PARTY'S NOT OVER

The party's over for illicit drug users, says Conservative Health
Minister Tony Clement, who will unveil the federal government's new
anti-drug strategy this week.

It will not include legislation to decriminalize possession of small
amounts of marijuana, as the Liberals had proposed.

It may not include much hope for Insite, the supervised drug injection
site in downtown Vancouver. Funding for that was extended just this
past week, but only to June.

Clement has said he doesn't support giving addicts free drugs and a
clean place to shoot up.

The $64-million anti-drug strategy will combine treatment and
prevention programs with stiffer penalties for serious drug offenses,
like smuggling across the U.S. border. It also promises more police
resources for shutting down marijuana grow operations.

Some critics are already panning Prime Minister Stephen Harper's new
drug strategy, that it's a step backwards - to the Dark Ages - that
it's too U.S. friendly, that it's a waste of money.

It could create a need for more prisons in Canada.

Locking up drug traffickers and drug users has proved to be no
deterrent to date.

Treatment facilities and injection sites may help a few, but too many
just walk out their doors into a world of temptation with no
distractions or employable skills.

And busting grow operations only pushes producers around, while lining
the pockets of police officers on overtime.

MLA Lorne Mayencourt has been championing the 28-year-old San
Patrignano treatment and recovery program, in which addicts remain for
three to five years, receive treatment and support, are trained in
life skills in a secure setting.

Meanwhile in B.C., Riverview remains largely unused. The most probable
proposal for it includes more residential housing.

Why not try an approach that has actually proven to work?