EMERY VICTIM NOT POSTER CHILD

Dear editor,

Cameron MacLean is to be commended for his thoughtful piece, "Marc Emery:
poster child for the U.S. war on drugs," in the Feb. 7 issue of the Uniter.
Marc Emery is a high profile victim of America's misguided and notoriously
flawed 'war on drugs,' which has now begun to rear its ugly head in the
policies and rhetoric of Steven Harper's federal Conservative government. As
a representative of the University of Winnipeg's chapter of Canadian
Students for Sensible Drug Policy (CSSDP), I feel it is my responsibility to
point out that the nascent Canadian version of the 'war on drugs'-coming in
the form of proposed legislation such as Bill C-26, with its promises of a
tougher stance on illegal substances through an increased emphasis on law
enforcement-is destined to fail. It is either naive or deceitful of Harper's
Conservatives to suggest that implementing such policies will bring about
meaningful and positive change in drug use and distribution within Canada,
when the American legislation upon which such policies are based has had the
opposite effect.

The Conservative anti-drug strategy has dangerous implications for
many Canadians due to its heavy-handedness and overemphasis on
enforcement and punishment. First, the 2007 federal budget contained
an increase of $21.6 million towards law enforcement, this on top of
the 73 per cent allowance enforcement already comprises in the $385
million allotted annually to the federal drug strategy.

The second prong of the Conservative strategy, as mentioned in the
MacLean editorial, is Bill C-26, which many researchers and academics
have vehemently criticized. This bill follows the 'tough on crime'
stance for which the Conservatives have so much affinity, imposing
(among other ludicrous amendments to the drug strategy) nearly the
same mandatory minimum sentences for the production of marijuana (1-2
years) as for the production of heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine
(1-3 years).

Perhaps the most valuable argument against such a militant drug
strategy-with the U.S.'s failed drug war as evidence-is that an
increase in policing, arrests, jail sentences, prison building and
other such draconian measures simply do not curb drug use and the
threats to society that result from it. The only consistently
documented effect of this type of strategy is that it drives the
profit margins of those who produce illegal substances higher, making
the organized criminal production and distribution of illegal
substances ever more lucrative.

Since organized crime syndicates are nearly impossible for law
enforcement officials to infiltrate, the Conservative anti-drug
strategy will, by necessity, continue the trend of focusing on
low-level dealers and producers while allowing the organized criminal
element to reap the benefits.

Furthermore, the imposition of mandatory minimum prison sentences
shows the federal government's lack of trust in the judiciary's
ability to fulfill its duty, not to mention the backlog such policies
will cause in our already choked criminal court system.

The public funds needed to sustain this strategy will be astronomical,
and as the decades-old American strategy has shown, deterrence to drug
production, distribution and use will be virtually non-existent. The
police will be busy and the jails will be full, but until the federal
government realizes what countless citizens, academics, researchers,
and even law enforcement officials have already concluded-that the
causes and effects of the illegal drug trade should be understood as
an overarching health and socio-economic issue rather than one of
criminal justice-the profiteering and tragedies inherent to such dated
drug policy will continue without hindrance.

Andrew Tod, Media and Promotions Officer

CSSDP: University of Winnipeg