Obama Drug Policy to Do More to Ease Health Risks

The Obama administration's support of federally funded needle-exchange programs is part of a drug policy shift from prohibition and punishment to reducing market demand and boosting public health, according to a senior US official. "This will result in a policy that is broader and stronger than the one we had in the past," said David Johnson, assistant secretary of state.

However, UN member states last week committed to a 10-year extension of the organization's "war on drugs." European allies criticized the plan for excluding harm reduction as one of several strategies, citing US resistance as partly to blame. Russia, the Vatican, Japan, and Italy also opposed harm reduction measures.

Although Johnson said President Obama backs the harm reduction approach regarding needle exchanges, Washington would not accept the term as written in the agreement because it encompassed other measures that are outside of US practice.

Some participants in the UN negotiations blamed Bush administration holdover appointees, whom they said had not received instructions from the new administration to back away from a "zero tolerance" policy emphasizing prohibition. Johnson disputed this: "There was very much an official directive from Washington," he said. "There was no confusion whatsoever. The [switch on] needle exchange was the clear signal of that."

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