EUROPE'S APPROACH TO DRUGS IS MORE ENLIGHTENED ... IT'S TOUGHER

In 2006, Governor-General Michaelle Jean was hosting Queen Silvia of
Sweden during the Swedish royal family's visit to Canada when the
topic of illegal drug use came up. The GG told the Queen that Canada
is taking an enlightened approach. Instead of punishing users, she
said, society needs to be understanding of drug use and assist in
reducing harm until the addict is ready to quit.

Alas, the Queen was not impressed. She briskly informed the GG that
Sweden takes a hard-line approach, that users are given a choice
between treatment and jail, and that Sweden's addiction rates are
much lower than Canada's. After that, they changed the subject.

Advocates of harm-reduction measures, such as needle exchanges,
methadone programs and Vancouver's supervised-injection site, often
point to Europe's more enlightened approach to drugs as proof of how
far behind we are in Canada. But parts of Europe are having second
thoughts. Socially progressive Sweden had a brief but disastrous
fling with prescription heroin back in the 1960s. After that, it
embraced the hard-line approach. Today its policy is to make drugs
very difficult to get, but treatment very easy - and sometimes
compulsory. "The vision is that of a society free from narcotic
drugs," says Maria Larsson, the Minister for Public Health.

As a consequence of grassroots support for this policy, drug use in
Sweden is a third of the European average. "The lessons of Sweden's
drug control history should be learned by others," said Antonio Maria
Costa, who heads the UN's Office on Drugs and Crime.

Scotland took a different tack. Drug use is widely tolerated, as you
know if you saw Trainspotting. Rehabilitation programs are scarce,
but the national methadone program has become a vast and ineffective
money-pit. Scotland has more than 50,000 heroin addicts. Drug deaths
have soared, drug-related crime is high, and tens of thousands of
children are growing up with addicted parents. "Methadone has quite
literally become the opiate of the masses," warned Neil McKeganey,
one of Scotland's foremost drug policy experts.

Two months ago, the Scottish government announced a change in
direction. From now on its primary focus will be on "recovery," not
just harm reduction. "Harm reduction ideas have failed in Scotland,"
says Prof. McKeganey. "They have failed to protect injectors from
hepatitis C, failed to reduce the scale of the drug problem, failed
to reduce many of the harms inflicted on others."

The Netherlands is famous for its permissive drug culture, but even
it is not as permissive as it used to be. Although you can still toke
up in marijuana coffee shops, pot remains illegal. A parliamentary
proposal to allow regulated, large-scale marijuana production was
voted down, and the government moved vigorously against the
psychedelic drug ecstasy. Switzerland (which runs
supervised-injection sites but also has thousands of treatment beds)
voted against decriminalizing marijuana. The UK made marijuana
possession semi-legal a few years ago, but experienced an explosion
of pot use among minors, as well as a sharp rise in harmful effects
attributed to more potent strains of weed. It has now reversed course
and reclassified marijuana as a harmful drug.

Like Canada, Australia is experimenting with a supervised-injection
site, in Sydney. The passionate debate over whether it reduces harm
is virtually identical to the one in Canada.

I asked Scotland's Neil McKeganey if he had witnessed the drug scene
in Vancouver, a city that is famous for its harm-reduction approach.
He had. "I was utterly shocked," he said. "I could hardly believe
that in a culturally developed, sophisticated city there could be a
drug problem of such magnitude." In his view, too much emphasis on
harm reduction invariably undermines prevention efforts. "To provide
a setting where someone can inject street drugs is doomed. The next
step is saying, maybe we should be providing them with drugs as well."

The provision of "clean" drugs is, in fact, what many advocates of
Insite want next. "Many individuals who promote harm reduction
believe there's fundamentally nothing wrong with drug use, except the
fact that it's illegal," says Prof. McKeganey.

Every nation is different, and drug policies that work in one place
may not work in another. But to him, Vancouver is a clear case study
in what not to do. "It's a harbinger of what other cities could
experience if they do not develop effective prevention methods."

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FOUR-PART SERIES

LAST SATURDAY Three million needles a year

TUESDAY Insite: What the science really says

TODAY Sweden and Scotland's U-turn on drugs

THIS SATURDAY Next stop: Legalization?