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Drug law reformers to speak |
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Tuesday, 11 March 2008 |
Drug experts behind controversial reforms in Canada and Australia will tomorrow address the Parliament’s Futures Forum.
Dr Alex Wodak is the director of St Vincent’s Hospital Alcohol and Drug Service in Sydney, Australia and was the driving force behind the establishment of Australia’s first needle exchange in 1986, and a key supporter of a safe injecting site in the city’s notorious Kings Cross district.
Wodak is an expert on the transmission of blood-borne diseases like HIV and argues that the prohibition of drugs like heroin makes it impossible to control the spread of diseases.
The others speaker is Canadian Senator Larry Campbell, who will discuss his time as Mayor of Vancouver where he fought to establish North America’s first safe injecting site in the East Hastings downtown area, one of the largest open-air drug markets in the world.
Scotland’s Futures Forum Director Robert Rae said:
“Over the last year the Forum has brought together experts from a number of countries and from across the UK to debate fresh approaches to reducing the damage to Scotland’s population through drug and alcohol misuse.
“To date, this debate has taken place against the backdrop of the current legal and regulatory framework. This research, however, will look at how other countries have used quite radical law reform to tackle drug abuse.”
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