Sensible Solutions to the Urban Drug Problem

A Fraser Institute Electronic Publication

These policy papers were originally presented at Fraser Institute Conferences in Vancouver in April, 1998 and in Toronto, October 1998. The papers were revised and updated in 2001.

• Introduction and Overview [.pdf file]
  - Patrick Basham

  Patrick Basham is a Senior Fellow at The Cato Institute in Washington, D.C., and was formerly Director of the Social Affairs Centre at The Fraser Institute.

  
  

• Witch Hunts and Chemical McCarthyism: The Criminal Law and Twentieth-Century Canadian Drug Policy [.pdf file]
  - Eugene Oscapella

  Eugene Oscapella is a Barrister and Solicitor in Ottawa, Canada

  
  

• Swiss Drug Policy: Harm Reduction and Heroin-Supported Therapy [.pdf file]
  - Martin Buechi and Ueli Minder

  Marin Buechi is head of the Section for Policy and Research, and the deputy vice-director of the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health. Ueli Minder is the drug policy coordinator in the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health.

  
  

• Drugs, Violence and Public Health: What Does the Harm-Reduction Approach Have to Offer? [.pdf file]
  - Patricia G. Erickson

  Patricia Erickson is Senior Scientist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.

  
  

• The Empires Strike Back [.pdf file]
  - Gil Puder

  The late Gil Puder was a decorated 16-year veteran of the Vancouver Police Department and instructor at the British Columbia Police Academy.

  
  

• Psychoactive Substances in Canada: Levels of Harm and Means of Reduction [.pdf file]
  - Robin Room

  Robin Room is Professor and Director of the Centre for Social Research on Alcohol and Drugs at Stockholm University, Sweden.

  
  

• Canadian Attitudes towards Decriminalizing The Use of Marijuana [.pdf file]
  - Daniel Savas

  Daniel Savas is Senior Vice-President of Ipsos Reid, Canada’s leading market research and public opinion company.

  
  

• Medicalization: A "Third Way" to Drug Policy [.pdf file]
  - Jeffrey A. Singer

  Jeffrey Singer is a general surgeon in private practice in Phoenix Arizona, where he also served as Medical Spokesperson for Arizonans for Drug Policy Reform.

  
  

• The Economic Cost of the War on Drugs [.pdf file]
  - Richard Stevenson

  Richard Stevenson directs the Health Economics Unit and lectures in the Department of Economics at Liverpool University.

  
  

Note: The authors of these papers have worked independently and opinions expressed by them are, therefore, their own, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the members or the trustees of The Fraser Institute.

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