Drug Testing: criminal issue or public health issue?

This article found in the South China Morning post focuses on the issue of whether or not drug testing should be treated as a criminal issue or and a public health issue.The author is looks at approaches used by other countries to decrease the prevalence of HIV/AIDS in the IV drug communities and the effectiveness of such approaches.

The main two approaches to remedy this rising crisis are random drug testing of individuals and clean syringe distribution centers. Based on the research, countries such as The Netherlands and Switzerland that have viewed drug use as a social problem and treated it as such, using free syringe distribution centers have seen a huge decrease in the prevalence of HIV/AIDS within that particular sub-group. Many other universities in the U.S. conducted random drug tests involving numerous students. These tests proved to be futile and ineffective in decreasing the prevalence rate of those who contracted the virus.

This article interests me because it has to do with public health, which is an area that in incredibly important in todays world. It is important to consider what the best methods for maximizing health are over what personal opinions are. Does offering free needles and syringes to drug users encourage drug use? Does it matter that they are safer if the amount of drug users is increasing?

South China Morning Post

The futility of treating drugs a criminal, not public health, issue