Dr. Evan Wood: The war on drugs has failed

published on June 26, 2012 in The National Post

The following editorial was written by Dr. Evan Wood;

As an internal medicine physician working in the inner-city hospital serving Vancouver’s notorious Downtown Eastside, I see the unintended consequences of the war on drugs daily. Gang members engaged in drug supply and distribution arrive in the emergency room bloody and panicked, after being shot, stabbed or beaten. On the demand side, impurities and adulterants stemming from basement drug labs and uncertainties regarding potency keep emergency personnel busy responding to drug overdoses.

Overdose survivors commonly suffer from chronic injection-related infections including hepatitis C and HIV. They result from sharing needles in abandoned buildings, rat-infested flophouses and other hidden environments where addicts often congregate to avoid police sweeps. Due to drug law enforcement, inner city emergency rooms have become triage centres in a war governments are waging against their own citizens.

Despite enormous taxpayer investments in enforcing laws aimed at reducing the supply of illegal drugs, Canada’s streets remain awash in heroin and cocaine. Meanwhile, designer drugs such as ecstasy are becoming more readily available to young people than alcohol and tobacco. The war on drugs, like all expensive government programs, should be subject to scrutiny and a value-for-money audit. However, so far, it has been remarkably exempt from accountability. This type of impact assessment is long overdue given that conservative estimates suggest that U.S. taxpayers alone have spent more than $1-trillion since former president Richard Nixon first declared America’s “War on Drugs.”

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Additional Coverage:

CBC News - Failed war on drugs feeding HIV/AIDS, former leaders say
Vancouver Sun - War on drugs harms those meant to gain, Global Commission produces powerful report
Vancouver Sun - Ottawa moves to dark side in war on drugs
National Post - Canada should stand against Washington’s failed war on drugs
Metro News - Report calls on U.N. bodies to combat HIV/AIDS by dropping war on drugs
Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy - What to do with the Global Commission Report
Pivot Legal Society - Landmark report says drug war fuels the global HIV epidemic

You can also read the report: Global Commission on Drug Policy report on HIV and drug policy.

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BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS

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Dr. Evan Wood: The war on drugs has failed

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