CANADA VIOLATING DRUG DEAL: U.N.

Officials admit failure to meet control measures

OTTAWA - Canadian officials admit this country has failed to comply with a
U.N. convention on control of narcotics, but insist the government is doing
all it can to put measures in place.

"It is an ongoing process and the (U.N. narcotics control board) feels that
Canada is not as up to date on these substances as it might be. It is
probably right," said Dann Michols, director general of the therapeutic
products program at Health Canada.

Michols was responding to criticism of Canada in the annual report of the
International Narcotics Control Board, a United Nations agency.

The board said yesterday that Canada is violating a 1971 convention on
mind-altering substances, calling this country the "loophole" in the
international control system.

The board said Canada makes no effort to monitor the sale of prescription
drugs like barbiturates and amphetamines, making it easy for them to be
diverted to the black market.

Since Canada agreed to the convention in 1987, the board has been trying to
get Ottawa to implement its control provisions.

Health Canada

"And after 13 years," said Herbert Schaepe, secretary of the control board,
"we now have to report to the international community that Canada is the
only developed country with serious deficiencies when it comes to the
implementation of that treaty."

But Michols said Canada should be in full compliance with the convention
within a couple of years.

"It was decided in Canada that in order to get these products under control,
we had to revamp the whole legislative format and that's what we did and it
took as long as it did," Michols said.

Michols said for the first decade after signing on to the convention, Canada
focussed on changing the legislation so that it could introduce measures to
comply with the convention.

Psychotropic drugs such as tranquilizers, phenobarbital, various
barbiturates, amphetamines and anorectics or "slimming pills" can be
obtained through prescriptions.

But the board report says the pills are often overprescribed and the demand
for these drugs has led to a flourishing illicit trade.

Schaepe says people who want to divert these substances "can do that easily
through Canadian brokers or Canadian companies because there are simply no
records, there is no monitoring of these movements."

Neil Boyd, a criminologist at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, B.C., said
the market for such drugs is "very limited."

"The notion that Canada is a transshipment point, there's not much evidence
that that takes place," he said.