FEDERAL TORIES ON THE WRONG SIDE OF RATIONAL DRUG POLICY

The timing couldn't be more ironic.

The Harper Tories have just won a majority with plans to move full
steam ahead with legislation that will mean tougher sentences for
drug crimes, including the possession of a few pot plants.

Meanwhile, an international body, the Global Commission on Drug
Policy, just released a report urging governments to abandon their
futile, prohibitionist attitudes and have the courage to
decriminalize and regulate drugs, especially pot.

"The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences
for individuals and societies around the world," the commission declared.

Vast expenditures on criminalization and repressive measures have
failed to curtail supply or consumption, the group noted. "Apparent
victories in eliminating one source or trafficking organization are
negated almost instantly by the emergence of other sources and traffickers."

Estimated annual drug consumption since 1998 has increased
dramatically, fueling a huge criminal blackmarket while doing nothing
to help addicts.

The commission report recommends replacing drug policies "driven by
ideology and political convenience" with fiscally responsible
strategies grounded in science, health and human rights.

International drug conventions should be revised to accommodate
"robust experimentation" with harm reduction, decriminalization and
legal regulatory practices, it said.

As expected, the report was music to the ears of delegates at
Thursday's Alberta Harm Reduction Conference in Edmonton.

"I think the report . is very sensible and sound," commented Richard
Elliott, executive director of the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network.
"It says very clearly what I think everybody already knows if they're
being honest - and that is the global war on drugs has failed."

Mandatory minimum sentences for drug use fly in the face of public
health evidence and fiscal reality, he said, noting that the billions
of dollars spent prosecuting addicts worsen health problems and do
nothing to end drug use.

"Ultimately, the war on drugs is a war on drug users. It's a war on
people," said Elliott, who spoke at the conference about Insite,
Vancouver's supervised drug injection site - the only one in North
America with a legal exemption from drug laws.

(The Tories don't want to extend the exemption and the Supreme Court
of Canada recently heard arguments for and against continuing the facility.)

Zealous

"We hope the Supreme Court of Canada . will agree that the criminal
law has to bend here," said Elliott. "We can't prosecute the war on
drugs so vigorously and so zealously that we actually keep people
away from life-saving health services."

The Global Commission on Drug Policy's blunt recommendations were
also welcomed by Marliss Taylor, head of Edmonton's Streetworks
needle-exchange and health outreach program, and Don McPherson, of
the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition.

In fact, you'd have been hard-pressed to find anyone at the harm
reduction conference who wasn't cheering on the commission.

"It affirms our sense that there's a growing consensus that we need
to take a different path," said McPherson. "I've always maintained
that this is not a left-wing or right-wing issue," he added.

"I know fiscal conservatives who are very supportive of the Harper
government but they really don't like his tack on crime and drug policy."

The battle between political ideology and scientific evidence goes on.