CHECK Magazin - Gesundheitsmagazin für Männer No.5

SOCIETY
ENGLISH
FIVE PRACTICAL APPROACHES TO
SCIENCE-BASED DRUG POLICY
RECOMMENDED BY THE GLOBAL
COMMISSION ON DRUG POLICY:
1. People‘s HEALTH AND SAFETY must be a
top priority.
2. CONTROLLED ACCESS TO ESSENTIAL
MEDICINE must be guaranteed, especially
painkillers in palliative medicine.
3. The CRIMINALIZATION AND IMPRISONMENT
of people who use drugs should end. It
does not change the prisoner‘s drug problem
and destroys lives all over the world.
4.
A RETHINK IN DEALING WITH THE PROSE-
CUTION of drug smugglers and organized
crime must take place. The energy put into
prosecuting and punishing consumers
should be used to bring down powerful and
well-connected criminal organizations.
5.
The DRUG MARKETS should be REGU-
LATED and control should be given to
governments. Governments should take
responsibility for ensuring that potentially
dangerous drugs are distributed to users
in a controlled manner instead of leaving
drug trafficking to organized criminal
groups.
CULTURAL PHENOMENON
In addition, the Global Commission on Drug
Policy suggests that psychoactive substances
should be classified based on their addiction
potential and other effects on the body. To this
day, this has not been the case: some substances
are legally available because they are
considered useful (medication) or culturally
important (alcohol), while others are considered
destructive and are strictly prohibited.
This rather arbitrary distinction is more radically
as well as humourously put by activist and
founder of the Drug Policy Alliance, Dr. phil.
Ethan Nadelmann:
“IF OLD WHITE MEN EXPERIMENTED WITH
COCAINE AND TEENAGERS REGULARLY
WITH VIAGRA, THEN COKE WOULD ALREADY
BE AVAILABLE ON PRESCRIPTION.”
PORTUGAL AS A GOOD EXAMPLE?
In July 2001 Portugal passed a law decriminalizing
the possession of drugs, whether cannabis,
ecstasy or heroin. Since then, possession is no
longer a criminal offense, but rather just an
administrative offense such as wrong parking.
In 2015, the drug-induced death rate in Portugal
was five times lower than the E.U. average.
In the same year it was confirmed that social
spending on substance abuse per capita has
decreased by 18% since 1999. The number of
HIV infections from injecting drugs has been
reduced to 18 cases per year. (ts,mb)
Foto: Max Titov_unsplash.com
44 CHECK BERLIN/BRANDENBURG #5