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, said.
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 infected with HIV and their families who have been destroyed by the effects of AIDS.
He was also a supporter of early voices to rethink the state's approach to illegal drugs and advocate for a strategy that prioritizes reducing negative outcomes on criminal prosecution.
A training clinical psychologist, Dr. Drucker was Professor Emeritus of Family and Social Medicine at the Montefiore Medical Center/Albert Einstein School of Medicine in the Bronx. He was a senior researcher and academic at John Jay College of Manhattan at City University of New York in Manhattan, where he rode a bike to work on 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 aggravated the problem and alleged that dangerous practices such as sharing needles led to the spread of HIV and often adddled them with criminal records that could make them unemployed. insisted.
“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 90% of nonviolent drug crimes stated, “criminalization can be replaced by public health and treatment models.” I insisted it.”
Dr. Drucker has established some of the world's first syringe exchange programs. In 1991 he testified in favour of four members of the AIDS Union. The power known as Act Up, known as Act Up, was on trial for charges related to running a needle exchange program to prevent the spread of AIDS. They were acquitted.
Dr. Drucker warned that the AIDS epidemic is not just causing gay men to suffer. It was also an increasingly devastating poor, non-white family, he said. He said his relationship with heterosexuals in a particular Bronx neighborhood came to the shape of an orphan child “sexual Russian roulette.”
Ethan A. Nadelman, founder of the Drug Policy Alliance, which opposed the war on drugs, said in an email about Drug Drucker: Many of them have resulted in policy changes regarding influential publications, new organizations, and all aspects of harm reduction.
Dr. Drucker was the founder of global/American physicians and their chairman from 1993 to 1997. Founding editor of the chief of Harm Reduction Journal. Founder of the International Association for Reducing Hazards.
Drucker, a professor at the Milken Institute's School of Public Health at George Washington University and a former administrator at the federal Occupational Safety and Health Department, said he was “deeply caring for people.” Reduction, we argue that people should not punish people for who they are and the decisions they make, but should help them become healthier and fulfilling. ”
Ernest Mo Drucker was born in Brooklyn on March 29, 1940. His father, Joseph, was an ITT mechanic. His wife, Beatrice (Strull) Drucker, overseen the house.
Ernest grew up in the Brighton Beach section of the Borough and graduated from Brooklyn Technology High School with plans to become an engineer. However, he was drawn to psychology at City College in New York, where he received his bachelor's degree in 1962, then a Ph.D.
At Montefiore/Einstein, he was a pupil of the doctor. H. Jack Geiger and Victor Said are two advocates of health care for the poor, Dr. Drucker is the director of public health and policy studies, and has been working at the post until 1990. He was founding director of the patient drug treatment program.
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, Dr. Drucker was survived by his wife, Jeri (Rossner) Drucker, an artist. his brother, Alan. and two grandchildren.
