Policy and Advocacy: Guest editorial

Steve Rolles introduces a new collaborative project by a range of organisations sharing a desire to reduce the unintended costs of the ‘war on drugs’.

Project Prevention, an American sterilisation programme that pays problematic drug users either to be sterilised or to accept long-term contraception, is coming to the United Kingdom. Niamh Eastwood argues that, far from alleviating suffering and protecting women and children, the controversial programme is a fundamental attack on the rights of the most vulnerable.

In late 2010, most New Zealanders were bemused by the government’s failure to reduce the blood alcohol content limit from 0.08 to 0.05, opting instead for a further 2 years research. This was despite recommendations from the Law Commission and a raft of experts in the wider health and justice sectors. Unexpected support for lowering the limit came by means of the Herald on Sunday’s successful Two Drinks Max campaign. Editor Bryce Johns writes about the rationale behind the campaign.

While we all sit around in meeting rooms, at conferences and in universities talking, writing and thinking about treatment, have we forgotten the 3 percent of the adult population or more that sits around wondering how to dig themselves out of the hole that is their addiction? In this edition’s guest editorial, and in the spirit of constructive debate, Michael Bird offers ‘a quaint solution to an old problem’.