Those of us in the drug policy reform movement have learned time and again that the most effective solution to a drug-related social problem is often counterintuitive.

One clear example of this trend is heroin-assisted treatment (HAT), an approach to helping otherwise treatment-resistant heroin addicts using well-monitored doses of the drug itself. HAT programs provide a safe place to inject for those users most at risk of contracting a disease or suffering an overdose.

I got to learn more about this harm reduction strategy last night at a DPA-sponsored panel on HAT at George Washington University in Washington, DC. The event featured an international panel of health professionals, researchers, and advocates familiar with the topic.

Donald MacPherson, former Drug Policy Coordinator for the City of Vancouver, spoke about the heroin-assisted treatment program he oversaw in his city. Dr. David Marsh shared his experiences as one of the lead researchers in the North American Opiate Medication Initiative (NAOMI) trial of prescription heroin in Canada. Peter Reuter, a University of Maryland professor and leading scholar on heroin maintenance, discussed treatment programs in Switzerland and the Netherlands. And DPA Executive Director Ethan Nadelmann spoke about the prospect of implementing a heroin-assisted treatment program or trial in the United States.

DC's Ward 6 councilmember, Tommy Wells, also spoke, and it was heartening to see a DC politician there in support of HAT, as DPA's DC Metro program has been investigating whether creating a HAT pilot program in the District is feasible. Washington, DC has one of the highest rates of HIV/AIDS in the country, and many contracted the disease through injection drug use.

I came away from the panel with an understanding that the most important step we can take to make heroin-assisted treatment a reality in the United States is to change perceptions about the people these programs would help.

Why have other countries been able to institute heroin-assisted treatment programs or trials while the prospect of doing so here in the U.S. still seems so far off? Because in the United States drug users are too often characterized as criminals and unworthy of help. The stigma associated with heroin use in the United States is the main reason HAT is not widely accepted in the U.S. as a viable treatment option.

The key to gaining acceptance for this kind of treatment is combating this stigma and convincing people that saving a life, under any circumstances, is more important than projecting a "tough on crime" image. As David Marsh put it, speaking of his two young grandchildren, "I would never want to say to them that I had the chance to stop people from dying, but I didn't do it because I was afraid it would send them the wrong message."

Read more on heroin-assisted treatment.

DPA Executive Director Ethan Nadelmann was chosen by Change.org members as one of the site's Changemakers.

Ethan's selection means that through a series of featured posts, he will have the opportunity to engage the Change.org community in a dialogue about ending the drug war and pursuing smarter drug policies based on science, compassion and human rights.

Check out Ethan's first post, "The War on Drugs is a War on People."

Housing Works' Diana Scholl tells us that "Take Charge, Take Care," the safer injection pamphlet being distributed by the New York City Health Department will stay in circulation. Read her post on Housing Works' website.

Following an agreement between Health Department and City Council officials, the Health Department will continue to distribute the pamphlet, but it will no longer be available on the internet.

A smart, compassionate move by the New York City Health Department to promote safer practices among heroin users has come under fire from drug war proponents. A harm reduction pamphlet called "Take Charge, Take Care" has been called a "how-to guide" for heroin use [NYT], but I can't help suspecting that these criticisms are fueled more by a callous disregard for the health and safety of heroin users than by any real concern that kids in New York City will pick up a pamphlet and decide to start injecting heroin.

The Health Department is acknowledging that no matter what drug control policies are in place, some people will still use heroin, and those who use should be informed so they can do so as safely as possible. The pamphlet advises heroin users to inject with others present so they are not alone if an overdose or some other complication occurs. "Take Charge, Take Care" also promotes safer injection techniques to help users better avoid disease and infection.

The New York Post ran a negative piece on the Health Department publication earlier this week, but readers shot back with three strong, thoughtful letters-to-the-editor in support of the harm reduction pamphlet. Read them here.

You can also check out DPA Communications Specialist Anthony Papa's defense of "Take Charge, Take Care" on Counterpunch.

A new poll by Angus Reid confirms that the support for marijuana tax and regulation is indeed growing. The poll, sampling 1004 American voters, found that 53% of those responded believe that marijuana should be legalized. This is a nearly 10 point increase from a poll conducted by Gallup (look at the title of the poll) a couple of months ago found that 44% favored marijuana legalization. Among other questions conducted by Angus Reid, the poll also found that 68% of respondents believe that the war on drugs is a failure -- but 8% of Republicans and, interestingly, 11% of Democrats believe it to be a success.

The issue with these polls is that they are not properly nuanced. Neither poll (Angus nor Gallup) offered marijuana legalization specifics; they just simply asked the question if marijuana should be legalized. It may be the case that if a more detailed question was asked -- such as asking if treating marijuana with the same regulations as alcohol and cigarettes with age and place restrictions introduced -- may garner even more support of lifting marijuana prohibition. It would also be interesting to ask whether the respondents had smoked marijuana themselves, knew anyone who smoked marijuana, or ever been arrested for marijuana possession. So if anyone wants to know these answers and more, please send me $15 grand to hire a pollster -- it is tax deductible and the end of the year is approaching fast.

The poll also measured responses to the legalization of other drugs; the results are not too surprising:

Reformers are set to record some major victories in the fight to dismantle the failed war on drugs. Here's a rundown:

Congress is expected to pass an omnibus spending bill that includes

• a provision eliminating the ban on federal funding for syringe exchange programs, a policy that has undermined disease prevention efforts for decades and resulted in tens of thousands of people contracting HIV/AIDS or hepatitis C.
• language ending restrictions preventing Washington, DC from implementing the medical marijuana imitative voters approved way back in 1998.

The Drug Policy Alliance has been working for years to achieve these reforms, and the fact that these changes are imminent shows that Congress is finally starting to change it's thinking on drug policy issues.

Progress is also happening on the state level. New Jersey is on the verge of ending mandatory minimum sentencing for some nonviolent drug offenses and becoming the 14th state to legalize medical marijuana.

New Jersey's progress comes after Rhode Island's elimination of mandatory minimums, Maine's approval of a medical marijuana distribution system, and New York's repeal of the draconian Rockefeller drug laws.

Want more reasons to celebrate? Read "10 Signs the Failed Drug War Is Finally Ending" by DPA's Tony Newman.

This month in Albuquerque, NM I attended my first International Drug Policy Reform Conference (I'm in my sixth month as a member of the Drug Policy Alliance staff). I expected going in that the conference would give me a more comprehensive sense of where the drug policy reform movement is headed, but I wasn't quite prepared for the degree to which the conference would reshape the way I conceptualize my own activism and how my position in the drug policy reform movement connects me to other social and political movements.

Attending the conference helped me gain a new perspective on something I've been thinking about for years now- how do all the causes within the so-called "progressive movement" overlap? How can we better facilitate coalition building within a movement comprised of individuals with a myriad of different passions, motivations, and ideologies. And how can we change attitudes within the movement to alter the power hierarchies that so often marginalize people based on gender, race, socioeconomic status, and various other factors?

My time at the Reform Conference didn't provide me with neatly packaged answers to these questions. While I was impressed with the diversity of the conference participants, there were times when the inequities within the reform movement became very clear. As in every progressive movement, there is discrimination and marginalization within the drug policy movement. Even at the conference, for example, an honest, wide-ranging discussion of gender was relegated to a couple panels and remained largely absent from the major plenary sessions. So much of the decision-making power in the reform community still lies with a largely white male elite.

Yet, even dismayed by the obvious inequities with in the reform community, I was exceedingly hopeful during my three days at the conference because I realized that, with this gathering, our movement already has in place a forum in which nearly every stakeholder group in the drug policy reform movement is represented. With former and current drug users, cops, family members of overdose victims, research scientists, formerly incarcerated individuals, harm reductionists, students, and so many others gathered in the same building, we have the perfect venue to acknowledge and address serious problems within the movement and to build the unlikely bridges we absolutely need to build to take our efforts to the next level.

The personal stories of the speakers I heard and the people I met gave me a more tangible sense of how the movement to end the drug war intersects with various other progressive causes. Some of these intersections I already understood pretty clearly. It's easy to see how ending the drug war would be a primary goal of the prison reform movement and an essential step toward achieving racial justice. But until the conference, I hadn't full conceptualized how the drug policy reform movement intersects with the reproductive rights movement when women who use drugs face criminal charges or other penalties for choosing to carry their pregnancies to term. I hadn't been able to adequately explain how it intersects with the gay rights movement through a common conviction to end the government's policing of our bodies.

I believe that to change enough minds to succeed in ending the drug war, we need to build coalitions, and not just the obvious ones. We need to build bridges with unlikely allies. If we show the failures of the drug war through enough lenses, we're bound to win over at least some of the people we've been unable to reach until now.

With the Reform Conference, we have a great platform to discuss how our varied personal experiences led us seek the common goal of dismantling the drug war. From there, we can learn from each other how to make our movement stronger by adding more voices to the conversation and moving to the center of the discussion voices that have until now been marginalized.

More from the conference: Watch videos, view presentations and our twitter feed, read the conference program and more.

Politics triumphed over science in the UK last week when the head of the country's drug advisory council, David Nutt, was forced to resign after releasing a report in which he and his colleagues classify drugs based on their potential to cause harm rather than the legal classification assigned to them by the British government. The report groups alcohol among the most dangerous drugs and marijuana among the least.

Nutt has said that several members of the council will join him in forming an independent drug advisory group if the government doesn't reverse its position by next week.

The situation in the UK mirrors that of France in 1998, when French health official Bernard Roques released a similar report questioning that nation's existing drug classification system. That report also named alcohol as one of the more harmful substances and placed marijuana on the lower end of the spectrum. The French government made moves to reclassify drugs based on the report's findings, but, following backlash from the alcohol industry, a watered down version of the report became the basis for France's new drug policy.

Nutt's firing is disheartening because it comes at a time when other European countries (see previous posts on Germany and Portugal) are forging ahead with drug policies based on science and a genuine interest in reducing harm.

It will be interesting to see how this story unfolds and, particularly, whether it receives attention in the U.S., because the Office of National Drug Control Policy is currently working on its own three-year drug policy strategy to be released early next year. Will the U.S., like the UK, continue to ignore scientific fact and reinforce the same, failed drug war policies? Or will the new drug czar take a new approach based on science and human rights?

Want to speak out against David Nutt's firing? Join the Facebook group calling for his reinstatement.

Joint Cause Commercial from Wil Wells on Vimeo.

Along the same vein of stupidity and general unwillingness to have an honest dialogue with anyone who doesn't agree with them youth about drug use, here is a gem of a video from Californians for Drug Free Youth (CADFY).

This "commercial" was released in opposition to California's marijuana tax and regulate bill, which had its first hearing on Wednesday. Note: CADFY's url is www.jointcause.com -- I doubt they even know why I laughed for 5 minutes when I learned that.

Of course, if you are a drug warrior, and base an argumentation on the word "seriously?", you generally make drug policy reformers who engage in science-based policy look even more legit. So to thank them, you can write on CADFY's facebook page.

That's right, drug prohibitionists are now using modern technology to disseminate antiquated ideas.

To counterbalance a more enlightened federal policy toward patients and suppliers of medical marijuana, Minnesota's highest court ruled (don't think I've linked to Fox News before) that those who possess bong water can be prosecuted for possessing a narcotic mixture.

A Minnesota woman can be charged for a controlled substance, a first-degree drug crime (25 grams or more of a controlled substance), by possessing 37 grams -- about 2.5 tablespoons -- of bong water that tested positive for methamphetamine.

The decision effectively reverses two lower court rulings that found that charging Sara Peck with 37 grams of methamphetamine-laced water as a first-degree narcotic possession is pretty much crap. The high court (pun very much intended -- although I know plenty of people that make better decisions while high) found that since the drug water counts as a "mixture" under state law, meaning "a preparation, compound, mixture, or substance containing a controlled substance, regardless of purity", Peck can be charged with the higher offense that carries a possible sentence of 7 years 2 months, while a possession of drug paraphernalia carries a $300 fine and a petty misdemeanor conviction that would not be on her record. A narcotics officer testified that drug users sometimes drink or inject the bong water (I really don't know if this is the case for people who use meth, but it doesn't seem realistic).

This decision ushers in the possibility of extracting plea deals by trumping up drug charges. It also, more disturbingly, expands the possibilities of what warrants a drug indictment. Would my blood, since it may contain controlled substances, be subject to supoena? Or my urine? If I set foot on Minnesotan soil, will police be waiting at the baggage gate to arrest my bladder?

This is a clearly terribly worded penal provision, that acts as a exploitative tool by unhinged prosecutors that seek to pile on charges to get convictions. It also may realize the possibility that those who violate parole or probation with a dirty urine could then be charged with possessing a narcotic "mixture".

This is a teaching moment for hygiene: 1) always make sure your bong is clean and 2) pee frequently!


I think we all are SOL regarding the blood issue.