TOUGH-ON-CRIME APPROACH FAILS TO ADDRESS DRUG PROBLEM

Re: How to win the drug war, Oct. 6.

Columnist Margret Kopala has managed to boil down a very complex
bio-psycho-social phenomenon such as addictions and reduce it to
prohibition and abstinence.

I do agree that we need more treatment programs and more prevention.
However, I disagree strongly with her penchant for prohibition and for
abstinence. Addictions need to be tackled on an individual level, a
family level, a community level and at the social level. We cannot
simply hire more police and make stricter laws. These are short-term
Band-aid solution to a very long-standing problem. A
get-tough-on-crime approach does not address the initial compulsion to
use drugs in the first place. If a get-tough approach worked, there
would be no drug use in prisons. However, everyone knows that there is
drug use by prisoners.

The promotion of abstinence is also an overly simplistic solution to
our society's drug problem. Many people use drugs without any negative
repercussions. Should these people be labelled criminals and sent to
jail or treatment? Using Ms. Kopala's logic, cigarettes and alcohol
should become illegal and treatment should be mandatory for anyone who
uses these substances since they account for many more deaths than
illegal drugs. I believe that we must tackle our country's addiction
problem with pragmatism, science and with the social determinants of
health (economic and social status) in mind. We must stop relying on
an over-simplistic law and order agenda that does not take into
account the realities of human nature: that approach has failed.

Jean-Francois Martinbault

Gatineau