SENATOR DEMANDS REVIEW OF DRUG POLICY

A Tory Senator will launch a campaign today to have the Senate do what
the House of Common won't: review all of Canada's drug laws and policies.

Senator Pierre Claude Nolin, angry that the House of Commons "hasn't
taken the issue seriously," wants the Senate to strike a special
committee to study drug issues and tour the country to discuss its
findings. The questions to be asked are sweeping: Should marijuana be
legalized? What about other drugs? Does prohibiting the use of drugs
do more harm than good? What new public health methods might be used
to ease the damage done by drug use? How are other countries dealing
with drugs?

Although Mr. Nolin's motion to strike the committee will be introduced
in the Senate today, following a speech to the Senate last night, a
vote won't be held until next fall to give senators time to study the
issue. If Mr. Nolin gets his committee, it will be Canada's first
major review of drug policy since the LeDain commission, which called
for the gradual decriminalization of drug possession in 1973.

Some recent history gives Mr. Nolin confidence he will get the support
of his colleagues. In 1996, a Senate committee reviewing the Chretien
government's new drug legislation, Bill C-8, was rumoured to favour
the decriminalization of marijuana. Although a number of senators did
go on the record in favour of decriminalizing marijuana, the committee
backed off. It did, however, unanimously recommend that the government
create a joint Commons/Senate committee to review Canada's drug
policies from top to bottom.

The government balked. A Commons-only committee was asked to look into
drug policy, but only on extremely restrictive terms that ruled out
asking fundamental questions like whether criminalization works. When
the 1997 election was called, the committee was wrapped up without
reporting.

Recent events also add momentum to Mr. Nolin's campaign. Just last
week, Health Minister Allan Rock finally announced the government
would study the medical use of marijuana.

That decision followed a push in Parliament by several opposition MPs
to legalize medical marijuana.

The government was also embarrassed by two court cases in which AIDS
patients who smoked marijuana to stimulate their appetites to stave
off emaciation argued that the ban on the drug violated their Charter
right to "life, liberty, and security of the person." The courts agreed.

Vancouver MP Libby Davies also had a motion before the Commons in
April to set up "heroin maintenance" trials, which would supply
addicts with a safe source of heroin, an idea modelled on a successful
Swiss program. Ms. Davies' call is a radical response to a staggering
dilemma: In Vancouver East, an average of one person dies by drug
overdose every day, and the rate of AIDS infections among
injection-drug users has soared to 25 to 35 per cent, the highest in
the world. Police have responded as they always have, with crackdowns
and street sweeps, which even they admit will do nothing to solve the
problems.

But even some police are beginning to question aspects of Canada's
drug policies. In late April, the Canadian Association of Chiefs of
Police suggested possession of marijuana be decriminalized so that
rather than laying charges, police could just issue a ticket. The RCMP
quickly agreed. This call followed the release of startling statistics
showing that in 1997, the mere possession of marijuana accounted for
one-half of all drug offences. Add in trafficking charges, and
marijuana-related offences account for 72 per cent of all drug
charges. Canada's War on Drugs is largely a War on Marijuana.

For Mr. Nolin, that's just one of the many facts that show how
wrong-headed Canada's drug policies really are. "We're on the wrong
track with the criminalizing of drugs," he says. He wants drugs to be
dealt with through public health policy, not criminal law. Using
police, courts, and jails not only does not cut drug abuse, it creates
its own serious problems, like the enrichment of underworld gangs and
the violence suffered by communities as gangs conduct their trade with
guns and murder.

To back up this sweeping challenge to official drug orthodoxy, Mr.
Nolin has commissioned a report, Drugs and Drug Policy, by Dr. Diane
Riley. In cool and methodical language, Dr. Riley examines the origins
of Canada's drug laws, the costs they inflict, their putative
benefits, and alternatives practised in other countries. She concludes
that criminalization inflicts far more harm than drug abuse itself.

Outside government circles, this is hardly a unique conclusion. In
fact, much the same has been said by every major commission ever to
examine the issue. And in the past decade, political commentators
from the left, who have traditionally fought drug criminalization,
have been joined by prominent social conservatives like William F.
Buckley and free-market standard-bearers like Milton Friedman and The
Economist. Even Canadian arch-conservative Ted Byfield, publisher of
Alberta Report, favours marijuana decriminalization. From dreadlocked
snowboarders to bow-tied neo-cons, an odd and impressive coalition has
formed in opposition to the War on Drugs.

Still, if there's been any change at all in officialdom, its only a
softening of the rhetoric. Governments and political parties have
refused to seriously debate criminalization itself. Mr. Nolin thinks
that's because the public, unlike policy wonks and journalists,
haven't seen the sorry statistics that show just how futile and
destructive criminalization really is. Without public pressure,
parties and governments prefer to pretend the whole issue doesn't exist.

But the final responsibility is our governments', Mr. Nolin writes in
the introduction to Dr. Riley's report, because they "consistently
fail to provide the public with impartial information about the real
effects on people and society as a whole of drug use."

That's something the senator thinks his committee can help accomplish
by gathering the facts and taking them coast to coast. With the facts
freely available, he's confident the public will not only accept but
demand change.

He'll need that optimism. Mr. Nolin faces a government that has
steadfastly ignored not only the growing coalition demanding an end to
drug war but even the Liberal Party itself. Two party resolutions, in
1994 and 1996, calling for a full review of Canada's drug policies
failed to nudge the Chretien government even an inch.

It's a heavy stone Mr. Nolin has set out to roll up a very steep hill.