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Experts Urge Canada Not to Embrace U.S. Drug Policy During Czar Visit
By Hempology | March 1, 2007
Drug Policy Alliance
Feb 29, 2007
Drug Czar John Walters paid a visit to Canada on Thursday, February 22, talking up U.S.-style drug policies and thanking Canada for its increased cooperation on drug policy issues since a Conservative administration took power last year.
Walters studiously avoided any debate but his comments were challenged in both an op-ed piece by DPA executive director Ethan Nadelmann in that morning’s Ottawa Citizen, and at a press conference hosted by Eugene Oscapella of the Canadian Foundation for Drug Policy. The overarching opposition message was that Canada should not follow the U.S. down the path of criminal justice-based, unscientific drug policies.
Nadelmann opened his remarks at the press conference with an analysis of Walters’ comments, describing them as “a soft-pedal that seemed to be designed for a Canadian audience.” He noted that Walters’ speech talked about health, science, and helping addicts, but added, “The problem is, it’s not very true of U.S. drug policy. Overwhelmingly, U.S. drug policy focuses on punitive approaches, something that John Walters did not talk about.”
Noting reports in the Canadian press that Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper had expressed support for new legislation to require mandatory minimum sentences, Nadelmann pointed out that such sentences were inconsistent with Harper’s desire to also be “fiscally responsibile and tough and smart on crime.” A growing number of U.S. conservatives in both Congress and on the Supreme Court, Nadelmann observed, now favor reform of these laws, which are costly and result in tremendous injustice.
Nadelmann described incarceration as “the dominant context of U.S. policy today,” noting that the U.S. has 5% of the world’s population but 25% of the world’s prison population. He also emphasized the extent to which drug policy and even research had become politicized in the United States, noting how difficult if not impossible it would be to proceed with research studies on heroin maintenance, supervised injection facilities and other important harm reduction approaches.
Other speakers reinforced and elaborated on this message. Senator Larry Campbell, the former mayor of Vancouver and as well as a former Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer, now associated with Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), urged Canada to remember and embrace the four pillars that make up the country’s approach to drug policy: enforcement, treatment, prevention and harm reduction. He said, “I think that Canadians as a whole have realized that addiction is a medical problem, not a criminal problem,” and urged Canadians not to forgo the harm reduction component of the four pillars.
Professor Line Beauchesne of Ottawa University took on Walters’ claim that U.S. drug policies protect young people. She explained that Walters confuses the negative effects of the black market with the negative effects of drugs themselves. Beauchesne also debunked Walters’ often-cited figure that more young people enter treatment for marijuana than for any other drug. She explained to supporters that the figure comes from young people being offered a choice between treatment and jail time–a situation in which treatment is clearly the preferable choice, regardless of whether the person has a drug problem.
The last speaker was Dr. David Marsh, the past head of the Canadian Society for Addiction Medicine. He emphasized the importance of basing policies on scientific evidence, urging that law enforcement be viewed with the same “evidence-based? standard that is applied to other areas of drug policy. In advocating for not only conducting research on drug policy but acting on the findings, Marsh turned Walters’ message around. He said, “Director Walters said we should look at what we know works, and do more of it. And I think that’s an important message for Canada.”
The speakers fielded questions from reporters skeptical of the Walters message, and the opposition view was well covered in the Globe & Mail as well as the Canadian Press.
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