The war on drugs was never about health, but was about racism. One poster talked of Chasing the Scream which details this. So the idea that doctors should be advocates for the ending of the WoD just continues the false rationalisation that health is at the heart of the WoD. I can ask 1 question which will show that health has nothing to do with it: why is hemp illegal?
What is at the heart of ending the WoD is human rights; a topic which doctors have no more knowledge than anyone else.
This comment strikes me as an example of race reductionism that does more harm than good. The war on drugs unquestionably has a racist component and racism contributed to its origins, but it's not solely an issue of race and affects more than just minorities. Thinking of it being as "about racism" makes collaboration with natural allies more difficult.
In this case those natural allies include the white working class, which suffers greatly from drug addiction, as well as doctors and other health care workers who value the integrity of their profession and believe drug policy should be focused on improving outcomes for drug users.
Social action in America has fundamentally always been about compromise. Race, class and gender reductionism discourage it. It's both possible and productive to say you empathize with the problems someone else faces, your set of problems overlaps, and the two of you can cooperate without debating whose problems are more significant.
somebody noted recently that when crack epidemics was ravaging black neighborhoods it was considered an issue of crime and WoD was unleashed against those neighborhoods, when today heroin and prescription drugs abuse hit white suburbs - it is a public health issue.
I for one is happy that it is started to be treated as public health issue, it is a long overdue approach, yet one can't not to see the race based disparity mentioned above.
I'm sort of tired of not being able to point out that the white working class is racist. If they want to work with their 'natural allies', they should probably just get over their racism and do it.
Why physicians? Because the proletariat still have a little bit of say on policy in this country. If you ask citizens with strong anti-drug stances why they support tough drug laws, very few (if any) will say "because I hate minorities."
So we've got to change the minds of the voting base. Physicians are highly respected in this country and to have them come out en masse and state that drug addiction is a health issue and not a criminal issue would do a lot to change the minds of voters...which could then slightly change the minds of our lawmakers.
I think that the LEAP organisation will have more clout than physicians to end the WoD, and certainly more clout with the proletariat, as you say. Ex-law enforcement officers who have been in the trenches and understand exactly the societal damage caused by the WoD would be better advocates than doctors.
And your point about "doctors come out en masse and state that drug addiction is a health issue" may be a double-edged sword for them since we all know that the opiate epidemic and subsequent heroin use increase are issues created, by a large part, by doctors.
I do think you are correct about LEAP, but I don't believe a large percentage of the police force would ever condemn anti-drug laws. Don't bite that hand that feeds and all that.
I don't think physicians are primarily responsible for our heroin epidemic, in my opinion that prize belongs to the pharmaceutical industry and our politicians...but I'm open to any evidence that proves me wrong.
the structure of health care in the united states makes it really difficult for doctors to not escalate to opiates for pain management. doctors are evaluated on patient satisfaction not on patient outcomes which incentivizes them to skip straight to opiates when faced with a patient who complains of pain and is unsatisfied with tylenol
While the official war on drugs was started as a means of suppressing and discrediting blacks by the Nixon administration, the reason it won't end any time soon is that it has long been and continues to be both a revenue stream and a tool of political disruption for the CIA and DEA. (Not that this changes the fact that it still today results in the suppression of poor and minorities.)
The US doesn't "need" drug money to finance brutal dictators. It's currency is now backed by its military might. It can print as much as it wants and if you even think of trading OIL in another currency they invade and liberate your ass.
While it sounds good, it's pretty bullshit to say the war on drugs is about financing dictators.
It's fair to say that the CIA does have pet opium projects, with US ground troops playing guards for Afghan farmers. But that's a different thing.
>While it sounds good, it's pretty bullshit to say the war on drugs is about financing dictators.
You're missing the point. Drug sales can be monopolized by the powers that be to generate off-the-books revenue streams. This can then finance any questionable activity they'd prefer not to be held accountable for.
This exact scenario has happened before - see the Iran-Contra affair.
While it might have happened. It doesn't need to anymore. Seeing as how Billions of dollars can just up and disappear from the DoD's accounting books and noone has been held accountable.
Weren't bans on drugs pervasive throughout history?
Isn't it amazing that you think that? Seems to say something about the schools... If physicians can finally, at this late date, consider doing the right thing politically, it makes one wonder... will public schoolteachers ever kick the DARE officers out?
No, some controls were introduced at the end of the 19th century and prohibition (of non-alcohol drugs) really got going in the 1920s. Before that it was essentially a free-for-all.
True for Europe and America. Asia and the middle east have had religious bans that where legally backed up by theocratic governments or totalitarian rulers that would ban substances (mainly opium) on and off in their particular kingdoms.
What is at the heart of ending the WoD is human rights; a topic which doctors have no more knowledge than anyone else.