HONESTY IS THE BEST POLICY WHEN IT COMES TO DRUG USE

VANCOUVER - The bravest and, I'd argue, most revolutionary report to
come out of Vancouver City Hall may also be the most drIly entitled:
Preventing Harm from Psychoactive Substance Use.

It was co-authored by the city's drug policy co-ordinator Donald
MacPherson and social planner Zarina Mulla. When their report was made
public this month, the resulting media coverage concentrated on the
recommendation to legalize and regulate the sale of marijuana. That
emphasis on marijuana was a shame, since the report wasn't about
legalization. It was about the nature of governance. For that, the
report deserved a much closer reading than it got, starting with its
title.

Notice, it doesn't use the accepted phrase "substance abuse" -- which
has always had a scolding connotation, suggesting the traditional
paternalistic government view that drugs are bad for you, and
government is going to protect you against them whether you like it or
not. Instead, it uses the less judgmental and open-ended phrase,
"substance use."

That shift, which may seem like a small thing, is actually at the core
of the report's importance. It finds expression over and over in its
pages. Some examples:

"It is acknowledged that the use of psychoactive substances is part of
human behaviour."

"The plan acknowledges that substance use is pervasive in contemporary
society and prevention initiatives should clearly focus on the
prevention of harm from substance use."

Got that? Hear the breathtaking candour and honesty in that? It admits
what we all know: We like drugs. Here is a bureaucracy speaking to us
candidly, stating the obvious rather than keep up the usual
schoolmarmish pretense of moral rigour. It is admitting that we, for
better and worse, are a drug-saturated society, and that government,
rather than act as an agent of censure and punishment, would be better
to take a more active role in education, treatment and moral suasion.

It implicitly recognizes the hypocrisy of those who, regarding
legalized pot as the end of civilization as we know it, daily calm
their nerves with two bottles of wine and a half a pack of cigarettes.
It would desist from telling its citizens what substances they should
or should not put in their bodies, but instead counsel them on the
wise use of those substances.

"Prohibition," states the report, "ironically allows unregulated
access to those substances that are prohibited and hampers efforts to
develop quality educational approaches that address issues of harm