STRAIGHT TALK ABOUT DRUGS

Swinging the blunt hammer of law enforcement on the heads of drug
addicts is no solution to a major drug problem, and it's one of the
most worrying elements of the federal Conservative government's crime policy.

The Tories are planning a meeting with the United States' federal
"drug czar," John Walters, sometime in the new year, to co-ordinate
policy between our countries. His visit to Canada is now supposed to
follow legislation for a crackdown on drug producers and sellers.

According to figures released two weeks ago by the U.S. Department of
Justice, a record seven million people are imprisoned or on probation
or parole in the United States. From 1995 to 2003, nearly half of the
growth in the prison population was made up of people imprisoned for
drug offences. Spending on drug control goes up every year, and so
does the quantity of drugs on the market, according to the White
House Office of National Drug Control Policy's own figures.

Meanwhile, Vancouver's safe drug injection site has been open for
three years and is awaiting a decision by Health Minister Tony
Clement on whether it can stay open much longer. It provides a clean
room where addicts can inject drugs with new syringes and sterile
water, in order to prevent the spread of disease. A nurse is on hand
and so is at least one addiction counsellor, ready to swing into
action if anyone asks for help getting off drugs.

A short RCMP memo criticizing the experiment confirms that police
officers still don't get it. "The RCMP has concerns regarding any
initiative that lowers the perceived risks associated with drug use
as there is considerable evidence to show that when the perceived
risks associated to drug use decreases, there is a corresponding
increase in number of people using drugs," Staff Sgt. Chuck Doucette
wrote. In other words, the spread of infectious diseases is a useful
tool in the drug war.

In fact, the spread of incurable and infectious diseases imposes huge
costs on the publicly funded health system, and puts innocent people
at risk because the diseases don't confine themselves just to the
drug-using population.

Drug addiction is bad in itself, but it's a public concern mainly
because of these knock-on effects.

Peer-reviewed science, summarized in the current Canadian Medical
Association Journal, shows that Vancouver's safe injection site has
done all anyone could reasonably hope in this regard: reduced the
spread of HIV and other illnesses associated with sharing dirty
needles; increased the number of addicts going into detox; and
reduced the number of overdose deaths.

Drug-related crimes such as assaults and petty thefts are neither up
nor down, while the number of syringes on the ground and addicts
shooting up near the injection site dropped dramatically after it opened.

None of the positive results are of much interest to police, whose
only objective is to eliminate drug use. The injection site doesn't
eliminate drug use, Staff Sgt. Doucette's memo argues, so it's no
good. He'd rather spend money on prevention. Prevention is a good
investment, but doesn't solve the problem that Vancouver, and Canada,
have right now.

Short-sighted thinking like this is why we don't give the police too
much say in setting drug policy. Stephen Harper's government must not do so.