Canada - Canada is about to ramp up its US-style war on drugs

[grandbaby]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servl...Story/National



OTTAWA'S NEW SUBSTANCE-ABUSE STRATEGY

[top]Get-tough plan on drugs doomed, experts say

Liberal MP calls Tories' policy a triumph of 'ideology over science,' urges medical, not moral, approach to issue
ANNE MCILROY
SCIENCE REPORTER
October 1, 2007

Canada's war on drugs is about to escalate. But as the federal Conservative governments prepares to unveil a new strategy that cracks down on illicit drug users, critics say they are ignoring a mountain of research that shows the get-tough approach doesn't work.

"This is a failed approach. The experiment is done. The science is in," says Thomas Kerr, a researcher at the University of British Columbia and member of the university's faculty of medicine.

The $64-million anti-drug strategy, to be announced in the next few days, is expected to include stiffer penalties for drug offenders and more money to stop drugs getting across the border. There will also be a massive campaign to warn young people not to use drugs.

It is not expected, says Liberal MP Keith Martin, to include money for what experts call "harm reduction." These are programs such as Vancouver's controversial safe injection site, where heroin addicts can shoot up in a sterilized, supervised setting.

The idea behind harm reduction is to reduce the health effects of drug use without requiring people to beat their addiction. Experts compare it with smokers using a nicotine patch; people still get their fix, but it is vastly preferable to smoking a pack a day.

A study published by Dr. Kerr and his colleagues last year found that the Vancouver supervised injection site, known as Insite, reduced the risk of overdoses and encouraged more users to seek treatment. It did not increase crime in the neighbourhood, nor lead to increased drug use.

But Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said he does not think the site should receive federal health money, and Health Canada must make a decision about the future of Insite by the end of the year.

Dr. Martin, a physician from British Columbia, says the Conservatives' approach is a triumph of "ideology over science." While he supports more money for police to go after drug dealers or organized crime, Dr. Martin says substance abuse needs to be treated as a medical problem, not a moral one.

That's the approach taken in many European countries that have much lower rates of illicit drug use than Canada, he said.

Erik Waddell, a spokesman for Health Minister Tony Clement, said yesterday that the minister was travelling and would not be available for an interview.

Mr. Waddell said he couldn't discuss the details of the new strategy either. But earlier this year, he told The Globe and Mail that the Conservatives disagreed with the Liberals' approach. "In every poll, when Canadians are asked whether they want more law enforcement or less, they want more. So the bottom line is that Canada's new government will be taking a different approach."

The Liberals had put forward a bill to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana, but the Conservatives did not reintroduce it after taking office in early 2006.

But the Liberals were also harshly criticized - by academics, doctors and the federal auditor-general - for focusing too much on enforcement.

The current drug strategy, which was renewed in 2003, devotes almost three- quarters of its resources to enforcement. Only 3 per cent of the annual $245-million goes to prevention, and another 3 per cent to harm reduction.

Barney Savage, director of public policy at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, says law enforcement is extremely important, but so is prevention, treatment and harm reduction. "You have to balance the law enforcement perspective with the health perspective."

The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police also advocates a balanced approach in dealing with drug abuse and addiction issues.

Reputation Comments on this post:

	Thanks for throwing together this compilation of grim news.
	this is terrible! thanks for sharing though

[grandbaby]

http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/a.../01/c6970.html

[top]Ottawa adopting failed U.S.-style "war on drugs"

New National Anti-Drug Strategy plays politics with people's lives

TORONTO, Oct. 1 /CNW/ - The new National Anti-Drug Strategy to be officially unveiled this week by federal Health Minister Tony Clement is a huge step backward for Canada's response to HIV/AIDS, said the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network today.

The new strategy funds law enforcement, prevention and treatment programs - three of the four so-called "pillars" common in many drug strategies. But the fourth pillar, harm reduction - which includes needle exchanges, methadone clinics and safe-injection facilities - has been eliminated.

"The federal government is ignoring widely published scientific evidence on the value of investing in harm reduction programs," said Richard Elliott, Executive Director. "It seems clear that the new drug strategy is based on
ideology instead of evidence, and from every angle - human rights, public health, or use of taxpayers' dollars - that's irresponsible and unacceptable."

Even worse, Minister Clement is sowing confusion by claiming that other measures, such as law enforcement, constitute harm reduction in their own right.

"This is just smoke and mirrors," said Elliott. "The reality is that some people can't or won't stop using drugs. Harm reduction pragmatically and realistically acknowledges this fact by providing evidence-based programs and services to lessen the harms associated with drug use. Arresting and imprisoning people can't be considered harm reduction."

The new drug strategy apes the failed U.S. approach of treating drug addiction primarily as a criminal matter, rather than a matter of public health. But despite spending billions of dollars on its "war on drugs," not a dent has been made in reducing either drug supply or drug consumption in the United States. Rather, the establishment of "get-tough" criminal approaches to drug addiction has filled U.S. prisons with non-violent, often small-scale offenders.

Relying on criminal law inevitably also leads to increased fear, stigma and discrimination. As a result, many people hide their drug use, which usually means avoiding the public health and harm reduction programs that could help treat them. Insite, Vancouver's safe injection facility, is one such program.

"The facts speak for themselves: Insite has lowered the rates of syringe-sharing and deaths from overdoses, reduced the risk of HIV and hepatitis C transmission, and increased the chances of directing drug users to addiction treatment services," said Elliott. "Instead of mounting a public misinformation campaign, Minister Clement and his government should be sharing these facts with Canadians to explain why funding harm reduction programs like Insite is a responsible investment in public health."

[grandbaby]

http://canadianpress.google.com/arti...vS4g21o5Ak6H4g

[top]Harper government to unveil get-tough national drug strategy

OTTAWA - Health Minister Tony Clement will announce the Conservative government's anti-drug strategy this week with a stark warning: "the party's over" for illicit drug users.

"In the next few days, we're going to be back in the business of an anti-drug strategy," Clement told The Canadian Press.

"In that sense, the party's over."

Shortly after taking office early last year, the Conservatives decided not to go ahead with a Liberal bill to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana.

Since then, the number of people arrested for smoking pot has jumped dramatically in several Canadian cities, in some cases jumping by more than one third.

Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa and Halifax all reported increases of between 20 and 50 per cent in 2006 of arrests for possession of cannabis, compared with the previous year.

As a result thousands of people were charged with a criminal offence that, under the previous Liberal government, was on the verge of being classified as a misdemeanour.

Police forces said many young people were under the impression that the decriminalization bill had already passed and were smoking up more boldly than they've ever done before.

Clement says his government wants to clear up the uncertainty

"There's been a lot of mixed messages going out about illicit drugs," Clement said in an interview Saturday after a symposium designed to bring together Canada's arts and health communities to combat mental health issues.

There's also a health-care cost element to suggesting to young people that using illicit drugs is OK, the minister said.
"The fact of the matter is they're unhealthy," Clement said. "They create poor health outcomes."

For too long, Clement argues, governments in Canada have been sending the wrong message about drug use. It's time, he says, to take a tougher approach to dealing with the problem.

"There hasn't been a meaningful retooling of our strategy to tackle illicit drugs in over 20 years in this country," Clement said.

"We're going to be into a different world and take tackling these issues very seriously because (of) the impact on the health and safety of our kids."

The Conservatives' wide-ranging $64 million anti-drug strategy is expected to combine treatment and prevention programs with stiffer penalties for illicit drug use, and a crackdown at the border against drug smuggling.

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson and Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day will join Clement in announcing the plan as part of a range of initiatives to be unveiled by the Tories surrounding next month's throne speech.

Clement said treatment and prevention programs were his key priorities for the health element of the drug strategy.
"Yes, there's a justice issue to that," he said. "But there's also a treatment issue, there's also a prevention issue."

Clement has suggested in the past that he opposes so-called harm reduction strategies for combating illegal drug use, including safe-injection sites where nurses provide addicts with clean needles and a safe place to use drugs.

At a Canadian Medical Association meeting last month, he was quoted saying "harm reduction, in a sense, takes many forms. To me, prevention is harm reduction. Treatment is harm reduction. Enforcement is harm reduction."

The following day, a petition signed by over 130 physicians and scientists was released, condemning the Conservative government's "potentially deadly" misrepresentation of the positive evidence for harm reduction programs.

Vancouver's Insite safe injection clinic is facing a December 31 deadline for the renewal of a federal exemption that allows it to operate.

Critics of the Conservative government's approach to illicit drug use say the federal government would be making a serious mistake by failing to renew the exemption.

"I think there's very little chance that Mr. Clement will extend the safe injection site's permit to continue," says Dr. Keith Martin, a British Columbia Liberal MP and former substance-abuse physician. "But in doing that they will be essentially committing murder."

Advocates say safe-injection sites help to prevent the spread of serious diseases, including AIDS and Hepatitis by preventing users from sharing needles while opponents say the sites simply promote illegal drug use.

Martin says he's all for increasing penalties for people who sell illegal drugs, including gangsters, but wonders why the Tories would want to target users when he says similar strategies in other countries haven't worked.

"I can't understand why the Conservatives are embracing a war-on-drugs approach that has proven to fail," he said.
"By all means, go after the pushers. By all means, absolutely go after the organized crime gangs that are the real parasites in this situation," he added.

"But for heaven's sake, treat the user as a medical problem and adopt the solutions that have proven to work in other countries."

[grandbaby]

http://www.canada.com/topics/news/na...d8ebaf&k=31298

Tougher drug stance gets thumbs up from police group
Mike De Souza
CanWest News Service
Monday, October 01, 2007

OTTAWA -- The Canadian Police Association is giving a thumbs up to the Harper government for promising to get tough on drugs through a new strategy that is expected to be unveiled this week.

"That is a cornerstone, because a lot of violence is related to drugs," said the association's president Tony Cannavino, following a ceremony on Parliament Hill on Sunday to honour officers who had lost their lives on the job. "The message sent years ago, with the (marijuana) decriminalization bill, created a lot of problems. A lot of kids and adults think that it's legalized in Canada, which it's not and it sent mixed messages here. So we needed to address it really strongly."

Although the previous Liberal government tabled legislation to decriminalize possession of small quantities of marijuana, the federal Conservatives dropped the bill when they took office and it was never adopted.

The association, that represents more than 50,000 personnel serving in 170 police departments across Canada, has said it isn't opposed to alternative measures, such as issuing a fine, to deal with minor incidents of possession of small quantities of marijuana instead of criminal charges. However, it has called for stronger legislation and a new system of graduated consequences to prevent and deter drug use.

In the last federal budget, the government announced it would invest $64-million in a new national anti-drug strategy. The money would be divided into three categories with about $10 million for prevention, while $32 million would be spent on treatment for drug addicts and $22 million in new resources to crack down on production and dealers.

Clement has said the new strategy would include an education program that warns young Canadians and their parents that "there are no 'safe' amounts," and no "safe drugs."

"We will highlight the fact that for young people, having impaired judgment is a safety issue," he told the Canadian Public Health Association on Sept. 16. "We will encourage them to stay alert, stay engaged, and take full advantage of every opportunity Canada has to offer them."

In his speech, he added that Canada had not developed a national campaign or strategy to fight drugs in 20 years, and was now left with the highest rate of marijuana users -16.8 per cent of Canadians between the ages of 15 and 64 - among developed countries, according to new statistics from the United Nations.

He also noted that many drugs can take a serious toll on human health. While marijuana consumption can cause respiratory problems and has even been linked to schizophrenia, other drugs such as cocaine can increase the risk of stroke or respiratory arrest, while ecstasy can cause liver damage, Clement added.

While some critics have been concerned that the plan would put lives at risk by killing such harm-reduction programs as the safe injection site in Vancouver, Cannavino insisted his association had worked closely with the government to develop a multi-pronged approach that includes education, prevention and therapy.

"If they didn't have anybody to buy it, they wouldn't be selling it," said Cannavino. "It's not scaring them. People are intelligent. Give them the proper information and they'll know what to do with that."

[MrG]

Originally Posted by grandbaby

In his speech, he added that Canada had not developed a national campaign or strategy to fight drugs in 20 years, and was now left with the highest rate of marijuana users -16.8 per cent of Canadians between the ages of 15 and 64 - among developed countries, according to new statistics from the United Nations.

Yeah?And?So?What?

Canada has the highest rate of marijuana users, according to that statement, but it doesn't bother explaining why that might be a bad thing, it just infers that it is by the phrase "and was now left with the highest rate of marijuana users".

and was now left with the highest rate of murderers?
and was now left with the highest rate of rapists?
and was now left with the highest rate of violent gangs?
and was now left with the highest rate of assault?

No, just a largish section of their society who like to toke the odd spliff.

Reason enough to go all WoD on their ass?

[Nacumen]

Originally Posted by grandbaby

[Clement] also noted that many drugs can take a serious toll on human health [...] ecstasy can cause liver damage, [he] added.

[...]

"People are intelligent. Give them the proper information and they'll know what to do with that," [said Cannavino.]

I think that says it all right there.

[Nagognog2]

Yep. Vote Harpy straight out of office. Let him float around on his yacht and beat his wife & kids with a bottle of Jack Daniels in his hand while his wife pops a cap of MDMA and calls a lawyer to file for divorce...

Reputation Comments on this post:

amen to that!

[Lunar Loops]

Could this man be any more right wing? Does he have any idea of reality? His comments about his son asking him about Beatles lyrics are priceless.

This from The Globe & Mail :

A $64-MILLION STRATEGY
Harper takes aim at drug culture


GLORIA GALLOWAY
October 5, 2007


Canada has become too drug-friendly and it's time for a culture change, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said yesterday as he laid out his government's get-tough strategy for reducing the use of illegal substances.
Police and others fighting the battle against drug abuse are up against a culture that "since the 1960s" has done little to discourage drug abuse and "often romanticized it - romanticized it or made it cool, made it acceptable," Mr. Harper said.
"As a father I don't say all these things blamelessly. My son is listening to my Beatles records and asking me what all these lyrics mean. It's just there, it's out there. I love these records and I'm not putting them away. But, that said, there has been a culture that has not fought drug use and that's what we're all up against."
Mr. Harper, flanked by Health Minister Tony Clement and Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day, announced his new two-year, $64-million anti-drug strategy at a Salvation Army building in Winnipeg.
Two-thirds of that money will go to prevention and treatment programs and the rest will be used to beef up enforcement, including the introduction of new mandatory minimum sentences for an unspecified slate of drug crimes.
The Conservatives say they will create an awareness campaign targeted at young people and their parents, fund new treatment services and launch a national youth intervention program to divert young drug users into assessment and treatment programs instead of detention.
On the enforcement side, they plan to direct resources at identifying and closing down grow-ops, pay for more enforcement measures at the border and ramp up the RCMP's Proceeds of Crime Program.
Gone are any musings, such as those of the previous Liberal government, about decriminalization of so-called softer drugs such as marijuana.
Critics have ripped apart the government's strategy on many fronts, especially Mr. Harper's unwillingness to embrace harm-reduction measures such as those offered at Insite, Vancouver's safe-injection site. It allows addicts to safely inject illegal dugs and connect with health professionals who can direct them toward treatment.
The government this week extended funding to that program but only for six months so it can be further studied.
"I remain a skeptic that you can tell people that we won't stop the drug trade, we won't get you off drugs, we won't even send messages to discourage drug use but somehow we will keep you addicted but reduce the harm just the same," Mr. Harper said of the Insite program. "If you remain a drug addict, I don't care how much harm you reduce, you are going to have a short and miserable life."
But Thomas Kerr, a professor in the University of British Columbia's Department of Medicine who has studied Insite and its effect on the prevention of the spread of HIV-AIDS, said Mr. Harper is ignoring the facts.
"The government continues to misrepresent the science around harm reduction. In the case of Insite we have shown that there has been a 33-per-cent increase in the rate of entry into detox programs," Dr. Kerr said. "In no way is the facility perpetuating addiction. In fact, it's helping people quit drug use."
Leon Mar of the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network said education programs, such as the one proposed by the government, have previously proved ineffective. Health Canada's own review of the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program implemented widely across Canada, he said, has shown that the program does not prevent or delay drug use.

[MrG]

I started writing a long drawn out critique of Mr Harper and his unbelievably ignorant ideas about drugs and then halfway through I stopped, deleted it and thought fuck it, this guy is an idiot. There is nothing to be done with people like this.

[grandbaby]

Yeah, it's too bad the Liberals were corrupt and complacent, guaranteeing a Conservative victory in the last election and probably in the next one, too - no matter what dipstick is at the helm. Man, where are all the P.E. Trudeaus nowadays?

[kilgore]

Yup I am Canadian and it is sad our government is as stupid as the US government.

[grandbaby]

[top]What's Harper smoking?

[top]Dan Gardner , The Ottawa Citizen

Published: Saturday, October 06, 2007

Stephen Harper's announcement Thursday of a new national drug strategy served at least one valuable purpose: It conclusively demonstrated that the prime minister knows nothing about drugs or drug policy.

The list of misinformed, misleading or nonsensical statements uttered by Mr. Harper is long and this space short, so let me skip quickly to the highlights.

"If you are addicted to drugs, we'll help you," the prime minister declared, "and if you sell drugs, we'll punish you." This is an understandable sentiment. Dealers are victimizers. Addicts are victims. Punish one, help the other. It seems so obvious -- if you know nothing about illicit drugs.

The fact that drugs are illegal makes them expensive. To buy drugs, addicts on the street have to shell out as much as several hundred dollars each day. Property crime and prostitution are two ways to get that money. But there is a better option for people with an intimate knowledge of the local drug market: Sell drugs.

Thus, the typical street-level dealer is a street-level addict -- and Harper's neat division of the drug world into villainous dealers and victimized addicts is simply nonsense. If the government passes mandatory minimum sentences for dealing, it will wind up punishing the very addicts it says it wants to help. Imagine a man patting a dog with his left hand while slapping it with his right. That is the Conservative drug plan.

Then there's the use of the word "new" in the phrase "new National Anti-Drug Strategy." What precisely is "new" about it? The image of evil pushers and their hapless victims has been a recurring theme of moralizing politicians since the dawn of prohibition a century ago.

Even more familiar is Mr. Harper's juxtaposing of this image with a rejection of harm-reduction measures. In the 1950s, a growing heroin problem in Vancouver -- stop me if you've heard this one before -- prompted a national debate. On one side were doctors who called for a heroin-prescription program. On the other were police officers, who demanded harsher punishments for dealers and mandatory treatment for addicts.

As usual, the cops got their way. Severe sentences for importing and dealing became law in 1961, while people caught in possession of drugs could be given indefinite sentences in specialized treatment facilities. Did it work? At the time the law passed, illicit drugs were still a fringe phenomenon. Even marijuana was rarely seen outside beatnik circles. But then drug use exploded and the psychedelic '60s were born.

Dismayed by the failure of its drug policies, the government struck the LeDain commission to reconsider everything. After a huge amount of research, LeDain called for the decriminalization of marijuana and the creation of a heroin-prescription program. The police were furious. The government balked. And the LeDain report was dropped down the memory hole.

So what does Stephen Harper have to say about this? At the press conference, he complained about drug references in Beatles songs and the fact that drugs have been romanticized "since the 1960s." So naturally he wants to put in place the same policies that failed to stop Lucy from floating into the sky with diamonds -- a conclusion that seems perfectly reasonable, I assume, shortly after one drops acid.

Asked why he wouldn't back harm reduction policies such as supervised injection, Mr. Harper said he is "skeptical." This is encouraging. The essence of skepticism is not accepting something as true until convinced by evidence. That's how public policy should be made.

Now, the harm-reduction policies Mr. Harper questions are supported by a great many peer-reviewed scientific studies, but perhaps Mr. Harper simply has very high evidentiary standards. Again, that's laudable. But what I find harder to understand is that Mr. Harper embraces law enforcement even though the evidence supporting the effectiveness of enforcement is generously described as "slim to none."

So is Mr. Harper a skeptic? Or is he a closed-minded ideologue? I think the evidence is clear.

Invariably, Mr. Harper said, drug addiction must lead to tragedy. "If you remain a drug addict, I don't care how much harm you reduce, you're going to have a short and miserable life."

When William Wilberforce -- the man who defeated the slave trade in the British Parliament -- died in 1833, he was 74 years old. He was also an opium addict.

William Stewart Halsted -- a pioneering surgeon and medical researcher -- was just short of 70 when he died in 1922, despite being a lifelong addict. Halsted started with cocaine. Later, he switched to morphine -- a cousin of heroin -- and for the rest of his long and productive life he took daily injections of the drug.

Of course Halsted, Wilberforce and many others like them lived in a time when all drugs were legal and so they could easily obtain cheap and clean supplies. Not so today. As a result, addiction often leads to bankruptcy, squalor, disease and, as Mr. Harper said, "a short and miserable life."

So on this last point, Mr. Harper isn't entirely wrong, although I'm quite sure the connection between his policies and those short and miserable lives is lost on him. Righteous ignorance does fog the mind.

Dan Gardner writes Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Email: dgardner@thecitizen.canwest.com
© The Ottawa Citizen 2007