Professor Mark Haden, Harm Reduction, Public Perception, and ‘Bad Guys’
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/08/09
I interview friends, colleagues, and experts, on harm reduction and its implications in Canadian society, from the theory to the practice, to the practical. I am a Member-at-Large for Outreach for Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy and writer for Karmik, Fresh Start Recovery Centre, and the Marijuana Party of Canada. Here I interview Professor Mark Haden, part 1.
*Audio interview edited for clarity and readability.*
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: In brief, how did you get interested and involved in Canadian drug policy?
Professor Mark Haden: I worked in the addiction services for 28 years. I became acutely aware at the beginning of my career that we spend the vast majority of our money not dealing with addiction as a public health problem. We deal with it as a criminal justice problem.
All of the evidence says that doesn’t work. All of the evidence says the health approach to drugs does work. Seeing an approach not work and that is irrational because of the lack of evidence, it didn’t make any sense to me. I have this commitment to speaking the truth.
Jacobsen: If we take into account the two main approaches, one is punitive of punishment-oriented called the zero tolerance approach. The other is harm reduction. What is the preferable one to you, and why?
Haden: It is interesting. There’s no evidence to support a criminal justice response to drugs in our society. Let me clarify, I collect and organize the academic literature around drug policy issues. Since I teach at UBC, they asked me to debate a cop on the issue. They wanted me to debate cannabis legalization/criminalization. I wanted to debate all currently illegal drugs. I wanted everything on the plate. But they put us in the cannabis box.
I did my homework in advance. I found 64 peer-reviewed journal articles, which said, ‘An enforcement-based approach to drug policy and drug issues in society doesn’t work. It’s never worked anywhere on the planet. It doesn’t work in Canada. And it certainly doesn’t work in Vancouver.’
So, all of the research being done says this approach is very, very expensive and produces significant health and social problems for all of us. So, when I put down those 64 peer-reviewed journal articles in front of this cop, I said, “Can you name me one peer-reviewed journal article that says that this is the right way of approaching this problem?”
He said, “No, there isn’t any.” There isn’t any academic, peer-review, evidence-based literature that analyzes the approach. It is absolutely clear that health issues need to be dealt with health tools.
Dealing with health issues as criminal justice issues doesn’t make any sense, it costs us money. It doesn’t do us any good. We need to put our money into the programs that make an impact on the health of our society and the health of the individuals in our society.
We’re putting our money into something that makes our society less healthy.
Jacobsen: From your expert perspective, what do you consider the reason for the disjunction between the research evidence and the public perception?
Haden: The politicians, starting with Richard Nixon and Donald Trump now, have often got themselves elected by making you afraid of a bad guy. Donald Trump’s are ISIS and Mexicans. Richard Nixon’s were drug users.
Politicians often find bad guys. They say they will protect you from this evil, nasty, other ‘them’. We all feel fear. That is a human experience. Politicians use that to get votes. So, that’s a very old technique and being used by many. Stephen Harper used it.
He told us that he would protect us from the nasty drug dealers. So, it is being used from Richard Nixon to Stephen Harper. There is a huge agenda out there to make people afraid. The agenda has nothing to do with protecting people. it has to do with getting people elected.
That’s one reason. There are other reasons as well. The American prison industry is to some extent privatized. Private prisons need to be funded to get the money. How do you get money? You fill the beds. How do you fill the beds?
You need the drug war. The only way guarantee that your beds will be filled is to criminalize drugs. So, this private industry needs criminals in order to survive. As the criminals show up. The industry does well. The industry then has money.
They lobby. Lobby means they surround politicians with money. That becomes a huge process of corruption in our society. Those are two reasons. They are quite different. There’s also the factor of the complexity of the argument.
It’s very easy to throw out a fear-based soundbite. It is not a complex argument. If you say, “Be afraid of bad drug users. Aren’t they bad people? Don’t they need to be criminalized?” It is a very simple argument.
The arguments for a health approach are more complex and nuanced and thoughtful. So, in the media, when simple fear-based soundbites go up against more complex evidence-based health approaches, it is easier to express the fear-based soundbites.
Those are the three reasons for why we have a criminal justice approach to drugs in our society.
Jacobsen: Those most harmed from creation from “bad guys” by politicians tend to be the most vulnerable, downtrodden, and so on, in society, e.g. minorities and the young. What would you recommend in terms of a preventative measure at the national scale, and individuals (daily life)?
Haden: We need to end drug prohibition. Drug prohibition is the problem. That is the problem. We need to be afraid. Absolutely, we need to be afraid of drug prohibition. It hurts us as a society. It hurts us as communities. It hurts us as individuals.
It hurts us as families. It is a damaging force within society. We need to end it. Once we end it, we need to end it, not with a commercialized response, but with a public health response.
Jacobsen: What do you mean by a regulated market for illegal drugs?
Haden: A regulated market would actively control drugs based on the principles of public health and human rights. Prohibition paradoxically stimulates an illegal market that makes concentrated and sometimes toxic, drugs widely available. The goal is to greatly reduce or shut down the illegal market and regulate drugs in a way that reduces harm to individuals, families and our society as a whole. Seeing drug use as primarily a health and social issue rather than a criminal issue allows us to explore a wide range of tools to manage the problems associated with drugs in a more effective way.
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