Opinions - Drug Czar out of step with world.

[renegades]

Canada must not follow the U.S. on drug policy



Published: Thursday, February 22, 2007
The U.S. drug czar, John Walters, is in Ottawa today, trying his best to put a positive spin on one of the greatest disasters in U.S. foreign and domestic policy. Part of his agenda is to persuade Canada to follow in U.S. footsteps, which can only happen if Canadians ignore science, compassion, health and human rights.
The United States ranks first in the world in per-capita incarceration, with roughly five per cent of the earth's population but 25 per cent of the total incarcerated population. Russia and China simply can't keep up. Among the 2.2 million people behind bars today in the United States, roughly half a million are locked up for drug-law violations, and hundreds of thousands more for other "drug-related" offences. The U.S. "war on drugs" costs at least $40 billion U.S. a year in direct costs, and tens of billions more in indirect costs.
It's all useful information for Canadians to keep in mind when being encouraged to further toughen their drug laws to bring them in line with those of the United States.
What's most remarkable about U.S. drug policy is the way it endures despite persistent evidence that it is ineffective, costly and counterproductive. One report after another -- by the U.S. General Accountability Office, the National Academy of Sciences, independent agencies and even the Bush administration itself -- consistently fault federal drug-control programs for failing to achieve their objectives.
But funding nonetheless persists. The DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) program, which relies on police to "educate" young people about drugs, keeps being funded despite an impressive run of studies demonstrating no effect on adolescent drug use. Ditto for the government's border interdiction and anti-drug ad campaigns, and its funding of federal-state anti-drug task forces, and much else.
Drug-policy reformers in the United States have been cheered by Canada's willingness -- at least until now -- to look to Europe rather than the United States for drug-control models. When HIV/AIDS started spreading a generation ago among people who inject drugs, both Europe and Canada were quick to implement needle exchanges and other harm-reduction programs, even as the United States opted instead to allow hundreds of thousands to become infected and die needlessly.
Heroin-prescription trials are now underway in Montreal and Vancouver, trying to determine whether what worked so well in Switzerland, Germany, The Netherlands and other countries can also work in Canada. The same is true of supervised injection sites, which have proven effective in reducing fatal overdoses, transmission of infectious diseases and drug-related nuisance. And most recently, Vancouver's mayor, Sam Sullivan, has broken new ground by proposing that cocaine and methamphetamine addicts be prescribed legal substitutes.
But I wonder whether Canada just can't help following in U.S. footsteps. DARE survives in Canada too, notwithstanding evidence of its lack of efficacy. Almost three quarters of Canadian federal drug-strategy spending is for law-enforcement initiatives, few of which demonstrate any success in reducing drug problems. "While harm-reduction interventions supported through the drug strategy are being held to an extraordinary standard of proof," the director of the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, Dr. Julio Montaner, recently observed, "those receiving the greatest proportion of funding remain under-evaluated or have already proven to be ineffective."
The survival of Vancouver's supervised-injection facility is currently at risk, for reasons having everything to do with politics and nothing with science or health, while federal drug-enforcement authorities know that all they need to do to preserve funding is make arrests and avoid scandal.
What matters most to U.S. drug czar John Walters, though, is cannabis, which he occasionally, and absurdly, describes as the most dangerous of all drugs. Seventy per cent of Americans say cannabis should be legal for medical purposes, and one study after another points to its efficacy and safety as a medicine. A similar percentage also think personal possession of marijuana should be decriminalized (i.e., resulting in fines rather than arrest and incarceration) and 40 per cent say it should be taxed, controlled and regulated, more or less like alcohol.
But Mr. Walters will have none of it. He travels the country, railing against cannabis and urging schools to drug test all students, without cause -- and without any scientific evidence that testing will work. And when he visits or talks about Canada, it's typically to complain -- erroneously -- that Canada is a major supplier of marijuana for the U.S., never mind the fact that Americans now produce most of the marijuana consumed in the United States.
Canada needs to lead, not follow, the United States when it comes to dealing sensibly with drugs. Mr. Walters's Canadian hosts today should remind him of the 2002 report of the Canadian Senate Special Committee on Illegal Drugs, chaired by Conservative Senator Pierre-Claude Nolin.
It's probably the best, most comprehensive, most evidence-based report on drug policy produced by any government in the past 30 years. And its recommendations are all about dealing with drugs as if politics were an afterthought, and all that mattered were reducing the harms associated with both drug use and failed drug policies. Imagine that.

No country should try the US approach in the war against drugs started by Nixon in 1971, in 35 years what do we have to show for it. Nothing but persecution of drug users by over-zealous police and politicans making the laws and putting them away into USA versions of concentration camps, a private run jail making 55,000 dollars off each inmate. Allstate, Merryl Lynch and American Express are the main financers of building additional prisons because they make a lot of money off it. Latest poll swim saw had 51% of Americans say drugs are a mental issue that needs to be treated in detox center while only 45% say it is a law enforcement issue. So I am not certain Americans favor their tax dolllars to pay for more prisons. Sorry Allstate, Merryl Lynch and American Express. If any of you use their services terminate them and tell them why. This swim dropped my allstate auto insurance for progressive. Swim willl do anything to stop funding additional prisons. They throw addicts cold turkey in a 6x8 cell. Swim thinks that is inhumane and possible constitutional rights have been volilated against inhumane and cruel punishment. If anyone has gone through withdrawl could image doing it in a 6x8 cell without any medication. Even the majority of American People have given up the drug war why doesn't the Government change course. Canada whatever you do don't listen to our nutty drug czar who has no clue about what is truly going on in the streets.

[grandbaby]

^ Good article. Source?

[renegades]

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/...4-02cbd947ca76

Here's the link sorry about inot including it in the original article.

[renegades]

U.S. drug czar lacks credibilityU.S. drug czar John Walters is the public face of America's war on drugs -- a debacle that has imprisoned staggering numbers of Americans with no upside in sight. His visit to Canada last week was an unsettling reminder of the deep divide over drug policy between blinkered political ideology and long-established science. Walters is fond of claiming that marijuana is a dangerous drug and that most addicts are hooked on pot. He popped north of the border to pat the Harper government on the back for its "cooperation" on the anti-drug front. And he made the peculiar declaration -- with no context -- that there are more U.S. teens seeking treatment for marijuana dependency than any other drugs, including booze. Walters made it sound like there are hundreds of thousands of American teens who can't get through the day without a couple of joints. It's great for whipping up anti-pot hysteria but the truth is rather banal, says Ethan Nadelmann, founder and executive director of the New York-based Drug Policy Alliance. Yes, most people in drug treatment in the U.S. are there for using pot, he says. But most of them are in treatment not because they're addicted to pot but because they got caught toking up by the cops or school officials or their employers. For most of them, going for help was the only alternative to jail, being booted out of school or losing their jobs, says Nadelmann. Walters also reiterated his displeasure at the flow of so-called B.C. bud to the U.S. What he neglected to mention is that Canada plays an infinitesimal role in feeding the appetite of U.S. potheads. Most of the marijuana available in the U.S. is produced domestically or imported from Mexico. So how credible is Walters, the director of U.S. National Drug Control Policy, in helping shape effective anti-drug strategies and winning over the public? Well, you be the judge. Let the facts speak for themselves. In 1980, there were 50,000 people in jail in the U.S. for non-violent drug offences. Now, there are almost 500,000 in prison. "My message for Canadians is if you want to look south, the thing to keep in mind is that the dominant context of American drug policy is arrest and incarceration," says Nadelmann. PROSECUTION AND PRISONS Like Canada, the U.S. spends three-quarters of its drug war resources on policing, prosecution and prisons. Of the $368 million spent in Canada in 2004-05 on fighting illicit drugs, only $51 million went to treatment programs and only $10 million each was targeted at harm-reduction and prevention initiatives. Similarly, drug treatment is badly underfunded in America. Health professionals estimate that only one in 10 people receive the treatment they need, according to the U.S. Drug Policy Alliance. Ironically, while the Harper government plans tougher sentences for drug offenders, individual U.S. states are thumbing their noses at Washington and liberalizing their drug laws. Over the past decade, more than 150 drug-policy reforms have been enacted by voters and legislators in 46 states. The changes include allowing people to grow and use pot for medical purposes and diverting non-violent drug offenders from prison into treatment. "These (reforms) are bubbling up all across the country," says Nadelmann. Walters may be Uncle Sam's top drug prohibitionist but it seems Americans are increasingly tuning him out. http://www.edmontonsun.com/Comment/2....html.***seems anywhere he goes something stupid is said and today was no exception. Swim thinks he is the same one who said pot was more dangerous than cocaine.

[Alfa]

If SWIY thinks that, then he should back that up. Otherwise its just internet heresay.

[Beeker]

No country should try the US approach in the war against drugs started by Nixon in 1971

Say whaaat? Might go back and do some more research ... Get your Reefer madness on.

[grandbaby]

^Actually, there is a serious basis for that statement. Nixon brought in the Controlled Substances Act in 1970 (coining the term "War on Drugs" in 1971). Until that point, US drug policy was scattershot; Nixon is the Great Concentrator. Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Drugs