The War on Drugs: Wasting Billions and Undermining Economies

Whilst accurate figures are hard to come by, global spending on drug law enforcement certainly exceeds $100 billion each year. Given current economic conditions it is more important than ever that spending is effective and not a waste of taxpayer money.However, the huge investments in enforcement have consistently delivered the opposite of their stated goals—to reduce drug production, supply and use. Instead they have created a vast criminal market. This in turn has substantial social and economic costs, through crime and ill health, far exceeding even the billions in enforcement spending.There are huge opportunity costs to wasteful expenditure on this scale. As drug enforcement budgets continue to grow, other areas are being starved of funds, and cuts in government budgets are hitting public services and support for the needy.Despite the appalling track record of failure, the level of value-for-money scrutiny applied to drug enforcement spending has been almost zero, at both national and international levels. At a time of global economic crisis, after literally trillions wasted over the last half-century, it is time to meaningfully count the real economic costs of the war on drugs. This report is part of the Count the Costs series. Count the Costs is a collaborative project between a range of organizations that, while representing a diverse range of expertise and viewpoints, share a desire to reduce the unintended costs of the war on drugs

Alternative World Drug Report: Counting the Costs of the War on Drugs

Launched to coincide with publication of the 2012 UN Office on Drugs and Crime's World Drug Report, this report by Transform, a grantee of the Open Society Foundations, exposes the failure of governments and the UN to assess the extraordinary costs of pursuing a global war on drugs, and calls for UN member states to meaningfully count these costs, and explore all the alternatives After 50 years of the current enforcement-led international drug control system, the "war on drugs" is coming under unparalleled scrutiny. Its goal was to create a "drug free world." Instead, despite more than a trillion dollars spent fighting the war, according to the UNODC illegal drugs are used by an estimated 270 million people and organized crime profits from a trade with an estimated turnover of over $330 billion a year—the world's largest illegal commodity market.In its 2008 World Drug Report the UNODC acknowledged that choosing an enforcement-based approach was having a range of negative "unintended consequences," including the creation of a vast criminal market, displacement of the illegal drugs trade to new areas, diversion of funding from health, and the stigmatization of users. It is unacceptable that neither the UN or its member governments have meaningfully assessed these unintended consequences to establish whether they outweigh the intended consequences of the current global drug control system, and that they are not documented in the UNODC's flagship annual World Drug Report.The Alternative World Drug Report fills this gap in government and UN evaluations by detailing the full range of negative impacts resulting from choosing an enforcement-led approach:Wasting billions and undermining economiesHarming international development and security, and fuelling conflictThreatening public health, spreading disease and causing deathUndermining human rightsPromoting stigma and discriminationCreating crime and enriching criminalsCausing deforestation and pollutionThe report, available for download at left, also describes the other options for controlling drugs, including health led approaches and legal state regulation and control. It ends with a call on UN member states to count the costs of the war on drugs, and properly explore all alternatives that might deliver better outcomes

South African multicentre trial with voltaren in osteo-arthritis of the knee

Patients suffering from osteo-arthritis of the knee were admitted to a multicentre, double-blind trial comparing the efficacy and tolerability of two dose levels of Voltaren (diclophenac sodium), 25 mg t.d.s and 50 mg t.d.s., and acetylsalicylic acid 1 000 mg t.d.s. Eighty-three patients from 4 centres were evaluated. Three racial groups were studied: White, Asian, and Coloured. Both preparations were effective in alleviating the symptoms of osteoarthritis. The two dose levels of diclophenac sodium had slightly superior effects over acetylsalicylic acid. Preference statements by both investigators and patients favoured diclophenac sodium. In this short-term study both dose regimens of diclophenac sodium were better tolerated. The incidence of gastro-intestinal side-effects was lower with diclophenac sodium. No major adverse reactions were recorded. Results of the blood morphology and uric acid study carried out in one centre showed that none of the treatments produced any abnormalities.S. Afr. Med. J. 48, 1973 (1974)

Alternative world drug report.

This Alternative World Drug Report has been produced by the Count the Costs initiative to describe enforcement related costs, and to start to fill the gap left by official government and UN evaluations. Recent political developments suggest there is a growing demand for a more balanced and comprehensive evaluation of the wider impacts of current drug law enforcement strategies, and also for evidence-based exploration of possible alternative approaches. In particular, the debate on the future of international drug control has moved decisively into the political and media mainstream for the first time. This phenomenon is now reaching critical mass as member states move into a new era following the 2016 UN General Assembly Special Session on the World Drug Problem and into negotiations for the new 2019 global drug strategy. In keeping with this new era, this report also outlines all the major policy options available to governments, and suggests that countries individually and collectively engage in reviews that scrutinise the effectiveness of the current system, and compare it with alternatives that could achieve better outcomes. Ultimately, this report represents a call to apply science to an area of policy that has eschewed adequate scrutiny for far too long. The world is increasingly willing and able to count the costs of the war on drugs, explore the alternatives and gradually move towards the shared goal of a healthier, safer world

Autism in Down's syndrome: presentation and diagnosis

Although autism is said to occur rarely with Down's syndrome, it may be more common in those persons with Down's syndrome who also show superimposed behavioural problems. In this brief report, the authors explore this possibility. They describe three patients with Down's syndrome who were referred for behavioural reasons and were found to have coexisting autism. They propose that a systematic study of the association of these two conditions may have implications on research and clinical practice.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/72085/1/j.1365-2788.1992.tb00563.x.pd

Citizenship and Learning Disabled People: The Mental Health Charity MIND’s 1970s Campaign in Historical Context

Current policy and practice directed towards people with learning disabilities originates in the deinstitutionalisation processes, civil rights concerns and integrationist philosophies of the 1970s and 1980s. However, historians know little about the specific contexts within which these were mobilised. Although it is rarely acknowledged in the secondary literature, MIND was prominent in campaigning for rights-based services for learning disabled people during this time. This article sets MIND’s campaign within the wider historical context of the organisation’s origins as a main institution of the inter-war mental hygiene movement. The article begins by outlining the mental hygiene movement’s original conceptualisation of ‘mental deficiency’ as the antithesis of the self-sustaining and responsible individuals that it considered the basis of citizenship and mental health. It then traces how this equation became unravelled, in part by the altered conditions under the post-war Welfare State, in part by the mental hygiene movement’s own theorising. The final section describes the reconceptualisation of citizenship that eventually emerged with the collapse of the mental hygiene movement and the emergence of MIND. It shows that representations of MIND’s rights-based campaigning (which have, in any case, focused on mental illness) as individualist, and fundamentally opposed to medicine and psychiatry, are inaccurate. In fact, MIND sought a comprehensive community-based service, integrated with the general health and welfare services and oriented around a reconstruction of learning disabled people’s citizenship rights

Overactivity, impulsivity and repetitive behaviour in males with fragile X syndrome:Contrasting developmental trajectories in those with and without autism

Background: Hyperactivity and repetitive behaviour are characteristic features of fragile X syndrome (FXS). However, little is known about the influence of autism symptomatology on how these characteristics develop over time. We investigate the profiles and developmental trajectories of overactivity, impulsivity, and repetitive behaviour, in males with FXS over three time points spanning eight years. Method: Participants formed two subgroups, those who displayed elevated symptoms of autism at Time 1 (n=37; Mage=16.32; age range=6.61-43.51) and those who did not (n=32; Mage= 8.43; age range=8.94-47.49). Results: Participants without elevated symptoms of autism showed a reduction in impulsivity and repetitive questioning over time, whereas those with elevated symptoms of autism did not. Differences between the two subgroups in several topographies of repetitive behaviour emerged at Time 3 only. Conclusions: These results further understanding of the relationship between autistic phenomenology and behavioural characteristics in FXS

Maintaining order in the drug game: Applying harm reduction principles to drug detective work

Drug war rhetoric is losing favour in the political arena due to its increasingly obvious failures and there is a growing consensus amongst governing elites that something ought to change. Against this backdrop, the concept of ‘harm reduction’ has moved to the foreground of the research agenda and some policing agencies appear to be reconfiguring their enforcement interventions to focus on managing drug markets in a way that minimises the various associated harms. This article draws on the findings of an ethnographic study of specialist detective units in two English police services to examine how recent developments in drug policy discourse have been received and implemented at an operational level. Although there have been some positive advancements, it argues that changes to the prohibition regime are largely superficial and strong cultural resistance remains. The discussion considers how harm reduction principles might be better applied to the policing of drug markets