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Ads that say taking drugs is bad will have little impact
By Hempology | October 8, 2007
Nanaimo News Bulletin, BC
06 Oct 2007
WAR ON DRUGS DOOMED AGAIN
Our Conservative minority government in Ottawa is trotting out another old policy warhorse that will surely please the party’s base voter constituency – yet another war on drugs.
Health Minister Tony Clement’s latest offensive will entail stiffer penalties for drug offenders and more money to stop drugs from getting across the border. There will also be a massive campaign to warn young people not to use drugs.
What is missing is more funding to provide detox services to help those hooked on drugs to get straightened out.
And what’s missing is any effort to halt the source of illicit drugs in the first place.
Even when we have our own military stationed in fighting mode in Afghanistan, one of the largest producers of the poppy plants that fuel the heroin trade around the world, we do nothing.
When Clement makes his pitch to us, no doubt it will have the same ring of political spin with little backbone as does U.S. President George Bush talking about the need to get his country to weed itself of its addiction to oil, while at the same time accepting the oil industry as one of his greatest financial benefactors, both personally and politically.
Enforcement of drug laws is important, but so are prevention, treatment and harm reduction initiatives.
Simply running ads that say taking drugs is bad will have little impact.
People from all walks of life, rich and poor, educated and illiterate, can succumb to the ravages of drug addiction.
Either address the sources of the illicit drug trade or beef up treatment services, but sitting on the fence and doing neither won’t accomplish very much.
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