Jac Charlier, expert on the Justice System: "Drug use should be stigmatized but needing, getting, and receiving help due to a person’s drug use should not stigmatized"
Actualidad
Internacional
Jürgen Rehm, Professor and Senior Scientist: «Currently, new methods or drug policies are discarded without having been tested based on very polarized views about drug use and consequences»
Jürgen Rehm, Professor and Senior Scientist at the University of Toronto and CAMH, meets with the Asociación Proyecto Hombre in the context of the ‘Barcelona Forum on Drugs’.
Question: Based on your experience as an expert in alcohol-related legislation, what is the greatest challenge societies face today in reducing drug use and its consequences?
Answer: The answer depends of the type of drugs. For legal substances, the greatest challenge public health faces today, are commercial determinants of health, for illicit drugs stigmatization. For legal drugs such as alcohol, tobacco and in some countries cannabis, whenever public health tries to introduce regulations such as taxation, availability restrictions or a ban on marketing, the industry introduces dystopian scenarios how the economy will get severely hurt (increase of unemployment, loss of economic wealth), even though these consequences never happen. For illicit drugs, stigmatization of people who use drugs seems to be the biggest problems in reducing drug-attributable harm.
Q: If you had to identify something we are not doing well enough in prevention, treatment or drug policy, what should we change?
A: We need more openness to new approaches, which could be tested quasi-experimentally in different societies. Currently, new methods or drug policies are discarded without having been tested based on very polarized views about drug use and consequences. Decriminalization of carrying small amounts of illicit drugs in British Columbia is a good example. This was initiated as a pilot of 3 years, with subsequent decision-making based on empirical results. However, due to pressure that such a pilot can never succeed, the original pilot was changed several times during the 3 years, and discarded as ineffective after 3 years without examining the results. Our societies are not willing to rationally discuss empirical results anymore.
For legal drugs such as alcohol, tobacco and in some countries cannabis, whenever public health tries to introduce regulations such as taxation, availability restrictions or a ban on marketing, the industry introduces dystopian scenarios how the economy will get severely hurt (increase of unemployment, loss of economic wealth), even though these consequences never happen
Q: The ‘Barcelona Forum on Drugs’ brings together governments, researchers, professionals, civil society, young people and people with lived experience. What do we need to do to turn this collaboration into real change?
A: Again, openness. Listening to other others and frankly discussing options based on empirical data and experiences. While such data can be interpreted differently sometimes, the ability to listen and reconsider our points of view is important.
Q: Addiction is a global issue, but social and cultural realities differ greatly. What should be shared globally, and what needs to be adapted to each local context?
A: What can be shared globally, are the biological processes, e.g., how alcohol or a certain illicit drug is changing brain functions, or how much they are related to certain outcomes. Of course, there are also individual and genetic differences but some basic mechanisms are important.
What needs to adapted to each local context are the reactions to reduce the resulting burden by societal reactions in different pillars:
- Prevention
- Harm reduction
- Treatment
- Legal reactions
That does not mean, that we cannot learn from each other!
Q: What do you think the ‘Barcelona Forum on Drugs’ can contribute?
A: I hope, we can reach the openness to listen to different approaches and find some consensus about best ways to reduce drug-related health and social burden!
