are so easily misunderstood as supporting that which the wars attack. “Do you support a repressive dictator like Saddam?” we are asked. “Do you want our kids to have easier access to drugs?” we are asked. We all agree I hope that Saddam is bad for his people, and drugs are bad for our kids. “Don’t you support our police? Don’t you support our troops? we are asked.
And they are our troops, with Canadians embedded as much as are war correspondents as part of troop exchanges. The question is, have the best means to those ends been used?
Certainly Iraqis would have been better off without Hussein, just as their subjects would have been better off without Ceausescu, Suharto, Marcos, Duvalier, Penochet, Mobutu, and perhaps Castro. All but Castro were supported by incumbents of the second Bush administration, just as they supported Saddam Hussein earlier. All but Hussein and Castro have been overthrown by their own people. US sanctions kept Hussein and Castro in power. It is probable that these two would have gone the same way as the others listed if the US hadn’t hurt civilian society through sanctions, and given these leaders an enemy to use in rallying their people.
The concept of the revolution of rising expectations notes that one does not revolt for rights until one has had enough to eat.
Hitler is sui generis, but the vindictive peace treaty at the end of World War II (opposed by Wilson) did sow the seeds.
Certainly our young people would be better off with fewer drugs in their lives. But with the average age of addicts plummeting in North America, while it rises in The Netherlands and Switzerland, perhaps it is time we looked at the harm reduction methods being used there.
The first time I heard the phrase “harm reduction” in relation to public illegal drug policy, I had no idea what was meant. I’ve since learned that it refers to a a group of measures which have been proven to reduce the harm caused by addiction to illicit drugs, and to use less draconian methods to decrease illicit drug use. The harm reduction “pillar” is largely an effort to mitigate the harm caused by the law enforcement “pillar” of the four pillars: treatment, prevention, enforcement, and harm reduction. Of the four pillars, the meaning of “harm reduction” is least explicit.
Perhaps harm reduction can be thought of as extending to the addicts of illicit drugs those measures already accepted for dealing with addition to “licit” drugs such as nicotine and alcohol, for example, legal quality controlled sources of the drug for adults, safe environments for their consumption (e.g., licensed bars for drinkers, outside or very well ventilated space for smokers), educational programs to discourage use, and medical treatments to assist becoming addiction free.
Maintenance in the form of nicotine gum and patches are routine, as well as drugs to make alcohol unpalatable.
What might harm reduction methods look like for illicit drugs?
For cannabis, less harmful than the legal substances nicotine and alcohol, not to mention glue and gasoline sniffing, harm reduction might simply mean substituting a less harmful drug for a more harmful one. It has been repeatedly shown than when cannabis use increases, alcoholism and hard drug use declines. Cannabis acceptance might well help reduce glue and gasoline sniffing, both of which produce permanent brain damage, while the two IQ points lost to heavy cannabis use are recovered when the use of cannabis declines or stops.
For the hard drugs, harm reduction might in some cases mean maintenance. A maintained heroin addict is able to function in society more normally than an alcoholic, raising children, holding down a job, paying taxes. Experience in Switzerland and The Netherlands has shown that a maintained addict, no longer committing crimes to get that next fix, living a more normal life, often moves from heroin to methadone (again, substituting the less harmful for the more harmful), and finally to being drug free.
Cannabis is more like coffee than alcohol. It does not induce violence, and moderate use is a stimulant. The supposedly stronger pot now grown in supernatural British Columbia tends to result in use of less, and less deep inhalation, rather than any increased health risk.
Harm reduction for hard drug addicts might also include safe injection sites, where clean needles are available, taking shooting up out of the dirty allies where infections and diseases are transmitted by contaminated needles. There has never been an overdose death in an European or Australian safe injection site. Not only is there more quality control of drugs, but there are staff and supplies to deal with emergencies.
The idea of safe injection sites was the most difficult concept for me to accept emotionally, even after I had accepted it intellectually. How can we, respecting the value of each human life as we do, stand to watch people do intentional harm to themselves? Something Phillip Hewett said about abortion, helped change my feeling. He said, “sometimes the choice is not between good or evil, but between a larger and lesser tragedy for human life”. Something the father of a drug addicted son said on “Passionate Eye” also affect me. He said that for him, it was a matter of keeping his son alive until the son was ready for treatment, and that treatment was available. Currently, while prisons are enlarged or constructed at great expense, only a fraction of that is spent on spaces needed for treatment of those seeking such treatment. There are long waiting lists, and barriers to overcome, to find treatment.
Something else that father said was that while his son’s first use of heroin might have been a choice, once addicted, it is no longer a choice. A disease model best fits situation with which we need to deal.
So often our emotional reaction to something overrides our logic. As an example, consider the higher education program once offered at William Head Prison. Those men who participated tended not to return to prison. This reduced recidivism saved us as tax payers much more than the program cost. But it was shut down to cries of why should criminals have free education while our sons and daughters have to pay for theirs?
Why should be pay for drugs for addicts? Why should addicts have free drugs? Because, apart from our concern for them as human beings, it is less expensive for us than having our houses burgled or paying to keep them in prison.
My grand daughters may purchase crack near their school playground more easily than they can purchase nicotine or alcohol. This says something about the relative effectiveness of the control methods we have designed for these various substances.
This leads me to propose an expanded definition of “harm reduction”. As I have indicated, it is usually used to mean reducing the harm of drug addiction to addicts. How about reducing harm to us? To you and me? To our children and grand children?
In Burnaby, Yugi Kado, 98, and his 94-year-old wife were attacked in their home on a Saturday night this fall. They were found by one of their daughters the next morning. Mr. Kado was taken to hospital with bleeding on the brain, a broken orbital bone, a jaw broken in two places and the right side of his face severely bruised. Both have since died. Both of them were punched in the face by a man seeking money to purchase his next “fix”. Is this what we want for ourselves?
How about removing the profitable illicit drug trade to reduce harm to us as well as to help addicts?
In seeking to prevent harm reduction techniques, the pressure being brought to bear on Canada by the United States is gargantuan. The misinformation concerning drug amelioration seems to be as accepted south of the border as misinformation on universal medical care. While the results of the recent election in the United States may plunge is into gloom, particularly the rejection of a cannabis referendum in Nevada supported by the UUDPR, we can take comfort in recent Vancouver developments.
Convinced by their business supporters that Mayor Phillip Owen’s equitable “four pillar” proposals – treatment, prevention, enforcement, and harm reduction – was too radical, his political group (the NPA) denied him renomination. An even stronger advocate of harm reduction, Larry Campbell, was elected. Mr. Owen must be credited with an excellent job of educating the Vancouver electorate, so that they voted with their minds rather than their emotions. The Social Justice Committee of the Unitarian Church of Vancouver has also been active.
According to the Canadian Auditor General, at the Federal level the present proportion of expenditures is 95% enforcement, and 5% everything else. What Mr. Owen and the Social Justice Committee were advocating was a more equitable distribution among these for “pillars”.
Why should we as Unitarians be concerned?
The Social Responsibility Committee of the First Unitarian Church of Victoria made a presentation to the Special Senate Committee on Illegal Drugs. That presentation was organized using a Canadian restatement of the Principles in active voice. The final report adopted all the major points of that presentation, much to the gratification of the SRC. In a lengthy conclusion, please allow me to recite our Principals in this restatement, with a few of the points made in relation to each. There are seven, in case you want a countdown to your coffee.
* (1) Every person is important and valuable.
Our society has, based on mythology and misinformation, accepted and supported the demonization of certain drugs and the consequent dehumanization of drug users and abusers. Our society is often simply not concerned will the well being of these people.
* (2) All people must be treated fairly.
It is glaringly hypocritical of us to criminalize illicit drug users to protect public health while we collect taxes on the most harmful recreational substances, alcohol and tobacco. Police in Victoria charge cannabis users at a rate more than eight times higher than those in Vancouver.
The terminally ill are often denied pain killing drugs for fear they will become addicted. The RCMP is still arresting those who run compassion clubs for those with medical conditions ameliorated by the use of marijuana.
* (3) Our churches are places where we accept each other’s diversity and learn together.
Drug prohibition drives a wedge between parents and their children, health professionals and their patients, teachers and their students, and police and their communities. It is impossible for the many young people who use drugs today to obtain reliable information about the concentration of psychoactive ingredients, the purity of samples they purchase or less harmful ways of using drugs.
* (4) Each person is free to search for what is true and right.
Long before the white man traveled on hempen sails to find religious freedom in a New World, the natives on a land now called North America used sacramental plants to commune with nature, the universal brotherhood, and the Great Spirit.
It took the white man (who knew or cared so little about the Native American way) until 1899 to find out what was going on and, of course, make it illegal.
* (5) All people have the right to speak and to be valued for those things that matter to them.
Section 462.2 of the Criminal Code provides for a $100,000 fine and/or up to 6 months in jail, for any printed or video promotion, advocacy or encouragement of the use of prohibited substances. The law makes no exceptions for journalistic, educational, scientific, scholarly, spiritual or political works.
* (6) We can help to build a peaceful, fair and free world.
It has been clearly shown that terrorist groups are funded by the illegal drug trade, made profitable by current drug laws. Colombia’s desire to have decriminalization considered as a way of combatting the illegal drug trade which is savaging that country was rejected by the United States and Canada.
Until drug prohibition goes the way of alcohol prohibition, many third world countries will suffer from a “War on Drugs” conducted on their soil.
The erosion of civil liberties at home and abroad is a price paid in support of present drug policies.
* (7) We must take care of the Earth, the home we share with all life forms.
In order to comply with United States’ demands to stop coca production, Colombia uses aerial spraying to drop herbicides on illicit crops. Since these crops are the peasants’ only source of income they move into the Amazon rain forest and farm on steep hillsides. This constant push on peasants has led to the clearing of over 1.75 million acres of rain forest.
Hemp based products have many environmentally friendly uses, replacing other more expensive or rare materials, were it not for the legal difficulties preventing full utilization.
Industrial hemp can replace some uses of cotton. Cotton is typically grown with large amounts of chemicals harmful to the environment.
Trees take approximately 20 years to mature, in contrast to the four months it takes hemp to be suitable for paper manufacture. Paper made from hemp lasts centuries, in contrast to paper made from wood pulp.
I love this restatement of our values an active voice. For me that are a clear call to take action on a great variety of issues. One of those are the unjust and counter productive drug laws with which we damage ourselves and our fellow human beings.