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Harper has a bad case of “monkey see monkey do”
By Hempology | October 4, 2007
Windsor Star, ON
04 Oct 2007
TORY DRUG PLAN PANNED BEFORE ANNOUNCEMENT
OTTAWA — A national anti-drug strategy that Prime Minister Stephen Harper is set to launch in Winnipeg today has been panned in advance by opposition party critics as too ideological.
The government is embracing a U.S.-style “war on drugs” that approaches drug abuse as more of a criminal matter than a health issue, Liberal and New Democratic Party critics said Wednesday.
Vancouver Liberal MP Keith Martin, a surgeon, and New Democratic Party MP Libby Davies, her party’s drug policy critic, used similar terms in separate interviews about the $64-million plan.
Martin said that marijuana and hard drugs like cocaine should not be equated in “an ideological war on drugs.” Davies said Harper is “caught in an ideological time warp.”
The plan is expected to include a major “no safe drugs” education campaign targeted at youth and parents and aimed in part at clearing up what Health Minister Tony Clement has said is “confusion” about the safety and legality of marijuana.
It is neither safe nor legal, he has emphasized, blaming confusion on a decade of debate about decriminalizing marijuana — a move supported by Liberals and NDP but opposed by the Harper government.
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