Obama drug policy to do more to ease health risks
VIENNA (Reuters) - The Obama administration will broaden U.S. anti-drug policy, paying more attention to minimizing health risks in a shift from focusing on prohibition and punishment in the past, a senior U.S. official said.
One of the breaks with the Bush administration line is President Barack Obama's support of federally funded needle exchanges as part of a U.S. drug policy review, Assistant Secretary of State David Johnson told Reuters.
The change is aimed at balancing police crackdowns with treatments to reduce market demand and boost public health, said Johnson, head of the U.S. bureau dealing with international narcotics and law enforcement.
"This will result in a policy that is broader and stronger than the one we had in the past," he said in an interview during a break in U.N. drug strategy talks that run through to Friday.
Washington joined United Nations member states last week in agreeing a 10-year extension to a U.N. "war on drugs." But European allies complained that the plan omitted drug "harm reduction" strategies, blaming U.S. opposition in part.
Such measures may include state-funded needle exchanges for injecting addicts, safe drug consumption rooms and provision of heroin and clean syringes in prisons. They help stop the spread of HIV/AIDS and other blood-borne diseases, advocates say.
Johnson said although Obama backed the so-called "harm reduction" measure on needle exchanges, Washington could not accept the term as it was written into the pact because it encompassed other measures outside U.S. practice.
CHANGE
Russia, Japan, Italy and the Vatican joined Washington in blocking use of "harm reduction" in the U.N. accord, which required a 53-nation consensus, feeling it legitimized concepts that could condone narcotics abuse.
Johnson played down the dispute, saying U.S. policy would shift to "greater emphasis over time on (drug) demand reduction and prevention programmes" alongside law enforcement.
He said U.S. spending on treatment programmes for drug users had actually risen almost fourfold to $14 billion a year since the first U.N. anti-drug protocol adopted a decade ago.
An increasing number of countries, mainly European, have sought to aid and rehabilitate addicts rather than criminalize them over the past decade.
Johnson said the new U.N. accord reflected this change in focus by citing a need to tackle an alarming rise in needle-transmitted HIV with far-reaching prevention programmes, treatment and "related support services."
"This was the signal change in these negotiations," he said.
Some participants in the negotiations last month blamed the disputes on Bush administration appointees still in office after Obama's takeover but who had not received instructions to ease off a "zero tolerance" approach -- anchored on prohibition.
Johnson denied this. "There was very much an official directive from Washington. There was no confusion whatsoever. The (switch on) needle exchange was the clear signal of that."
(Editing by Katie Nguyen)
