TORIES TALK LOUDLY, CARRY SMALL STICK IN DRUG INITIATIVE

Still not two years on the job, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has yet
to reach Jean Chretien's skill at the politics of "let's not and say we did."

Indeed, he may never equal the master's Kyoto masterpiece, in which
the former Liberal government took the high road on climate change
and then barely look a step along it.

But Harper's drug announcement last week, which sounded as though he
was starting a U.S.-style "war on drugs," but which actually put most
of the hard cash on prevention and harm reduction for drug users,
shows he is learning quickly.

With an election in the offing -- and when everyone in Ottawa talks
non-stop about how Canadians don't want an election, you know it will
be soon -- the prime minister clearly wants to solidify his bona
fides with his political "base."

The old Conservative standby of mandatory minimum sentences is being
dusted off for unspecified drug crimes, although no details have been
offered on which offences are not being treated harshly enough now.

And with an equally predictable education campaign targeting young
people, Harper is signalling to supporters he's ready to have the
firm father-son discussion with Canadians they doubtless feel is long overdue.

Any doubts one might have had about the real target of the drug
initiative were surely dispelled by the prime minister's ludicrous
reference to 1960s Beatles songs as an example of a permissive drug
culture that must be brought to an end.

With the apparent exception of Harper himself, there can't be many
people left in Canada under 50 who still think first of the "fab
four" as an example of pop music threatening civilization as we know
it, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds notwithstanding.

But give the man his due. Responding to overwhelming expert advice
and public opinion in Vancouver, he has backed off at least
temporarily on plans to freeze funding to Vancouver's controversial
safe-injection site for addicts. And for all the tough talk,
two-thirds of his $64-million initiative is being spent on anti-drug
tactics other than enforcement.

Harper haters may question his sincerity, and speculate all they want
about what he will do with that injection site the instant he has his majority.

What he actually said last week was correct: "Interdiction is not enough."

And Harper should be applauded, and held to his word, for insisting
that "our government recognizes that we also have to find new ways to
prevent people from becoming enslaved to drugs and we need new laws
to free them from drugs when they get hooked."

It's worth noting that while the Harper Conservatives would like
voters to contrast them with a soft-on-drugs Liberal party that
planned to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana,
the comparison is a good deal more nuanced.

Indeed, the rap on Liberal policy was that it was too focused on the
sharp end of the stick: Under arrangements renewed in 2003, almost
three quarters of $245 million spent each year is focused on enforcement.

Just as the Tories are actually doing more on climate change than the
Liberals (it would be difficult to do less), so future histories of
Canadian irony may also note that Harper's government is actually
putting more into non-enforcement strategies on drugs than its predecessors.

You can almost hear Jean Chretien humming "ob-la-di, ob-la-da, life
goes on .." as he recovers from heart surgery at home in Ottawa.