Author's Night: Ending the "Drug War": Solving the Drug Problem: The Public Health Approach – Steven Jonas, MD, MPH, MS, FNYAS

The "Drug War" is an expensive failure. The Drug Problem, resulting from the use of the Recreational Mood Altering Drugs (RMADs), is real. But it is a unity, not, as it is currently presented through the lens of the “licit/illicit” dichotomy, a duality. That unity, figuratively and literally, begins with the use of tobacco products and alcoholic beverages. A public health-based approach, the National Smoking Cessation Program, has met with great success in dealing with the number one RMAD killer, without locking up one cigarette smoker. As proposed in the book, the Public Health Approach to the Drug Problem, for dealing with the harmful use of all the RMADs, is modeled on it. If it were to be implemented, the “Drug War” could be brought to a swift end.

This book is published as an e-book by Punto Publishing of Brewster, NY with a print edition in development.

About the Author:
Steven Jonas, MD, MPH, MS, FNYAS is Professor Emeritus of Preventive Medicine and Public Health, Stony Brook Medicine, Stony Brook University.  He is a Fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine, the New York Academy of Sciences (elected), the American College of Preventive Medicine, the American Public Health Association, and the Royal Society of Medicine (London). He has authored, co-authored, edited and co-edited over 35 books, on subjects ranging from the U.S. health care delivery system through drug policy reform to the sport of triathlon. On health policy and preventive medicine and public health, he has published over 135 professional articles, book chapters, and book reviews, and has delivered well over 100 papers at conferences and seminars. In addition, he has published numerous articles in the lay press, primarily on exercise and sports, and for both lay and professional audiences has given many talks on various aspects of health, fitness, and wellness. He is also a prolific writer on politics. In addition to his two books on U.S. history and politics, since the mid-2000s his columns have been published regularly on several political web magazines.