Blueprint for a Public Health and Safety Approach to Drug Policy

New Report Shows How New York Can Become National Model by Shifting Drug Policy from Criminalization to Public Health

A comprehensive new report by NYAM and the Drug Policy Alliance, Blueprint for a Public Health and Safety Approach to Drug Policy, presents wide-ranging recommendations to implement a public health-based approach to drug policy—and calls for strong, effective leadership to make change. The report demonstrates how New York’s drug policies remain split between two different and often contradictory approaches—criminalization and a public health approach—despite the historic 2009 reforms of the punitive Rockefeller Drug Laws. Read the full report here.

The report is being issued almost 40 years to the day after Governor Nelson Rockefeller signed the Rockefeller Drug Laws, which exemplified the “lock-them-up-and-throw-away-the-key” approach that was adopted nationwide in the ensuing decades, leading the U.S. to incarcerate more of its own citizens than any other country in the world. The report describes in detail how the state can once again be a model for the nation, this time for a more equitable, cost-effective, and evidence-based approach. 

In a historic shift unthinkable just a decade ago, the White House and many elected officials from both sides of the aisle now agree that drug policies must shift toward a public health approach, reflecting 20 years of evidence and public opinion polls finding that more than three-quarters of Americans believe that the enforcement-focused approach to drug use has failed. Yet this policy shift has proved to be easier said than done, as both federal and state budgets continue to emphasize enforcement, prosecution, and incarceration, and the will to bring about effective change remains stuck within the complex web of policies entrenched in every state and locality.

The report includes a detailed list of recommendations for action that will move New York State and New York City from a law enforcement-driven approach to a public health and safety-driven approach to drug policy. Recommendations include:

1.    Convene policy-makers and agency officials across sectors to examine and coordinate implementation of a unified approach to drug policy. New York needs to improve funding and increase statewide coordination of policies working at cross-purposes. Agencies including criminal justice and health need to establish shared goals and performance measures.

2.    Provide a better understanding of and education on drugs – for both the public and health, education, criminal justice, and social service professionals.

3.    Adopt an integrated, and fully accessible, recovery-oriented standard of drug treatment across systems. Drug treatment should integrate all service needs and entry points across agencies so that people can access the treatment model they need through the health and human service systems. The criminal justice system should not be the primary means for people to access our publicly financed drug treatment system nor should punitive enforcement be the primary framework. Policies that punish people for drug use and relapse must be replaced with effective systems that help people receive support across sectors, and, ultimately, recovery.

4.    Reduce drug-related injury and overdose deaths. Drug use or dependency should not be a death sentence. Increase availability of naloxone, a life-saving drug overdose reversal medication, and build on success of the 911 Good Samaritan legislation passed in 2011 by educating the public and public agencies about the law. Syringe exchange is also critical to preventing the spread of blood-borne infections and promoting access to health care, and should therefore be expanded and more accepted by agencies, including law enforcement.

5.    Expand drug prevention to include targeted community development. We must work to implement strategies that include access to education and jobs in communities most affected by drugs and at greatest risk of being left behind.

6.    Fix New York’s broken marijuana possession law. Marijuana has been decriminalized since 1977, yet the NYPD uses a loophole to arrest tens of thousands of people every year—mostly young people of color.

7.    Reduce racial disparities in the criminal justice system through Racial / Ethnic Impact statements. Like economic or environmental impact statements, racial and ethnic impact statements are tools of good governance that can help lawmakers determine—in advance—if a proposal is likely to have an unwarranted disparate impact on a particular racial or ethnic group.

8.    Provide meaningful engagement and collaboration between police and community. Social controls and community leadership needs to be honored within the neighborhoods and police need to be partners, not antagonists.

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Posted on April 23, 2013

Contact:
Andrew J. Martin
Director of Communications
The New York Academy of Medicine
1216 Fifth Avenue
New York, New York 10029
212-822-7285
amartin@nyam.org

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