OUR DRUG LAWS ARE IGNORING A FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE

MP Paul Szabo alleges that the "health and social experts" who appeared in
1994-95 before his health subcommittee on the bill that became our drug
laws were "in total concensus" that drug "legalization" would be a "terrible
direction to go in". I beg to differ.("Day seeks free vote on drug
legalization", Sept. 20)

Neither the Canadian Foundation for Drug Policy that I represented at those
hearings in 1994, nor the Canadian Bar Association, nor several other
respected groups of "health and social experts," ever took the position he
recalls.

His characterization of the debate on the issue is all the more troubling,
since in 1996 I restated our position before a House of Commons health
committee examining drug policy. Mr Szabo was a member of that committee as
well. Looks like selective amnesia to me.

The Canadian Foundation for Drug Policy, like many other organizations,
decries our intractable dependence on criminal prohibition to deal with
drug use.

Mr. Szabo and his party colleagues should read - or read again - the
excellent series by Dan Gardner on "Losing the War on Drugs".

They might also reflect on the federal government's 1982 statement on using
the criminal law. That statement, drafted by our prime minister when he was
minister of justice, maintained that the criminal law should deal only with
conduct for which other means of social control are inadequate or
inappropriate. Our drug laws totally ignore this fundamental principle.

Eugene Oscapella,
Ottawa,
Canadian Foundation for Drug Policy