THE FOLLY OF ANTI-DRUG LAWS

Tough Enforcement In Early 20th Century Boosted Popularity Of
Dangerous Drugs, University Of Guelph Professor Tells Forum

History is supposed to teach us lessons. But when it comes to drug use
and abuse, two professors are arguing we as a society have failed to
learn from the past.

Catherine Carstairs, an assistant professor in history at the
University of Guelph, argues the creation of anti-drug laws in the
early part of the 20th century drove users underground led to the
proliferation of more dangerous drugs.

Tough drug enforcement in the mid-20th century served in part to make
drug users look cooler in the eyes of disaffected youth, she also argued.

Andrew Hathaway, a sociologist and drug policy researcher at McMaster
University in Hamilton, draws a parallel between Prohibition in the
1920s and today's drug laws.

Alcohol prohibition led huge numbers of people to flout the law,
created an environment that allowed organized crime to flourish,
encouraged people to consume dangerous homemade concoctions and
overburdened the justice system, he says, arguing things are much the
same with drugs today.

The pair were speaking recently at a forum organized by The Community
Safety and Crime Prevention Council and Ray of Hope, a Kitchener-based
social service agency.

The talk was part of a series of films, forums and workshops on
substance use and abuse collectively known as In The Mind's Eye. The
mostly-free series goes until Nov. 28.

In 19th-century North America, drugs were readily available, with
heroin sold alongside Aspirin over pharmacy counters, Carstairs said.

There were addicts, of course, but also many recreational users,
largely from the Chinese community, which was growing particularly on
Canada's west coast.

It was common in those days for Chinese to smoke opium socially or
ritually, much as Canadians of European descent drank alcohol at home,
in bars, at weddings and funerals, Carstairs said.

The professor argued the social agitation against drugs that began in
the early 20th century was rooted in racism. As the Asian population
grew, so did anti-Asian sentiment, and some campaigners seized on the
"dirty" Chinese habit of opium smoking as a reason to exclude them
from Canada, she said.

The fear of the "Asian influx" came to a head in 1907, when a white
mob smashed up a number of businesses in Vancouver's Chinatown.

The then-deputy minister of labour, William Lyon Mackenzie King, was
called upon to investigate the riot and the claims for
compensation.

One of the claims was from a perfectly legal opium manufacturing
company. The future prime minister was appalled to hear there were
opium companies operating openly in Canada.

A moral reform movement was on the rise at the same time, and in 1908,
a law was passed to outlaw importing and selling opium. Three years
later, possession was also outlawed and cocaine was included,
Carstairs said.

After World War One, soldiers returned home to an economy in recession
and many blamed their unemployment on Chinese supposedly taking their
jobs.

One of the ways the "ferocious anti-Chinese racism" was manifested was
in public hysteria over drugs. In newspaper accounts of the day, "the
victims were always young white men and women and the villains were
always the evil, nefarious Chinese traffickers," said Carstairs.

The result in the 1920s was more money for enforcement and stronger
drug laws, including six-month minimum jail sentences for possession.

In a sense, these measures were successful, in that many of the casual
users gave up opium smoking. The down side was that dependent users
looked for less conspicuous forms of opiates, such as morphine and
heroin, which were more powerful. They also started injecting them
rather than smoking them.

"This change had deleterious consequences for their health, because
not only are they using more powerful drugs, they're using them in a
more powerful way," Carstairs said.

Drug use grew after the Second World War, especially among
marginalized urban youth. Because being caught for possession meant
automatic jail time, users took to carrying drugs in their mouths so
they could swallow them if caught.

Police organized stakeouts and grabbed suspected users by their necks
so they couldn't swallow the evidence. Users fought back, often in
groups.

And so users started to gain a reputation for their toughness and
solidarity, making drug use attractive in the eyes of rebellious youth
who wanted a sense of belonging, Carstairs said.

Hathaway argued that just as prohibition made safe beer and wine
difficult to obtain and led people to experiment with more potent and
toxic homebrews, the impossibility of drug quality control has led to
the sale of dangerous substances such as adulterated marijuana,
ecstasy and crystal meth.

Just as Prohibition put bootlegging in the hands of mobsters, today's
drug laws put the drug trade in the hands of often-violent organized
crime, Hathaway said.

The desire to alter consciousness is nearly universal, and many
cultures past and present have managed to do it in a controlled
manner, the professor argued.

"Harm reduction first and foremost accepts drug use as a fact. Not a
moral issue. A fact."

But despite decades of recommendations and evidence that initiatives
such as needle exchanges and safe-injection sites save lives, very few
agencies in Canada take a harm-reduction approach, Hathaway said.

In response to an audience member's concern that legalizing or
decriminalizing drugs would increase use, Hathaway responded that in
the few U.S. and Australian states that have decriminalized marijuana,
use hasn't increased compared to other states.

"The debate hinges far less on the scientific evidence than
deep-rooted moral schisms . . . and there's a tremendous financial
stake in prohibition. There's a lot of jobs on the line."