We thank Michael Copeman for his interest in our study.1 While Weatherburn and associates2 speculated that interdiction efforts might have led to a heroin drought in Australia in early 2001, they also found no reduction in crime and a concomitant rise in cocaine injection. It is also noteworthy that others3 have speculated that the drought may have been due to factors other than interdiction.
In our study we moved beyond speculation and looked retrospectively at interviews with addicts regarding the availability of heroin after a record seizure.1 Instead of this post hoc analysis being a limitation, as suggested by Copeman, our approach reduced the potential for bias because the subjects and interviewers were blinded to this eventual use of the data.
With regard to the time frame of our analyses, Fig. 1 of our original study1 presents data as far ahead as 3 months after the seizure. Furthermore, even if storage were a factor, basic economic theory predicts that any significant impact on supply should immediately affect price, regardless of storage.4
We believe that the ideal case study of interdiction and enforcement efforts comes from the United States, where the resources directed to this approach dwarf what is spent in other nations such as Australia and Canada. For instance, in the United States the number of nonviolent drug offenders in prison exceeds by 100 000 the total incarcerated population in the European Union (EU), despite the fact that the EU has 100 million more citizens.5 Nevertheless, US drug supply and purity have reached an all-time high.1,6
We agree that the implications of our study are of concern, especially since the vast majority of resources spent on the drug problem continue to be directed to enforcement.1 We hope that the politicians charged with protecting public health take a closer look at the wealth of studies showing the failure of this approach1,2,3,5,6,7 and at the evidence supporting more effective alternatives.8,9
Evan Wood Mark W. Tyndall Martin T. Schechter British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS St. Paul's Hospital Vancouver, BC
References
- 1.
- 2.
- 3.
- 4.
- 5.
- 6.
- 7.
- 8.
- 9.