The Pioneers of Reform

Reflections + Visions

Policy Papers Prepared for the 10th International Confrence on Drug Policy Reform

Edited by Arnold S Trebach, Whitney A Taylor, Rob Stewart & Scott Ehlers

October 1996

Prohibitionists perpetuate scores of years of wrongheadedness, including the last 26 years of extreme emergency, knowing that the war has not stopped drug use and that the war does more harm than good.
Hugh Downs ABC News, New York City

Politicians are happy to embrace research that supports what they have already decided to do.
Patricia G. Erickson, PhD Addiction Research Foundation, Toronto

We need to accept the fact that our responses to the use of mood-altering drugs are often more harmful than the substances themselves. We need the courage to change those man-made laws that can be changed and that create more harm than they prevent. And we need the wisdom to recognize things that cannot be changed and select from prohibition that which is worth keeping.
Alex Wodak, MD, St. Vincent's Hospital, Sydney, Australia