Jail 'not the solution' to drug crime

Convicted drug users should not be sent to prison because it does more harm than good, a report from the influential UK Drug Policy Commission will say tomorrow. Up to 65,000 prisoners in England and Wales are thought to be problem drug users and, of these, two-thirds are convicted of less serious crimes such as shoplifting and burglary. The commission believes these offenders should not be jailed. Although the report accepts that almost a third of heroin and crack users arrested admit to committing an average of one crime a day, it says that community treatment programmes would be more effective than prison.

Should Cities Offer Safe Sites for Injection Drug Users?

City health officials and addiction experts took the first steps Thursday toward opening the nation's only government-sponsored injection room that would give drug addicts a safe, clean place to shoot up. Hoping to reduce San Francisco's high rate of fatal drug overdoses, the local public health department co-sponsored a symposium on the only such facility in North America, a 4-year-old Vancouver site where an estimated 700 users a day self-administer narcotics under the supervision of nurses.

Drugs, Brains, and Behavior: The Science of Addiction

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) has released a layman's guide to alcohol and other drug addiction to complement the new HBO documentary series "Addiction," which premieres in Washington, D.C., this week.
"Drugs, Brains, and Behavior: The Science of Addiction" is a 30-page booklet that provides an overview of the science supporting the concept of addiction as a brain disease. Information on prevention and treatment also is included.