Why The War On Drugs Has Failed: Other Ways Of Thinking, Part 11b

EUROPE LEADING THE WAY TO SMARTER DRUG LAWS

Part Two: Addiction Rates, Deaths, Crime Plummet When Users Are No Longer
Considered Criminals

Continued From Part One

Tax is another key element of regulation. Currently, a federal excise tax
is set according to alcohol content, giving producers and consumers an
incentive to favour lower-alcohol liquor. This is one reason why alcohol
today tends to stay at a fairly constant alcohol percentage (usually 40 per
cent for spirits) unlike alcohol under Prohibition, which steadily grew
more potent. The tax levied on legal alcohol also provides governments with
funds that can be used to pay for alcohol education and stricter
enforcement of age restrictions and other regulations, although, in
practice, most governments have simply poured it into general revenues.

In addition to government regulations, the civil law system helps control
legalized drugs. If a distiller produces harmful alcohol, or if a bar owner
negligently serves minors, they won't be liable only to the wrath of
officials. Any victims of this negligence can sue. The risk of financial
ruin is itself a powerful regulator.

The diverse ways that alcohol has been regulated show that the debate over
drug legalization is not, as it is so often portrayed, a choice between
either the status quo of total prohibition or a legalized free-for-all. In
fact, there is a wide spectrum of options between those points.

That experience also shows that the greater the degree of restriction, the
more the black market blossoms. Or, to put that in a more optimistic light,
the greater the degree of liberalization, the greater the degree to which
the black market shrinks. Even today, high alcohol taxes, coupled with a
government near-monopoly on liquor sales, are enough to support a black
market in alcohol in Ontario. That black market is just a tiny fraction of
what it would be if alcohol were banned, but it's not insignificant, and,
like all black markets, it does real harm.

As a general rule, then, more liberal drug policies should be favoured over
more restrictive polices, as far as that is practical and desirable.

So what might a major drug policy reform look like? It's an enormous
subject. Briefly, serious reform should begin with the lessons of the
Frankfurt Resolution and the policies it inspired.

* The first of those lessons is simple: The possession of drugs should not
be punished. This must be made an explicit and consistent policy. As Europe
has shown, this can be done within the framework of existing international
treaties on drugs, but if these treaties are deemed to be restrictive,
Canada should simply withdraw its name from them. This would cause a
diplomatic stir, but the lives of Canadian drug users are surely worth more
than the feelings of certain foreign governments.

* In tandem with the de facto legalization of possession, harm reduction
must be made the explicit philosophy of drug policy. That means accepting
that while abstinence may often be desirable, it is not the overriding
goal. Keeping people alive, healthy and living in dignity should be that goal.

* From that philosophy come the many harm reduction programs Europe has
used so successful: extensive needle exchanges, methadone treatment, safer
injection sites, drug use education, and drug maintenance. One of the
simplest and most effective ways to implement these policies would be to
return to physicians the right to prescribe any and all drugs they deem
necessary.

No doubt, most Canadians fear this would cause drug use and addiction rates
to soar. European experience shows that wouldn't happen. And when it did
not, and these reforms proved their worth, we could move on to the next stage:

* Creating legal supplies of drugs. A modest step in that direction might
be allowing something like Holland's famous "coffee shops." These shops
would sell only marijuana-related products. Their numbers would be limited
and subject to municipal approval. And they would be tightly regulated.
Only small amounts would be permitted for sale, advertising would be
banned, and minors forbidden from entering.

In Holland, "coffee shops" are now two decades old and a proven success.
When they prove themselves here -- and when the various biker gangs that
now make major profits from the marijuana industry are seen to suffer as a
result -- the next step would be possible.

* Call it the "DCBO." Like the original LCBO, the Drug Control Board of
Ontario would be a government-run monopoly retailer of drugs whose purpose
is not to encourage drug use but to grudgingly provide drugs to those who
insist. Advertising would be banned, and, like the old liquor stores,
customers would have to fill out forms, be checked for identification, and
wait while clerks got their purchases from a back room. Information on the
risks of drug use would be distributed with every sale.

Rationing might be used to smooth the transition period. As time passed, it
would be seen that making drugs legally available does not in itself cause
use and addiction to rise. Legal drugs would, however, be shown to drain
the bank accounts of organized crime. Also, death and infection rates now
associated with drugs would plummet. As the positive evidence accumulated,
the public could feel confident enough to do away with rationing, taking an
even bigger bite out of the black markets.

For some drugs, such as marijuana, the "DCBO's" suppliers could be
licensed, domestic growers subject to all the regulatory burdens of
distillers and other drug manufacturers. Without legitimate international
suppliers of drugs like cocaine, opium and heroin, the government could
easily produce its own supplies in greenhouses.

All drugs would be tested and labelled. The impurities that kill so many
users would vanish. Purity levels would be controlled, eliminating many
overdoses. Under prohibition, less natural, more potent forms of drugs have
come to dominate black markets because they are easier to smuggle and black
market prices forced users to favour the drug that provided "more bang for
the buck." As a legal supplier of drugs, a DCBO could encourage customers
to use safer, more natural forms of drugs again. Thus, it could provide
opium to be swallowed or smoked to encourage people away from injecting
heroin. Or it could provide coca tea, coca wine, and coca leaves for
chewing, to divert users away from the more dangerous practices of
injecting or smoking cocaine.

* All legal drug supplies could be taxed and the money used to pay for
education about the risks of drug use and for strict enforcement of the
regulatory framework. Whatever form legalized drug supplies took, Mr.
Oscapella cautions, their creation should be coupled with far more
extensive efforts to discourage dangerous drug use. "Just because we
regulate something instead of criminalizing it, doesn't mean that we're
approving its use."

It's also crucial, Mr. Oscapella and many other experts argue, that
legalization should evolve, by degrees, to give society time to "develop
some social norms around acceptable drug use." Unlike the criminal law,
culture is a very effective controller of drug use. It is, in fact, the
main way drug use has been regulated throughout history, and it's at work
today. Even though the criminal law says very little about when or how much
alcohol we can consume, most people limit the quantities, times and places
they drink.

In large part, that's because they're following social norms about what is,
and isn't, acceptable alcohol use. By driving other forms of drug use
underground, the criminal law wiped out or distorted the social norms
regulating that drug use. It would take time for these norms to revive and
re-assert themselves after prohibition is lifted.

Evolution is also what political reality would require. Each modest step in
this long process could be taken and the results judged before the next
step is approved. First, stop punishing drug possession and create harm
reduction programs. What are the results? If they're positive, then allow a
very limited form of legal drug supply, such as marijuana "coffee shops."
And so on, moving steadily away from prohibition.

In this way, the dramatic shift envisioned by the Frankfurt Resolution
could happen without undue risk. If, at any time, the results were not
acceptable, the process would stop. Or it could go back.

Going back to prohibition, after all, would be easy. It's going forward
that requires courage and vision.