OTTAWA — The personal use of illicit drugs, from heroin to crack cocaine, should be decriminalized as part of a federal-provincial strategy to tackle drug abuse, a B.C.-based national coalition of drug policy experts argue in a report to be released Thursday.
The report denounces the Harper government’s aggressive war on drugs that has put the emphasis on law enforcement while steering money away from harm-reduction initiatives like Vancouver’s supervised injection site.
“While countries all around the world are adopting forward-thinking, evidence-based drug policies, Canada is taking a step backwards and strengthening punitive policies that have been proven to fail,” states a summary of the 112-page report from the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition, headquartered at Simon Fraser University’s Centre for Applied Research in Mental Health and Addiction.
The “stunning display of unimaginative thinking” — by Ottawa and provincial governments — has failed to decrease the flow of drugs into Canada while hampering efforts to deal with drug-related health harms.
“Despite Canada’s significant investment in drug control efforts, drugs are cheaper and more available than ever,” the report notes.
Among the recommendations is a call to legalize, regulate and tax the sale of marijuana to adults, taking advantage of an underground business that generates an estimated $357-million in annual sales in B.C. alone, according to the authors.
DEBRA BRASH / TIMES COLONISTA woman in Victoria smokes crack in this 2009 photo.
But by far the most controversial recommendation calls for the end to prohibition of not only “soft” drugs like marijuana, but also products like heroin, cocaine and methamphetamines.
The report notes that at least 25 jurisdictions around the world have moved to decriminalize at least some drugs, with Portugal in 2001 and the Czech Republic in 2010 ending prohibition for all drugs.
“After decriminalization and similar to Portugal, drug use (among Czechs) has not increased significantly but the social harms of drug use have declined,” the report stated.
“In Portugal decriminalization has had the effect of decreasing the numbers of people injecting drugs, decreasing the number of people using drugs problematically, and decreasing trends of drug use among 15 to 24 year olds.”
THE CANADIAN PRESS / Sean KilpatrickThe B.C. drug report says the Harper government's 'war on drugs' has not proven effective in curbing drug abuse.
The CDPC lists as its “partners” more than 70 organizations, including the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, the Central Alberta AIDS Network Society, the Canadian Cancer Survivor Network, and the Canadian Association of Nurses in AIDS Care.
Its report is harshly critical of the federal government’s anti-drug and tough-on-crime policies introduced since Stephen Harper became prime minister in 2006, including minimum mandatory sentences for certain drug offences.
Among the targets is the five-year National Anti-Drug Strategy, which was renewed for another five years in 2012 at an overall cost of $528-million. The program devotes an overwhelming majority of its funding (roughly 70%) on law enforcement initiatives, according to the authors.
The report also goes after the Canadian Forces’ substantial investment in counter-narcotics missions in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific, involving warships and aircraft operating with U.S. forces.
And it complains about the lack of support of, and in the case of the Vancouver supervised injection site aggressive opposition to, “harm reduction” programs like needle exchanges that “save lives and protect everyone’s health,” according to the Newfoundland AIDS Committee.
Jonathan Hayward / The Canadian PressA demonstrator smokes a marijuana cigarette during 4-20 in Vancouver, B.C. 2012. B.C. has the highest percentage of people who have used marijuana at least once in their lives, according to a 2011 report.
The Harper government has never flinched from its strong support for get-tough measures against crime and especially drug offences, often sneering at academic studies suggesting that its measures, while popular among many Conservative party supporters, had debatable or even counterproductive results.
In 2007, for instance, then-health minister Tony Clement declared that the “party’s over” while speaking of his party’s contempt for the former Liberal government’s approach to illicit drug use.
The report cites 2011 Health Canada statistics indicating that B.C. has the highest percentage of people who have used marijuana at least once in their lives, with the B.C. rate of 44.3% well above the national average of 39.4%.
Health Canada said 12.1% of British Columbians said they smoked pot over the past year, second behind Nova Scotia’s 12.4% and well above the national average of 9.1%.
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By Randy Shaw
