EX-MP SLAMS NEGLECT OF 'PREVENTION' PILLAR

Harper Needs To Rethink Drug Strategy

Former Tory MP Randy White is calling on his old boss to reconsider
Canada's national drug strategy.

White is president of the Drug Prevention Network of Canada, which
yesterday issued a report by Dr. Colin Mangham called "The Hijacking
of Drug Policy in Canada -- Implications and a Call to Action."

Mangham, with 27 years of experience in substance-abuse prevention in
Canada, takes aim at current Canadian drug strategy: "This is drug
policy that facilitates drug use. It is not drug policy to truly help
individuals, families and communities."

White agrees.

"What [Mangham is] saying is prevention is basically being neglected," he said.

White thinks Prime Minister Stephen Harper needs to do something
about a situation where harm reduction -- Vancouver's safe-injection
site, for example -- is getting more attention than treatment,
prevention and enforcement.

"If [Harper is] going to live by his word, what he said was his
government will develop a national drug strategy that works," said White.

But there was no mention of such a strategy in the recent budget.

"That is one of the reasons why the Drug Prevention Network is
bringing things like this out right now," said White.

Sen. Larry Campbell, who pushed harm reduction and the Four Pillars
strategy during his term as mayor of Vancouver, said yesterday that
"at any given time, one pillar will be busier than the other."

Like White, he too would like to see more action from the federal government.

"I would welcome anything the federal government would do to
strengthen all of the pillars," said Campbell.

"It would be great to have a lot more money flowing into treatment."