It's clear enough that the American appetite for weed, cocaine and meth — but mostly weed — has contributed to evil and lurid gang wars in Mexico. An appetite for heroin in Europe has helped fund the war in Afghanistan, too, and in that sense the old and new continents face the same important question: What might quell the violence? Over the last few weeks, this column has explored various drug policies in Europe and the United States. "War" still summarizes the American approach, in spite of changing rhetoric from the Obama administration. "Harm reduction" roughly summarizes the ... Read More
Is a Dip in Cocaine Use a War on Drugs Victory?
April 13, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
When The New York Times ran a review last summer of a book about legalizing coke, Tom Feiling's Cocaine Nation, the head of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy wrote an old-fashioned letter to the editor. The review "correctly states that the Obama administration has moved beyond 'war on drugs' rhetoric to a comprehensive public health and public safety approach ... to reduce drug use and its consequences," Gil Kerlikowske wrote. "What is not mentioned is the fact that since 2007, cocaine use has decreased sharply in the United States, while in Europe it has ... Read More
First, Reduce Harm
October 27, 2008 • By • 3 Comments
On a chilly, overcast morning in downtown Vancouver, British Columbia, a steady trickle of sallow-faced drug addicts shambles up to a storefront painted with flowers and the words “Welcome to Insite.” One by one, they ring the doorbell and are buzzed into a tidy reception area staffed by smiling volunteers. The junkies come here almost around the clock, seven days a week. Some just grab a fistful of clean syringes from one of the buckets by the door and head out again. But about 600 times a day, others walk in with pocketfuls of heroin, cocaine or speed that they’ve scored out on the ... Read More
Cocaine Blues
April 23, 2008 • By • Leave a Comment
And a small dose of cocaine was enough to rekindle the desire to return to the spot — but only in teenage rats, suggesting that younger, developing brains are more powerfully motivated by drug-related prompting. The study, performed at Harvard Medical School's McLean Hospital, was published in the April issue of the American Psychological Association's journal, Behavioral Neuroscience. Naturally, an apparatus was involved. For the experiments, rats that were 38 or 77 days old (the equivalent of 13 or 20 human years) were introduced to a chamber than had one central and two larger side ... Read More
