David Borden, Executive Director

David Borden

Unfortunately for California schoolkids, as a result of the locker closures, some young people had developed posture problems, with resultant chronic pain, as a result of having to carry all of their books around all day. KQED interviewed once such student from North Hollywood. He typically carried about 30 pounds of books with him, which was 19% of his body weight, nearly twice the maximum recommended by the American Chiropractic Association. As a teenager he had become a regular user of Tylenol in order to manage the pain.

The reason I chose that story for my editorial that week was the unpredictable nature of it. There are a lot of things that are easy to predict about drug prohibition laws, based on historical experience. We know that prohibition causes crime, and builds up organized crime entities, by putting a lucrative industry with its hundreds of billions of dollars of annual revenues into a criminal underground. We know that prohibition causes preventable deaths, especially of the addicted, by ensuring that users of the banned drugs obtain them from that underground, which lacks the regulation and quality controls that legal industries have. We know that prohibition has a corrupting effect on youth, and others -- the guns and the drug trade in the schools issue that legitimately concerned California administrators is a frightening example -- by providing job opportunities for those who are attracted to the those moneymaking opportunities and the associated glamour.

But who would have guessed the drug war would lead to teen back pain? Lest any should dismiss that issue as unimportant by comparison with the harms of drugs, and of guns in the schools, remember that the guns and drugs didn't go away as a result of the lock closures. Did anyone really think they would, for that matter? Back pain is an issue that can deeply affect the life of a sufferer, young or old, and which for many can go uncorrected for a lifetime. Lockers are part of a school's infrastucture. When drug policy leads us to start dismantling infrastructure, that is a sign of a policy problem.

This week our blog reported on another unpredictable public health problem from the drug laws, a more dramatic and gruesome one. In Brazil, the drug war is exacerbating a deadly plague carried by mosquitoes. The problem is that one in four people in the city of Rio de Janeiro live in the poverty-stricken "favelas," or shantytowns, where pools of water are common during the rainy season, which attracts the mosquito population. But access for authorities to the favelas is hampered by Rio's raging drug war, hampering efforts to contain the disease. Of course, these drug wars are happening only because drugs are illegal, prompting the governor of the state of Rio de Janeiro to call for legalization last year.

After 14 years in drug policy, it's not so very often that I learn a new angle. Yet I have no doubt that there are many unintended consequences of prohibition which have yet to be brought to light, and many impossible-to-predict harms from prohibition that we have yet to see.

An amendment to the Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill that would have barred the dispersal of federal funds from those departments to any city that opened a safe injection site for drug users was killed in conference committee this week. The measure was deleted "without prejudice," meaning committee members did not have to go on record as opposed to the amendment.

drug war bad guy Jim DeMint

"This is a victory for harm reduction and the drug policy reform movement," said Bill Piper, director of national affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance, which led the effort to kill the amendment. "Congress came close to adopting something that would have the same sort of impact as the federal ban on funding needle exchanges. It's good to see that in this case, at least, Congress didn't let politics trump science."

The amendment was sponsored by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) in reaction to talk in San Francisco about opening a safe injection site there. Although the sites have been proven to reduce needle-sharing and the spread of infectious blood-borne diseases such as HIV and Hepatitis C and are open in eight European countries, Australia, and Canada, no such sites are operating in the US.

Two weeks ago, DeMint was crowing about his victory. "The Senate sent a clear message to cities that it's beyond ridiculous to ask Americans to pay for drug addicts to inject themselves with heroin and cocaine," he said. "The officials in San Francisco that gave credibility to this absurd idea should be embarrassed. This would undermine federal law and promote illegal behavior. These safe havens for drug users would only encourage more addiction and support the illegal drug market."

DeMint is eating those words now.

The Jersey City, New Jersey, City Council Wednesday unanimously passed an ordinance allowing for the creation of a needle exchange program in the city. The move came after the city hesitated earlier this year because Mayor Jeremiah Healey, a needle exchange supporter, balked at a part of the state's pilot program that would have included a needle exchange van.

Jersey City becomes the fifth Garden State city to pass a needle exchange ordinance since Gov. Jon Corzine (D) signed a bill allowing them into law in December. The other cities are Atlantic City, Camden, Newark, and Paterson. None have functioning needle exchange programs yet. All have either just passed ordinances or have applications to join the pilot program under review by the state.

New Jersey has the highest rate of cumulative HIV/AIDS cases among women, the third highest rate of pediatric HIV/AIDS cases, the fifth highest rate of adult HIV/AIDS cases and a rate of injection-related HIV infection that is nearly twice the national average.

Still, it took years of activism and lobbying by local public health officials and the Drug Policy Alliance, whose Roseanne Scotti paced the halls of the state capitol, to win approval of needle exchange programs in New Jersey. And the battle isn't over yet. Seven other New Jersey cities that could be eligible to participate have so far failed to do so.