U.S. SHOWS US WHAT NOT TO DO

America's Hardline Approach to Battling Drug Abuse Has Been a Costly Disaster

It's painful to watch the federal government stumble toward a
disastrously wrong path in its search for a solution to the real
problem of drug abuse.

Two separate reports this week suggest the Harper government is at
risk of ignoring science, common sense and experience in developing
its promised national drug strategy.

Internal documents reveal that Ottawa has been consulting with U.S.
government officials on its new drug plan, with "various senior-level
meetings between U.S. officials and ministers/ministers' offices."

Certainly, we share a border with the U.S. and it's important to
brief American officials on Canada's efforts to deal with the drug trade.

But developing a common approach with the U.S. is wrongheaded. The
American enforcement-based war on drugs has been, by any measure, a
costly disaster. Twenty years ago there were about 80,000 drug
offenders in U.S. prisons; today there are 400,000. Federal spending
on anti-drug efforts have climbed from $1.5 billion in 1985 to more
than $20 billion.

And all that effort and money have brought nothing but failure.
Addiction, deaths and crime have increased. Drugs are cheaper and
more readily available. The damage, to individuals, families and
communities, has mounted.

Despite that, the U.S. government has publicly pressured Canada to
follow its failed approach.

Worryingly, the Harper government has echoed the U.S. rhetoric,
stressing enforcement and talking about the need for mandatory
minimum sentences, more enforcement and more jails. More of the same
old failed tactics.

At the same time, Ottawa has been cool to the principle of harm
reduction -- the idea that efforts to help addicts manage their
addictions can improve their lives and increase public safety.

The government, for example, rejected the findings from more than a
dozen serious, peer-reviewed research projects and refused to issue a
new licence for Vancouver's safe-injection site. The research showed
the site had resulted in more people seeking addiction treatment and
reduced overdose deaths, public drug use and the spread of disease.

But the federal government offered only temporary operating approval
for the site, saying more research was needed. Prime Minister Stephen
Harper said he would give particular weight to the RCMP's views on
the pilot project.

This week those views were revealed. A three-page report from the
force's Pacific region drug and organized crime awareness program
attacked the safe-injection site.

There was no research, no facts, statistics or analysis. Just one
officer's impression that things didn't look any better in the area
and the suggestion that the risks of overdose death and HIV infection
are valuable deterrents to drug use.

If this is the information the government prefers to real research,
we are in serious trouble.

There are no easy answers. Enforcement is necessary. So is education,
something that continues to be sorely lacking.

Treatment has to be available for those who want to quit, something
that is not now true. Drug addiction has to be seen as a health and
social issue, not a crime.

And harm-reduction measures, such as the Vancouver injection site and
one proposed for Victoria, should be part of any effective solution.

Drugs are devastating too many Canadian lives and too many
communities. We can't afford to waste time and vast amounts of money
pursuing a strategy that has already proven to be a failure.