Harm reduction: time to end the war on drugs?

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Harm reduction: time to end the war on drugs?

16 July 2014

Georgia’s policy is a striking example of an approach to drug abuse based on scientific evidence and what’s best for public health rather than harsh criminal justice.

Two years ago 24,000 people were in jail in the former Soviet republic of Georgia. Today the figure is 10,000. The reduction – achieved through an amnesty and an end to jail sentences for personal drug possession and other minor offences – is one of the fastest falls in prison population on record, apart from mass releases in war or revolution.

Archil Talakvadze, Georgia’s Deputy Minister of Corrections, speaks of the change of policy as a striking example – still little known abroad – of an approach to drug abuse based on scientific evidence and what’s best for public health rather than harsh criminal justice.

“We had a repressive approach that led to one of the world’s highest incarceration rates, prison overcrowding and infections running out of control,” says Talakvadze, who comes from a health background. “Now we think about ‘harm reduction’ to balance law enforcement.”

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