SOCIETY HOOKED ON BIGGEST DRUG OF ALL -- STAMPING OUT DRUGS

As long as I can remember, the answer to the drug problem has been the
same. And it's been a spectacular failure.

Enforce! say the police. And if that doesn't work, enforce some more! And
while we're enforcing, making huge drug busts, attending world conferences
and sustaining an immense industry of policemen, sociologists, and social
workers, at the same time we must make sure that addicts have clean needles
to perform their illegal business.

There is an aspect of all this that few seem to want to address. Simply
put, why do we care what people, of their own free will, do to their
bodies? Companies sell tobacco, the most addictive drug of all, and while
we discourage the habit by making it expensive and socially unattractive,
we don't jail either the addicts or their pushers.

As a society we sell alcohol, which is the most costly to society of all
drugs. In terms of carnage on the highways, lost hours of work, broken
homes and dead bodies, booze is easily our most dangerous drug. Again, we
don't jail the user or his pusher. We fantasize that the taxes we collect
are a profit while in fact we pay out four or five times what we take in on
the social consequences.

We have deep-seated prejudices against all the drugs we don't use
ourselves. We stoke up on Martinis or Single Malts, puff on a cigar and
pontificate about those on the Downtown Eastside who inject cocaine. We are
so hypnotized by our own hypocrisy that we've become putty in the hands of
those who demand that we stamp out by force the use of illegal drugs. Even
though we're not going to stamp out anything, we nevertheless devoutly
believe that it's our duty to try to change habits we don't approve of.

In a very real sense, society is hooked on the biggest drug of them all --
stamping out drugs. Even though we're hypocrites and nannies, we insist
that governments spend ever increasing sums out of the public purse on
making people behave as we wish them to.

But, it is stated with certainty by those in the enforcement industry, if
we don't double and redouble our efforts, we will have a drug-crazed
society! Our kids will all be on ecstasy, crack and whatever other drug is
available. Society as we know it will be wiped out.

But in order to say that, you have to assume that a drug, made attractive
by its very illegality, will become even more attractive to kids when there
is no thrill in simply doing something their parents don't want them to.

What do we spend every year on drug enforcement? $1 billion? $10 billion?
Who knows? But the sums must be breathtaking. What would happen if we spent
that money instead on two things -- education and lessening poverty?
Suppose we took the profit out of drugs by letting the supply match the
demand then went to work on the business end of the problem, the demand?

This suggestion will cause the law enforcement industry to set its
collective hair on fire. We will be told that they alone have the answer
and the answer is more and more enforcement. The fact that this policy has
failed and failed miserably will be shoved aside by the assertion that we
just haven't enforced with sufficient vigor and money.

But what if we simply changed our enforcement and did this -- made it an
offence punishable by a minimum of 10 years without parole to sell to a
minor and made it an offence punishable by two years imprisonment without
parole for a minor to sell to a minor.

Would this eliminate the problem?

Of course not. We must accept that we'll never eliminate the problem any
more than we can stop people drinking and smoking. High expectations has
been one of society's difficulties. What we must ask ourselves is a new set
of questions.

Can we minimize hugely expensive crime by taking the profit out of drugs?

Can we, by changing direction, save so much money now spent on enforcement
that we can afford to attack some of the sources of the problem like
inadequate housing and poverty? Will we be able to free up funds to use in
proper education and treatment?

I simply ask this -- if we changed our policy, how could we possible be
worse off?