CITY DRUG POLICY AT ODDS WITH HARPER'S ANNOUNCED PLANS

Despite a supervised injection clinic that has reduced overdose
deaths, the national policy will be a back-to-the-future solution

Why does Vancouver seem so out of step with the rest of the country
when it comes to drug policy?

For a decade now, this city has led the nation in new approaches to
the persistent and pernicious problem of illegal substance abuse.

The authorities have established the experimental Insite supervised
injection clinic and they turn a blind eye to a plethora of marijuana
cafes for those who smoke.

There is a pilot drug treatment court to provide a less punitive
approach to those who support their addiction through crime.

Researchers tell us these harm reduction measures have reduced
overdose deaths and produced other benefits, as well.

A community court is in the offing, again to deal with the offender
as a person who needs help coping not simply to view him or her as a
"criminal" to be packed off to prison.

Again, because there is growing understanding that neither addiction
nor crime is a lifestyle choice.

There is widespread acknowledgement the province needs more treatment
beds and a more holistic approach to addiction and the petty crime
that feeds it.

Former Vancouver mayor Philip Owen at the end of the 20th century
started the city down this rough, rocky road of looking for a more
effective approach to the drug problem. He introduced the Four
Pillars harm reduction strategy.

Senator Larry Campbell championed those ideas when he assumed the
mayor's office and continues to do so with vigour.

Of course, Mayor Sam Sullivan still carries the torch.

No one has a panacea; there does not appear to be a silver bullet.
There is a dawning realization that it will require a basket of
solutions and a multi-faceted approach.

As a result, Owen was one of numerous figures who lamented the
single-toned national anti-drug strategy unveiled last week by Prime
Minister Stephen Harper.

It was a back-to-the-future plan and by implication an indictment of
all we have been doing on the West Coast.

For some reason, Harper and a good swath of the rest of Canada
apparently think we have been smoking too much B.C. Bud.

The answer to our drug problem is simple in their view -- quit sparing the rod.

The prime minister pooh-poohed the harm reduction approach Vancouver
has championed and insisted more punishment is needed -- stiffer,
mandatory sentences for serious drug crimes.

Harper swept aside, for example, the mountain of evidence (which
includes a widely hailed study by the Fraser Institute) that
indicates the criminal prohibition of marijuana enriches criminals,
endangers our communities and breeds disrespect for the law.

He dismissed as carping criticism that his $63.8-million anti-drug
strategy perpetuates the same law-and-order policies that have been
an abject failure for a century.

In the Conservative leader's mind, we need to sound the unequivocal
message that illicit drug abuse will not be tolerated.

As a result, most of the money committed under this initiative is
going to law enforcement and spin rather than treatment.

B.C.'s share of the national budget will pay for 10 detox beds,
forget about ongoing recovery programs.

I thought throwing $10 million to an advertising industry grown fat
on liquor and cigarette money was a sick joke, especially when booze
is the real drug problem in Canada.

And cigarette smoking, by the way, is a case study in how to target a
health issue and reduce the harm and cost.

We have drastically cut the rate of smoking in Canada without putting
a single person in jail or threatening anyone with a criminal record.
We could do the same with illegal drugs if we turned on the lights
and eliminated the subterranean black market.

That's what many experts have been saying for a long time.

The last major review of the country's drug laws recommended the
opposite approach than suggested by the prime minister. And Tory
Senator Pierre Claude Morin headed it!

Our anti-drug laws are the product of a racist, ignorant time in
which Chinese opium smokers and Mexican marijuana smokers were
targeted but white booze hounds and laudanum junkies ignored.

The drug laws neither reflect the danger posed by a substance nor its
addictive properties. They are capricious as is their enforcement.
They are relics of a bygone age and they should be repealed.

From the 1970s LeDain Commission onward, the advice to Parliament
has been to abandon the failed prohibition and regulate drugs through
a mechanism other than the criminal law.

But the prime minister disagrees -- and his perspective seems to be
supported elsewhere in the country.

I think that's too bad because the evidence suggests that view is
misguided. As counter-intuitive as harm reduction might be, it works.

We don't have consensus in this city about a solution, but we have
been willing to take off blinkers and consider alternatives to a
prohibition policy that is an obvious disaster.

That's a good thing.

We've been wrestling seriously with this issue for a decade.

If we seem out of step with Harper and the rest of Canada, it's
because we are. They've got to catch up.