WAR ON DRUGS NEEDS TO BE RELENTLESS

Is it time for Canada and the United States to run up a white flag of
surrender in the so-called "war on drugs?"

Patrick Basham thinks so. In the introduction to a Fraser Institute report,
Sensible Solutions to the Urban Drug Problem, he charges: "Drug prohibition
reflects our failure to learn from history; drug prohibition causes crime;
drug prohibition corrupts police officers; drug prohibition violates civil
liberties and individual rights; drug prohibition throws good money after
bad; and drug prohibition weakens -- at times, even destroys -- families,
neighbourhoods, and communities."

In support of this indictment, Basham claims Britain, Canada and the United
States did not have a serious drug problem at the beginning of the 20th
century when it was legal to buy and sell cocaine, opium, morphine and
other now illegal drugs. Is that so? Why, then, did Canada prohibit these
drugs in 1913 and the United States decide to do the same a year later?

Basham cites three factors: anti-Chinese racism, Christian activism and
medical doctors, "Who desired a professional monopoly over the legal
dispensation of these drugs." Isn't that amazing? Who would have thought
our drug laws were the product of venal, anti-Chinese, Christian bigotry?

While Basham argues the legalization of drugs would reduce crime rates,
other authorities are skeptical. James Q. Wilson, an eminent criminologist
at the University of California, estimates with legalization, the cost of
drugs would plummet about 50-fold and general drug consumption would
increase about five fold. As a result, we could end up with a corresponding
increase in the number of unemployable, zonked-out addicts who would commit
even more robberies, impaired-driving offences and other drug-related
crimes than we have already.

Basham's suggestion drug prohibition violates individual rights is absurd.
The best that can be said for this proposition is it's consistent with the
wrongheaded libertarian view people have a right to commit suicide, hire a
prostitute and view the filthiest pornography.

One of Basham's key points is no matter how much resources are poured into
the campaign to curb drug abuse, the war on drugs cannot be won. So what?

The same can be said for every prohibition in the criminal code. No war on
any crime can ever be won. At best, the police and the courts can only help
curb rape, robbery, drug abuse and other crimes at a reasonable cost.

How, then, is the campaign against illegal drugs doing? Basham
sarcastically observes: "In British Columbia, the war on drugs has been
such an overwhelming 'success' that, today, one in 10 residents now either
smoke or grow marijuana or both."

Actually, that's exceedingly good news. Despite all the pro-marijuana
propaganda on the West Coast, 90 per cent of the population neither smokes
nor grows the noxious weed.

Still, there is no cause for complacency: The incidence of marijuana
smoking in Canada is higher today than 10 years ago. "Among American high
school students," notes Basham, "use of marijuana more than doubled during
the last decade."

Consider, though, the longer-term trend. The proportion of Grade 12
students in the United States who had smoked marijuana within the previous
12 months was 36.5 per cent in 2000, up from 21.9 per cent in 1992, but
still far below the peak of 50.8 per cent in 1979.

What caused this reversal in the downward trend in illegal drug abuse
during the 1980s? Was this disaster related to the election in 1992 of a
pot-smoking, albeit non-inhaling, scoundrel as president of the United States?

Be that as it may, the United States now has a new and markedly different
president in George W. Bush. With the overwhelming support of Democrats and
Republicans in Congress, he is leading a reinvigorated campaign to curb
drug abuse

Bush insists: "We must reduce drug use for one great moral reason -- over
time drugs rob men, women and children of their dignity and of their
character. Illegal drugs are the enemies of innocence and ambition and hope.

"They undermine people's commitment to their family and to their fellow
citizens. My administration will send a clear and consistent message that
drug use is dangerous and drug use is wrong."

Meanwhile, Canada's lacklustre Prime Minister Jean Chretien says the
decriminalization of marijuana, "is not part of the government's agenda at
this time."

How reassuring.