EXPLORING SOLUTIONS TO CITY DRUG PROBLEMS

VANCOUVER (CP) -- The U.S. war on drugs is a miserable failure, New Mexico
Gov. Gary Johnson said Wednesday.

"Where I sit as governor of the state of New Mexico ... half of what we
spend on law enforcement, half of what we spend on the courts, half of what
we spend in the prisons is drug-related," Johnson told a news conference.

The governor was among leaders from the business and medical communities and
public policy experts at a symposium to explore the economic case for an
integrated approach to Vancouver's drug problems.

The United States arrests 1.6 million people a year for drug-related crimes,
90 per cent of those for possession only.

Johnson spoke before the Canadian Senate committee that has since
recommended legalizing marijuana use, and believes the decision could
positively impact U.S. drug policy.

The Republican governor said the United States should move away from its
current policy by recognizing illegal drugs are a health problem, not a
criminal justice problem.

Johnson said the United States can't continue to arrest and incarcerate its
way out of the situation.

"When you start talking about harm reduction strategies, when you start
talking about legalization, I think there are going to be a lot of problems
and mistakes made in that process," he said.

"But I'm somebody that believes that 90 per cent of the drug problem is
prohibition-related, not use-related, and that's not to discount the
problems with use."

He said the strategy should be to reduce death, disease and crime, noting
that a needle exchange program in New Mexico had stopped the rise in HIV and
hepatitis C infection rates.

"That ought to be our focus."

But David Brittian, who wrote a report critical of the federal government's
national drug strategy, said Canadians have a superiority complex on drugs.

He said he found that "leadership and co-ordination by the federal
government is poor."

"It is lacking. It seems to vary between what I would call panic and
indifference."

Brittian said other countries do better, including the United States.

"You might argue the Americans are doing the wrong thing, as the governor
says, but they certainly do it well.

"They know exactly where they're going, they know exactly what they're
spending, they know exactly what results they've got, they've got
statistics."

Johnson said the drug users in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver would all
be in prison in the U.S.

"We've arrested all those people in East Vancouver," he said.

"And for the most part they've been arrested so many times now they're into
mandatory sentencing. We've thrown away the key."