Drug Use and Human Rights:
privacy, vulnerability, disability and
human rights infringements

NORBERT GILMORE

first published in the journal of contemporary health law and policy volume 12
©1996 The Catholic University of America

ABSTRACT

I. INTRODUCTION

II. AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

III. FEATURES OF CONTEMPORARY DRUG USE RELEVANT TO HUMAN RIGHTS
A. Pharmacological Characteristics of Drugs
B. Analysis of the Benefits and Harms from Drug Use
1. Benefits from Drug Use
a. Benefits for Drug Users
b. Benefits for Others Including Society
2. Risks and Harms from Drug Use
a. Harms to Drug Users
b. Harms to Society
C. Economic Implications of Drug Use
D. The classification of Drugs

IV. THE EVOLUTION OF LEGAL AND PUBLIC POLICY RESPONSES TO DRUG USE
A. The Impact of the Conceptualization of Drug Use on Its Control
1. Models Focused on the Drug User
a. Moral Inadequacy
b. Personal Inadequacy
c. Biological Inadequacy
2. Models Focused on the Control of Drugs
a. Clinical Control
b. Social Control
c. Economic Control
3. An Emerging Paradigm: Drug Use as a Public Health Problem
B. International and National Legal and Public Policy Responses to Control Drug Use
1. Influence of Models of Drug Use on the Legal and Policy Responses to Drug Use
2. International Legal and Policy Responses
3. National Legal and Policy Responses
a. United States of America
b. Other Countries

V. IMPACT OF LEGAL AND PUBLIC POLICY MEASURES TO CONTROL DRUG USE ON HUMAN RIGHTS
A. Drug Use as a Private Behavior
1. Voluntary "Innocuous" Drug Use
2. Compulsive and Likely Harmful Drug Use
3. Drug Trafficking
4. Reevaluation of Legal and Policy Responses to Drug Use
5. Human Rights Implications of a Privacy-Based Approach to Drug Use
B. Vulnerability to Drug Use and to Human Rights Abuses
1. Vulnerability to Drug Use
2. Vulnerability to Human Rights Abuses
C. Drug Use as a Disability
1. Disabilities Attributable to Drug Use
2. Drug Use as an Exclusion from Disability Protection
D. Drug Use and Human Rights Infringements

VI. CONCLUSION

NOTES