TORY DRUG PLAN PANNED BEFORE ANNOUNCEMENT

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 party 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 New Democratic Party critics said Wednesday.

Vancouver Liberal MP Keith Martin, a surgeon, and New Democratic
Party MP Libby Davies, her party's drug policy critic, used similar
terms in separate interviews about the $64-million plan.

Martin said that marijuana and hard drugs like 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 parents and aimed in part at clearing
up what Health Minister Tony Clement has said is "confusion" about
the safety and legality of marijuana.

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