DRUG POLICY OFFERS SAME OLD FAILURES

'Fresh Approach' Continues Enforcement Focus Despite Decades Of
Costly, Futile Efforts

Prime Minister Stephen Harper bills his new national anti-drug
strategy as a fresh approach to the country's growing drug problem.
Unfortunately, it is neither new nor different. The strategy
continues the enforcement-focused policies of previous governments
and misses opportunities to strike out in new directions.

Harper said last week the federal government will introduce
legislation this fall setting out mandatory minimum sentences for
people convicted of "serious" drug crimes. The $64-million national
anti-drug strategy also promises more resources for closing down
marijuana grow-ops.

About $22 million of the funding would go toward enforcement, while
about $32 million would be for treatment and $10 million for
prevention in the form of an awareness campaign. Those figures,
however, represent only the new money Harper is providing.

Since enforcement currently makes up more than three-quarters of the
government's spending in the fight against drugs, it remains the
linchpin in the Tories' strategy.

That's unfortunate, because focusing on enforcement has been proven a
failed strategy. It hasn't worked here, and it clearly hasn't worked
in the U.S. -- despite that country spending nearly $13 billion on
the problem last year.

The Conservatives have fallen into the old trap of using the criminal
justice system to treat what is, in the end, a health problem. And
with less than a quarter of the government's spending addressing
treatment and prevention, that isn't likely to change.

It's troubling that the government has gone further down this same
road, which has proven fruitless in the past. And it's unfortunate
the Tories are continuing their crackdown on marijuana operations,
when the money is more urgently needed to fight the scourge of harder
drugs such as meth and crack cocaine.

Even when the Tories do attack the hard-drug issue, as they try to do
by calling for mandatory sentences for convicted coke and meth
dealers, they mirror the failed U.S. approach. Many American
jurisdictions are now abandoning mandatory sentences, saying they
have failed to reduce drug use and have exploded the numbers of
non-violent offenders in their prison system.

The government should take a step back from its proposal and consider
spending less on enforcement and more on the root of the problem --
prevention, harm reduction and treatment. Only then can the Tories
honestly say they have taken this country down a new road to solving
the drug problem.