HARPER'S DRUG PLAN PANNED

It's Just A Copy Of The 'Failed' U.S. War On Drugs

OTTAWA -- A national anti-drug strategy that Prime Minister Stephen
Harper is set to launch in Winnipeg today has been panned in advance
by opposition critics as too ideological.

The government is embracing a U.S.-style "war on drugs" that
approaches drug abuse as more of a criminal matter than a health
issue, Liberal and NDP critics said yesterday.

Victoria Liberal MP Keith Martin, a surgeon, and NDP House leader
Libby Davies, the party's drug-policy critic, both used similar terms
about the $64-million plan.

Martin said that marijuana and hard drugs such as cocaine should not
be equated in "an ideological war on drugs." Davies said Harper is
"caught in an ideological time warp." The plan is expected to include
a major "no safe drugs" education campaign targeted at youth and
aimed in part at clearing up what Health Minister Tony Clement has
said is "confusion" about the safety and legality of pot.

It is neither safe nor legal, he has emphasized, blaming confusion on
a decade of debate about decriminalizing marijuana -- a move
supported by the Liberals and NDP but opposed by the Tories.

Harper, accompanied by Clement, is scheduled to provide details at a
Winnipeg news conference today on the government's promised
$64-million, two-year increase in drug-abuse prevention, treatment
and criminal enforcement.

Clement has said two-thirds of the funds will be directed towards
prevention and treatment, and the remainder toward combating drug
production and distribution.

On the eve of Harper's announcement, both MPs emphasized a need for
harm-reduction programs, such as safe-injection sites and needle
exchanges, which are not expected to play a major, if any, role in
the strategy.

Clement this week gave the Vancouver safe-injection site a six-month
reprieve, to June 30, 2008, but the critics said that was just to get
the controversy over harm-reduction policy off the table for Harper's
announcement.

Davies said given that "umpteen studies" have shown the benefits of
supervised-injection programs, "they want to buy themselves time to
get through an election" without accepting that harm-reduction policies work.