Ernest Drucker is a pioneering public health researcher who approached drug addiction with a thoughtful, lively needle exchange program to stop the AIDS epidemic, and is destructive in what he called the mass incarceration “plague.” He was diagnosed with the effects and died on January 26th. Manhattan house. He was 84 years old.
The cause was a complication of dementia, his son, Jesse Drucker.
For over 30 years, Dr. Drucker, with epidemiological evidence, has launched a cutting-edge campaign to improve prisoners in many prisons. Homeless; Tuberculosis patients; workers exposed to asbestos. Drug users who had HIV infection and their families were destroyed by the effects of AIDS. He was a supporter of early voices to rethink the state's approach to illegal drugs and advocate for “harm reduction.” This is a strategy that prioritizes reducing negative consequences on criminal prosecution.
A training clinical psychologist, he was a professor emeritus in family and social medicine at the Montefiore Medical Center/Albert Einstein School of Medicine in the Bronx, and a resident researcher and academic at John Jay University of Criminal Justice at City University. . In Manhattan's New York, there he rode a bike to work from the Upper West Side.
Dr. Helen Gale, an epidemiologist and former president of Spellman University in Atlanta, said in an email to his son, Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Indifference about humanity of all, including those who suffered most injustice. ”
Dr. Drucker, who ran a drug rehabilitation program in the Bronx, knew firsthand the destructive capabilities of addictive drugs. However, criminal prosecutions for addicts have only made them sad with criminal records that exacerbate the problem and risky practices like sharing needles have led to the spread of HIV and can make them unemployed. He claimed that he only forced him.
“The demonization of heroin has turned the otherwise benign, controllable pattern of its use into a fatal gamble, increasing the threshold for seeking help when problems arise,” he said. He wrote in 1995 in a letter to the New York Times. It employs a wide range of uses and adoption methods (such as needle exchange) and employs a “harm-reducing” strategy that makes injectable use safer. ”
He added, “We acknowledge the appeal of our stubborn drugs and learn to learn (rather than ban them) rather than ban them from using them.”
Instead, he wrote in his book, “A Plague of Prisons: The Epidemiology of America” (2011) that “criminalization can be replaced by public health and treatment models.” I claimed.
Dr. Drucker established some of the world's first syringe exchange programs, and after he testified in his favour in 1991, four members of the AIDS Union, known as ACT UP, were acquitted in Jersey City, New Jersey. Run a needle exchange program to prevent spread of AIDS.
He warned that the AIDS epidemic is not only tormenting gay men, but also an increasingly devastating poor white family. He said his relationship with heterosexuals in a particular Bronx neighborhood came to the shape of an orphan child “sexual Russian roulette.”
“The long shot has spun out more novel ideas for research, policy and advocacy, many of which have influential publications, new organizations, and all aspects of harm reduction, drug treatments, and more. Public health, public health, and criminal justice reform,” Ethan A. Nadelman, founder of the Drug Policy Alliance, which opposed the war on drug war, said in an email.
Dr. Drucker was founder and chairman of World/American Physicians from 1993 to 1997, founder of the Harm Reduction Journal and founder of the International Association for Harm Reduction.
He is a professor at the Milken Institute's Department of Public Health at George Washington University, and is a former administrator of the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration. , and justice. He cared for people deeply – you can see it in his work on reducing harm and we argue that we should not punish people for who they are and the decisions they make. But instead, they should help them become healthier and more fulfilling. ”
Ernest Mo Drucker was born in Brooklyn on March 29, 1940. His father, Joseph, was an ITT mechanic. His wife, Beatrice (Strull) Drucker, managed the household.
Ernest grew up in the Brighton Beach section of the Borough and graduated from Brooklyn Technology High School with plans to become an engineer, but he was drawn to psychology as a major at City College, New York, where he received his bachelor's degree in 1962. . Doctor.
At Montefiore/Einstein, he was a pupil of the doctor. H. Jack Geiger and Victorside are two advocates of health care for the poor, directors of public health and policy research, and founding directors of the 1,000 patient drug treatment programme that worked until 1990. It was.
He regularly reinvented himself professionally, shifting his focus between heroin addiction, public health, occupational safety, AIDS and prison alternatives.
In addition to his son Jesse, an investigative reporter for the New York Times, he was survived by his wife, Jeri (Rossner) Drucker, an artist. his brother, Alan Drucker; And two grandchildren.
