JAIL NOT ANSWER IN DRUG BATTLE

The Safe Streets Safe Cities conference, which begins today and runs
through Thursday, will tackle chronic social problems afflicting
urban society and propose ways to make cities safe. International
experts will examine modern scourges, including drugs, crime,
prostitution, poverty and homelessness. See safestreetssafecities.com
for details.

The "war on drugs" doesn't work. The facts from the United States
show it's a disaster and countries cannot jail their way out of defeat.

In every major city across Canada and around the world, prohibition
has proven to be a bust. The consensus globally is that drug policy
reform is the only way to go.

We can't ignore drugs but we can and must manage drugs. The users are
sick, many are teenagers, and Canada has a national health-care
system to help them.

The drug dealers and pushers are evil and must go before the courts
for stiff jail sentences. The system isn't working to change the
reality that illegal drugs are a public health and public safety issue.

We need to put drugs into a regulated market environment. Governments
control gambling, tobacco, alcohol, morphine and codeine. It's time
they did the same thing with street drugs and introduced a program to
regulate them.

When crack cocaine seriously surfaced in the mid-1990s, associated
crime and suffering jumped. As mayor of Vancouver, I realized that
the status quo wasn't on.

The people wanted change, but the federal government had no protocol
and no programs that worked. We moved toward a reasoned solution,
establishing a dialogue with more than 40 different groups and voices
throughout the city.

We borrowed from other countries that had seen some success such as
Germany and Switzerland, which provided treatment on demand.

As a result, Vancouver developed the Four Pillars Document, which
focused on prevention, treatment, enforcement and harm-reduction.

Prevention includes early education in the schools. There are
effective programs for students about smoking, drinking and sex
education, but minimal ones on drugs. These kids are smart; they can
be informed.

Treatment involves options and programs for those on drugs. All drug
addicts go through phases when they can't stand it anymore.

Treatment on demand must be available. It works in Switzerland, where
it is the law.

Harm reduction applies to both the community and the user. Safe
injection sites, needle exchanges as well as many other
harm-reduction programs have proven to be supportable and effective in Europe.

In Canada, the federal government authorized safe injection sites for
Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal in 2003.

In Vancouver, the changes were huge: deaths due to overdoses dropped
from 191 to 47 in less than two years.

It's crucial to separate the user from the dealer and get early
contact and early intervention. That's far more successful -- and
less complex -- than trying to rehabilitate a six-year user.

The potential to rehabilitate through innovative drug programs and
treatments could ultimately lead to far less jail time with only the
habitual criminal and dealer behind bars. The reality is that 80 per
cent of crimes are caused by just five per cent of the criminal population.

Rehabilitation in jail should involve drug treatments and education
programs. Put those convicted into workshops where they talk about
their behaviour and avenues for change.

The goal is abstinence, but that's not completely realistic. We
expect the courts to solve the drug problem. Judges, who are simply
interpreting the la w, get criticized for lenient sentencing.

We can't just hope that drugs will go away and leave the whole
activity to organized crime and unregulated dealers.

That's what we have now.

The global drug trade is a multibillion-dollar enterprise, especially
benefiting terrorists and insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In 2003, U.S. President George W. Bush said America wasn't going to
allow drugs into the country. Yet the following year, $7.1 billion
worth of heroin landed in the U.S. from Afghanistan.

Marijuana, which should be decriminalized, is a minor drug compared
to the highly addictive hard drugs. Canadians want separate
discussions about hard and soft drugs. (See the reports of both the
House of Commons and the Senate from the fall of 2002.)

To seriously tackle hard drugs, every city in Canada, and indeed,
North America, needs to adopt Vancouver's Four Pillars approach. The
results are in; it works.