DRUG CRAZED

The truth, on those rare occasions when it slips through the filter o
f
political interest and emerges with crystalline purity from the mouth
of a
Cabinet minister, is an exciting thing. That's why many Canadians wer
e
delighted to hear Herb Dhaliwal, revenue minister and Canadian
representative at the United Nations' conference on illicit drugs, ad
mit
that the core of the "War on Drugs" has been a failure. As the minist
er put
it so succinctly, attacking the drug "supply side C9 hasn't worked,
isn't
going to work and we need new bold initiatives."

Discounting the "new bold initiatives" bit -- no minister ever recomm
ends
old timid initiatives -- Mr. Dhaliwal's statement is radiantly true.
It is
also a classic bit of Liberal duplicity, a ruse designed to create th
e image
of a government hard at work developing new strategies to replace the
old
War on Drugs methods, which have so obviously failed.

That is a shameful fraud. The government not only has done nothing
innovative in drug policy, it has committed Canada to staying the mis
erable,
failed course of the War on Drugs.

In late April, Prime Minister Jean Chretien agreed to take a co-ordin
ating
role in the Organization of American States' anti-drug plans, which m
ainly
focus on hitting the supply side -- the very side Herb Dhaliwal says
doesn't
work.

Then, in May, Mr. Chretien nodded happily at the meeting of the G-8,
when
the assembled leaders specifically ruled out drug legalization and de
clared
their intention to step up efforts to attack international drug smugg
ling
and production -- another of the supply-side strategies that Mr. Dhal
iwal
says don't work.

One might conclude from the minister's statement that he is a lone vo
ice of
reason in the Cabinet. Not so. Mr. Dhaliwal's subsequent pronouncemen
ts
indicate his thinking is just as muddled as his boss's.

Take, for example, some of the policies that he proudly described aft
er
insisting that attacking the supply side doesn't work. First, there's
a bill
in the works that will require closer tracking of all financial trans
actions
greater than $10,000. Then there are plans for new anti-smuggling
intelligence operations, to be backed up by new technologies. So, if
we may
paraphrase Mr. Dhaliwal, because attacks on drug supply cannot succee
d, his
government is planning C9 new attacks on drug supply. As if to under
line the
absurdity, Mr. Dhaliwal also boasted about the volume of drug seizure
s this
year.

Consider, as well, Mr. Dhaliwal's statement that treatment and
rehabilitation programs are cheaper and more effective than prisons.
That's
true enough, but in the next breath, he ruled out any form of
decriminalization, even though, as just about every drug counsellor a
grees,
criminalization seriously hampers treatment and rehabilitation.

Finally, there's Mr. Dhaliwal's worry that if marijuana were legalize
d, many
more people would start with pot and move on to harder drugs. The ign
orance
of this statement is unbecoming of a minister. As many as one in four
Canadians has used marijuana, and virtually none has gone on to harde
r
drugs.

This inducement effect has been studied to death, and it has been sho
wn,
time and again, that, as a rule, marijuana does not lead users to har
der
drugs. In fact, that conclusion was upheld by two Canadian judges who
, in
the past year, presided over marijuana possession trials in which all
the
latest scientific evidence was reviewed. If Mr. Dhaliwal doubts the
activists and editorialists, maybe he should listen to Canada's judge
s.

Canadians will not be fooled by soothing talk of "balanced approaches
" and
new strategies. The government has no policy on drugs but mindless
repetition of the same old mistakes.

Copyright 1998 The Ottawa Citizen

Checked-by: "R. Lake"