WHO WILL GAIN FROM PROPOSED CHANGES TO DRUG LAWS?

THE OCT. 1 opinion page article by Senator Pierre-Claude Nolin, chairman of
the Senate committee on illegal drugs, is misleading in several aspects.

First of all, there are several important facts about the Senate committee
that are not widely known.

Eighty per cent of the witnesses appearing before the committee supported
liberal laws on marijuana. As a result, the committee did not hear a
reasonable and balanced view on the issue of marijuana use.

The committee heard its last witness on June 10, 2002. Yet it produced a
four-volume, 600-page report, researched, written, translated into the two
official languages, and printed and bound in less than three months. It is
obvious that the report was a work-in-progress during the hearings with a
predetermined conclusion.

Moreover, Senator Nolin's assertion that the committee was not endorsing
recreational use of marijuana when it recommended it be made available for
all those 16 years and over is not correct. We only have to look to
countries that have liberalized their drug laws to realize the absurdity of
Senator Nolin's statement. For example, one of the consequences of the
liberal drug policy in Switzerland has been that Swiss adolescents now use
more drugs per capita than adolescents in any other country in Western Europe.

The Netherlands liberalized drug experience in 1976 and this has caused
that country to become the drug capital of Western Europe, not just for
cannabis, but also heroine, cocaine and the synthetic drug ecstasy. Under
these policies, cannabis use there has increased 250 per cent.

The problem with a liberalized drug policy is that drug use increases
always and everywhere when drugs are available without legal sanction. In
short, the law serves as a deterrent. To many, what is legal becomes
acceptable and once legal sanctions are removed, there is a greatly
increased use of drugs.

Senator Nolin is also incorrect when he claims that cannabis use is less
harmful than tobacco or alcohol. Scientific literature concludes otherwise.
For example, a recent article in The Paediatrics Journal stated as follows:
"Marijuana is an addictive, mind-altering drug capable of inducing
dependency . . . Marijuana should not be considered an innocuous drug . . .
There is little doubt that marijuana intoxication contributes substantially
to accidental deaths and injuries amongst adolescents. . . ."

Recent studies also indicate that the risk of head and neck cancer is 2.6
times greater among marijuana smokers and that its use causes pulmonary damage.

It is noted that the Senate committee report states: "We are aware, as much
now as we were at the start of our work, that there is no pre-established
consensus in Canadian society on public policy choices in the area of drugs."

In view of this, it is not unreasonable to conclude that the real purpose
of the Senate committee is to encourage Canadians to accept the
liberalization of our drug laws.

Canadians should be asking themselves who will gain from these proposed
changes in the drug laws? Certainly not society and definitely not our
children.

C. Gwendolyn Landolt is national vice-president, REAL Women of Canada.