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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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US: Drug Makers Invest In War Against Drugs
Gainesville Sun, The (FL)
Sunday 26 Nov 2000 Website: http://www.sunone.com/ Author: Cory Reiss WASHINGTON - The White House and the courts have some fitting financial allies in the war on drugs: pharmaceutical companies. As the country fights drug addiction on many fronts, some pharmaceutical companies would like one particular response from judicial systems and the government to succeed. A nonprofit group called the National Association of Drug Court Professionals, which lobbies for drug courts, receives relatively small but telling contributions from one pharmaceutical company and a subsidiary of another. In return, the companies get access to the rapidly growing drug court system, in which nonviolent offenders receive treatment instead of jail time. Drug courts are potential markets for the companies' products, including testing equipment and a drug to treat addictions. The links could portend a new direction for drug companies - which have a powerful lobbying force in Washington - into a judicial movement that is seeking national acceptance. Although the contributions are legal, and the companies likely derive little, if any, benefit from them now, some worry that addicts and the courts could become exploited. "The question of potential ethical conflicts always looms out there and needs to loom out there," said Randy Monchick, drug treatment court administrator for North Carolina. "NADCP needs to seriously consider that and be aware of it." DuPont Pharmaceuticals and Roche Diagnostics, a subsidiary of the drug company Hoffman-La Roche Inc., are in the midst of commitments to give the drug court association $100,000 each over four years. DuPont Pharmaceuticals makes naltrexone, a drug used to treat heroin addiction and alcoholism, and Roche Diagnostics sells drug-testing equipment. Other sponsors include BI Inc., an electronic monitoring and supervision company, and a newsletter publisher. Drug Courts are special judicial programs spreading through the country at a rate of about 100 a year with the help of federal seed money. They offer treatment and supervision for nonviolent drug offenders who can avoid jail by completing the program. There are more than 530 drug courts nationwide. Nearly 300 more are planned. DuPont spokesman Tom Barry said the company made its pledge to promote education about drug courts and their expansion to help alcoholics, a growing drug court field. "This is not a marketing effort," he said. The money from DuPont and Roche originally was intended for the National Drug Court Institute, a training and educational organization formed by the association and the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy in 1997. The institute receives $1 million a year in federal funding. But the Association of Drug Court Professionals in 1998 diverted the corporate funding to its own coffers. Association president Jeffrey Tauber said the companies complained they weren't getting enough exposure through the institute, and the association anticipated concern about the mix of public and private money at the institute. Tauber said corporate funding is less than 3 percent of the association's annual budget. Robert Weiner, spokesman for White House drug czar Gen. Barry McCaffrey, said it makes sense for the public and private sectors to tackle drug-related crime together. "The American team effort can feel very proud that crime is at its lowest levels," he said. Barry said DuPont does not heavily market naltrexone, sold by DuPont as ReVia, because generic versions are common. Nevertheless, the association is a vehicle for getting ReVia into drug courts. Circuit Court Judge Patrick Rob presides over a drug court in Buchanan County, Mo., in which a handful of driving-while-impaired offenders are prescribed ReVia as part of their treatment. Rob said he got that idea at an Association of Drug Court Professionals convention two years ago, where he heard a presentation about using naltrexone to treat alcoholics in drug court. The association only knows of a few drug courts using naltrexone. Tauber, a former California municipal court judge, said it's only natural that companies give to causes that are good for the country and for them. "These folks, sure, are interested in the survival of drug courts and their health because they are ultimately customers," Tauber said.
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