DON'T CALL IT A WAR

While Canada Is Ramping Up Its Own War On Drugs, The Obama Administration
Is Toning Down The Battlefield Rhetoric And Focusing On Prevention, Meagan
Fitzpatrick Reports.

America's drug czar on Monday applauded Canada for its anti-drug efforts
when he visited Ottawa and shared his government's new approach to drug
control -- which Gil Kerlikowske says is heavy on prevention and treatment,
but not "soft" on enforcement.

The director of Washington's Office of National Drug Control Policy said
the U.S. is now pursuing an "unprecedented government-wide public-health
approach" to reduce drug use south of the border.

Driving down the demand in the U.S. will help reduce the cross-border drug
trade with Canada, which is a persistent problem, Kerlikowske said.

Use of the "war on drugs" terminology has been abandoned by President
Barack Obama's administration, and it is now investing billions of dollars
to prevent people from getting hooked on illegal and prescription drugs.
His government launched a new National Drug Control Strategy in May that
laid out specific reduction targets to be achieved by 2015.

Kerlikowske said combating drug use in the U.S. was previously viewed
mostly through a criminal justice lens and, as the war on drugs raged on,
deaths from drug overdoses surpassed gunshot wounds and drug use among
youth has increased.

In other words, the approach didn't work.

"We've actually taken our eye off the ball when it comes to prevention and
recognizing it," he said. "The Obama administration wants very clearly in
this drug strategy to recognize that it is greatly, greatly a public-health
problem."

Kerlikowske spent part of Monday helping the Canadian Centre on Substance
Abuse launch new national standards on how to prevent drug use among young
people. Three sets of guidelines were developed for use by schools,
families and community groups that contain advice on how best to implement
and to evaluate prevention efforts.

The American drug czar said the new standards show Canada is "clearly in a
leadership position," and from his 37 years spent in various law
enforcement and drug policy jobs, including as Seattle's chief of police,
Kerlikowske said he knows Canada to be a leader in drug law enforcement as
well.

The U.S. is not letting up on the enforcement side of its anti-drug
approach, but rather is broadening its focus, Kerlikowske said.

"Continuing to arrest people and recycle them through the criminal justice
system is not a particular answer," he said. "We're not being soft on
drugs, but we're being smarter about drug policy by dealing with it in this
comprehensive way."

As the Obama administration shifts its focus to include more emphasis on
prevention and treatment, Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government has
made mandatory minimum jail sentences for certain drug offences a key part
of its national anti-drug strategy.

If the legislation passes, new sentencing laws are expected to add
thousands of prisoners to the system and cost millions of dollars to
accommodate them.

South of the border, some states have retreated from using mandatory
minimum sentences for drug crimes, amid mounting evidence they have done
little to curtail the drug trade and instead flooded jails with prisoners.

Kerlikowske diplomatically refrained from weighing in on whether automatic
jail sentences are an effective anti-drug policy for Canada to pursue.

"The last thing I need to do in my position, which has occurred I'm afraid
in the past, is to come to Canada and then tell Canadians what to do when
in fact, I think they pretty clearly recognize that the United States has a
drug problem also," he said.

The important thing to consider when it comes to mandatory minimum
sentences is to recognize there is a difference between career criminals
and drug addicts who need treatment, he said.