Report Calls For Decriminalizing Both ‘Hard’ And ‘Soft’ Drugs

[Canadense]

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Report calls for decriminalizing both ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ drugs

Coalition of drug policy experts denounces Ottawa’s aggressive war on drugs

OTTAWA — The personal use of illegal drugs, including heroin and
crack cocaine, should be decriminalized as part of a federal-provincial
strategy to tackle drug abuse, a B.C.-based national coalition of drug
policy experts argue.

In a report to be released Thursday, the
coalition denounces the Harper government’s aggressive war on drugs,
which puts the emphasis on law enforcement while steering money away
from harm-reduction initiatives like Vancouver’s supervised injection
site.

“While countries all around the world are adopting
forward-thinking, evidence-based drug policies, Canada is taking a step
backwards and strengthening punitive policies that have been proven to
fail,” states a summary of the 112-page report from the Canadian Drug
Policy Coalition, which is based at Simon Fraser University’s Centre for
Applied Research in Mental Health and Addiction.

The “stunning
display of unimaginative thinking” has failed to decrease the flow of
drugs into Canada while hampering efforts to deal with drug-related
health problems.

“Despite Canada’s significant investment in drug
control efforts, drugs are cheaper and more available than ever,” the
report notes.

Among the recommendations is a call to legalize,
regulate and tax the sale of marijuana to adults, taking advantage of an
underground business that generates an estimated $357 million in annual
sales in B.C. alone, according to the authors.

By far the most
controversial recommendation calls for the end to prohibition of not
only “soft” drugs like marijuana, but products like heroin, cocaine and
methamphetamines.

The report notes that at least 25 jurisdictions
in the world have moved to decriminalize at least some drugs, with
Portugal (in 2001) and the Czech Republic (in 2010) ending criminal bans
for all drugs.

“After decriminalization and similar to Portugal,
drug use (among Czechs) has not increased significantly but the social
harms of drug use have declined,” the report stated.

“In Portugal,
decriminalization has had the effect of decreasing the numbers of
people injecting drugs, decreasing the number of people using drugs
problematically, and decreasing trends of drug use among 15 to 24 year
olds.”

The coalition lists as its “partners” more than 70
organizations, including the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, the
Central Alberta AIDS Network Society, the Canadian Cancer Survivor
Network, and the Canadian Association of Nurses in AIDS Care.

Its
report is harshly critical of the federal government’s anti-drug and
tough-on-crime policies introduced since Stephen Harper became prime
minister in 2006, including minimum mandatory sentences for certain drug
offences.

Among the targets is the five-year National Anti-Drug
Strategy, which was renewed for another five years in 2012 at a cost of
$528 million. The program devotes most of its money (roughly 70 per
cent) to law enforcement, according to the report.

It also goes
after the Canadian Forces’ substantial investment in counter-narcotics
missions in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific, involving
warships and aircraft operating with U.S. forces.

It complains
about the lack of support of, and in the case of the Vancouver
supervised injection site aggressive opposition to, “harm-reduction”
programs like needle exchanges that “save lives and protect everyone’s
health,” according to the Newfoundland AIDS Committee.

The Harper
government has never flinched from its strong support for get-tough
measures against drug offences, often sneering at academic studies
suggesting that its measures, while popular among many Conservative
party supporters, had debatable or even counterproductive results.

In
2007, for instance, then-health minister Tony Clement declared that the
“party’s over” while speaking of his party’s contempt for the former
Liberal government’s approach to illicit drug use.

The coalition
report cites 2011 Health Canada statistics indicating that B.C. has the
highest percentage of people who have used marijuana at least once in
their lives, with the B.C. rate of 44.3 per cent well above the national
average of 39.4 per cent.

Health Canada said 12.1 per cent of
British Columbians said they smoked pot over the past year, second to
Nova Scotia’s 12.4 per cent and well above the national average of 9.1
per cent.

[Joao Pe de Feijao]

B.C. Rules !!!