RETHINKING DRUG LAWS IS RIGHT PATH

Mexico's eye-opening new approach to drug-abuse law comes just as
Canada is stepping back from decriminalizing marijuana.

In both countries, it must be admitted that the old approach -
treating as a criminal every person caught with even a small amount
of a banned substance - has not produced hoped-for results. The
market for illegal drugs has not declined.

Instead, criminal penalties have filled the jails and created an
enormously profitable business run by people quite willing to use
violence to ensure market share.

In Mexico, furthermore, the war on drugs has produced an appreciable
number of corrupt police officers, prosecutors and politicians.

This lose-lose situation has strong parallels to Prohibition, the ban
on liquor in the U.S. between 1920 and 1933. Prohibition was enacted
to solve the same problems associated with illegal drugs today. It did not.

Among the unintended consequences were increased consumption of
alcohol, increased crime, which also became organized, and decreased
tax revenue.

The loss of tax money was coupled with a steep spike in government
spending as the state battled the demon rum.

There is also U.S. research suggesting that Prohibition was also
responsible for many drinkers, cut off from their drug of choice,
switching from alcohol over to marijuana, cocaine, even heroin or opium.

Despite the evidence of its experiment with Prohibition, the United
States remains wedded to its war on drugs and is unhappy that its
neighbours to the north and south are even thinking of taking a new tack.

In this country, the Harper government has said it will abandon the
late Liberal government's intention to decriminalize small amounts of
marijuana.

The Mexican government, however, caught between violent drug cartels
to its south in Colombia and the world's biggest market for illegal
drugs, the United States, on its northern border, has proposed a law
to decriminalize possession of small amounts of cocaine, heroin,
marijuana, LSD and amphetamines.

Some U.S. officials, such as the mayor of San Diego, have protested
that the Mexican legislation will result in a larger supply of drugs
in the United States.

Mexican President Vicente Fox is not insensitive to U.S. fears. In
fact, he sent the proposed bill back to the Mexican Congress, urging
it to state clearly in the bill that possessing and consuming illegal
drugs will remain a criminal offence.

The United States should take a long look at itself.

More than half of all U.S. prisoners are behind bars for drug-related
offenses. Neither Canada nor Mexico wants to follow in those footsteps.