VANCOUVER, OTTAWA -- The federal investment in the war on drugs has been an abject failure, according to a report to be published today.
Canada's drug strategy, renewed with much fanfare in 2003, has put too much emphasis on law enforcement instead of on means to combat illicit drug use and minimize its human toll, says the report that is to appear in the HIV/AIDS Policy and Law Review.
The criticism appears unlikely to sway the federal Conservative government from its intention, confirmed by a Health Department spokesman, to tilt the strategy even further toward pure law-enforcement measures.
The study, which found that critical programs in prevention, treatment and research are being underfunded, comes five years after Canada's Auditor-General issued a scathing report that said the country's drug strategy focused too heavily on enforcement and needed a more "balanced approach."
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. We have been locking up drug users and busting grow-ops for years and yet the number of drug users and grow-ops keeps increasing. I guess Harper and his cronies are too busy to read this.
In fact, when Prime Minister Stephen Harper unveiled his plan for a national drug strategy during the last election campaign, he made no mention of treatment and prevention, promising instead to institute harsher punishments, prevent the decriminalization of marijuana, and make so-called "precursor drugs" more difficult to obtain.
Erik Waddell, spokesman for Health Minister Tony Clement, confirmed that the Conservatives will be following a different path, with even more emphasis on law enforcement.
"Our own national drug strategy is in the works. It's something we've actually been working on for some time," Mr. Waddell said. "The previous government took its own approach, which we happen to disagree with.
"In every poll, when Canadians are asked whether they want more law enforcement or less, they want more. So the bottom line is that Canada's new government will be taking a different approach."
That Canadians overwhelmingly support an increased emphasis on law enforcement proves that the public is infected with reefer madness or statistics are bullshit (or both). Of course, Harper is already in shit for his sudden turn-around on environmental issues. I doubt that changing his mind on the War on Drugs will win him any points with his Conservative base. I predict that this report, like all other reports that are in direct opposition to the War on Drugs will be shelved and ignored.
Dr. Kerr said he finds it "immensely frustrating" that so much government money is spent on law enforcement and so little on harm reduction.
"I'm paid to treat disease and death, and I don't like what I'm seeing. Canada simply does not have an evidence-based drug strategy," he said. "There's way too much ideology and politics, and not enough science and principle."
No kidding, which makes this even more interesting:
Two-thirds of Canadians don’t support a get-tough approach to illicit drug use, but the majority of those who do favor a crackdown are Conservative party supporters, according to a new national poll provided exclusively Monday to The Vancouver Sun.
So the Conservatives can wake up and realize that the War on Drugs is bad and change course and piss off all of their supporters. Or they can continue to follow the same ineffective strategy and have all the unnecessary deaths from HIV, Hepatitis C and overdose on their consciences. Maybe an election wouldn't be such a bad thing after all.
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