RETHINK IT, COLEMAN

In Claiming That Drugs Are A Common Foundation Of Many Crimes, B.C.
Solicitor General Rich Coleman Confuses The Drug War's Collateral Damage
With Drugs Themselves.

Dear Editor,

The crime, corruption, and overdose deaths attributed to drugs are all
direct results of drug prohibition. With alcohol prohibition repealed in
the U.S., liquor bootleggers no longer gun each down in drive-by shootings,
nor do consumers go blind drinking unregulated bathtub gin.

Attempts to limit the supply of illegal drugs while demand remains constant
only increase the profitability of drug trafficking.

In terms of addictive drugs like heroin, a spike in street prices leads
desperate addicts to increase criminal activity to feed desperate habits.

The drug war doesn't fight crime, it fuels crime.

Rather than waste resources waging a counterproductive war against
consensual vices, Canadian policymakers would be wise to follow the lead of
Europe and embrace harm reduction, a public health alternative to the drug war.

Harm reduction acknowledges that both drug use and drug prohibition have
the potential to cause harm.

If politicians like Coleman are serious about treatment alternatives to
incarceration, they are going to have to tone down the tough-on-drugs
rhetoric. Would alcoholics even seek treatment for their illness if doing
so were tantamount to confessing to criminal activity?

As for Coleman's commitment to fighting grow ops and organized crime, the
drug war makes an easily grown weed like marijuana literally worth its
weight in gold in U.S. cities. The organized crime syndicates that traffic
in marijuana and cocaine are financially dependent on the tough-on-drugs
approach.

Taxing and regulating marijuana, the most popular illicit drug, is a
cost-effective alternative to the failed drug war.

Decriminalization acknowledges the social reality of marijuana use, and
frees users from the stigma of life-shattering criminal records.

What's really needed is a regulated market with enforceable age controls.
Right now kids have an easier time buying pot than beer.

More disturbing is the manner in which marijuana's black market status
exposes users to sellers of hard drugs. Marijuana may be relatively
harmless compared to legal alcohol - the plant has never been shown to
cause an overdose death - but marijuana prohibition is deadly.

As long as marijuana distribution remains in the hands of organized crime,
consumers will continue to come into contact with hard drugs like cocaine.

Robert Sharpe

The Lindesmith Center-Drug Policy Foundation