Canada Could Be a World Leader in Smarter Drug Strategies/UK Marijuana Policy Reform Takes Effect

[Guest guest]

Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC)Published: Friday, March 11, 2005Copyright: 2005 Vancouver Sun Contact: sunlettersWebsite: http://www.vancouversun.com/ http://www.freedomtoexhale.com/besmarter.htm

For the past three days, we have examined how the federal government's prohibitionist approach to dealing with marijuana has utterly failed to reduce the supply of, or demand for, the drug. Cannabis use appears to be associated with cultural and social factors, rather than with the harshness of the laws or the degree of their enforcement.Nevertheless, successive governments have spent billions of dollars enforcing the law, and organized crime has reaped billions of dollars in profits from trade in marijuana and other illicit drugs. Marijuana laws have made criminals out of pot smokers, and have allowed organized crime, and its attendant violence, to flourish.It was for these reasons that the LeDain Commission recommended 30 years ago that Canada end the legal prohibition on marijuana possession. And it was for these reasons that the Senate Committee on Illegal Drugs, in the most comprehensive report on marijuana since LeDain, recommended in 2002 that trade in marijuana be legalized and regulated.Finally, it was for these reasons that in 1998, dignitaries from Europe, Latin America, Canada and the United States sent a letter to United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan declaring that the war on drugs, rather than than drug use, has caused most of the social, political, legal and moral problems associated with illicit drugs.Despite the abundant evidence about the benefits of the legalization and regulation of marijuana -- in addition to weakening (though not eliminating) organized crime, regulation would allow governments to control the strength and purity of marijuana, and would allow for coherent programs aimed at prevention or responsible use -- no country in the world has proceeded with legalization.(De facto legalization exists in the Netherlands, but marijuana laws remain on the books and those trading in large amounts of the drug remain subject to prosecution, which ensures the continued existence of a criminal underground there.)Countries have failed to consider legalization for a number of reasons: The U.S. has exerted enormous pressure on the world to maintain the war on drugs, and it often ties foreign aid to a country's commitment to prosecuting that war. Even countries that rely only on U.S. trade, not aid -- such as Canada -- face ferocious opposition from the U.S. anytime legalization, or even decriminalization, is discussed. If we needed any more evidence on this score, we got it in spades on Wednesday. U.S. drug czar John Walters linked the increasing number of American teenagers seeking addiction treatment with Canadian pot exports.In addition, most Western nations are signatories to a number of international conventions that require them to maintain legal proscriptions against trade in marijuana. Not surprisingly, the U.S. played a pivotal role in the promulgation of these conventions.Despite the intransigence of the U.S. and the existence of international protocols against marijuana legalization, many countries recognize the folly of the war on drugs, and are, therefore, open to discussing legalization and regulation. Canada is particularly well suited to promoting such discussions.After all, the Canadian justice system is admired throughout the world, and Canada has already taken some novel approaches to deal with drug abuse. In addition to the possible decriminalization of marijuana through the new bill before Parliament, Vancouver is host to a supervised-injection site for heroin addicts, and several Canadian cities, including Vancouver, are participating in the North American Opiate Medication Initiative, which is studying the effects of prescribing heroin to hardcore addicts.Both the supervised-injection site and the NAOMI trials are the subjects of scientific studies, and the government should also assess the impact of marijuana decriminalization should that become a reality. By developing a national office on drug policy and a national strategy on drugs, Canada could gather and disseminate the effects of these novel approaches to drug use. In concert with the many European nations that are taking similar steps, Canada could take a leading role in prompting discussion about alternatives to marijuana prohibition.The U.S. might well remain intransigent, but as the international community harnesses and distributes more and more evidence about the harm caused by the war on marijuana, some nations might feel empowered to consider marijuana legalization and regulation on a trial basis. Should such trials prove successful, other countries would likely follow.All of this must begin, though, with a commitment from Ottawa to develop a national drug strategy, and to communicate the results of its work to the world. The world is not losing the war on marijuana: It's a war we've already lost. Canada can help to unify the globe in its efforts to minimize the harms caused not only by drugs, but by drug laws.

UK Marijuana Policy Reform Takes Effect

http://www.drugpolicy.org/news/01_29_04uk.cfm

 

 

 

Thurs, Jan 29, 2004

In what CNN called “the biggest shake-up of Britain's drug laws in 30 years,” a new marijuana policy took effect Thursday, January 29 in the UK, making possession of small quantities of cannabis a minor offense. The new law will bring Britain in line with the majority of Western European nations where marijuana laws continue to be eased. The UK’s law re-classifies cannabis from a class “B” to a class “C” drug. Instead of arrest – and possibly jail – most people found in possession of small quantities of marijuana will be given a warning, a caution or a summons to court. The reform, recommended by a parliamentary committee in May 2002, follows a 2001 report by the Police Foundation that concluded that marijuana possession penalties in Britain — the harshest in Europe — did more damage than the drug itself by wasting police resources and saddling otherwise law-abiding citizens with a criminal record.

Meanwhile, in America the Bush administration continues to enforce and even step up its failed marijuana policy, spending more and more taxpayer money on policies that don’t work. This weekend, for example, the Office of National Drug Control Policy will unveil a new pair of costly television ads that target teenage marijuana use during and after the Super Bowl. This media blitz is part of the ONDCP’s $150 million taxpayer-funded media budget. Previous ads compared American marijuana users to terrorists.

The British public rejected similar alarmist rhetoric in the Daily Telegraph/YouGov Poll. The poll, one of the United Kingdom’s largest ever investigations into public attitudes on drugs, found that a majority of those surveyed not only supported the new law, but were in favor either of complete decriminalization or legalization of marijuana. The British public also dismissed many of the U.S. government’s arguments made against marijuana: that it is a gateway drug that leads to “harder” drugs; that it is seriously addictive; and that marijuana users are violent criminals. The poll found that the majority of respondents thought of cannabis as less addictive than legal drugs like coffee, alcohol, and cigarettes. The majority (74%) also did not think that cannabis users were much more likely to use hard drugs. If a cannabis user also used hard drugs, the vast majority of respondents (83%) felt that it was not a result of cannabis creating a craving for harder drugs, but that they did so because “cannabis users find themselves part of a ‘drug culture’ with dealers pushing both hard and soft drugs.” Respondents also did not think of drugs as causing addicts to become mentally unstable – and therefore likely to commit crimes. Rather, respondents viewed any crime associated with drugs as the result of addicts stealing to get money to buy them.

Now that marijuana has been reclassified, government advisers are to review the system of classifying all illegal drugs. This could lead to further overhauls of the nation’s narcotics laws. Sir Michael Rawlins, chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, which recommended the cannabis changes in the 1980s, said that it was time to consider whether to go further. He said the Council is investigating new ways of measuring the relative harms caused by all illegal drugs. The Council’s mission is to "keep under review" drugs whose "misuse appears... capable of having harmful effects sufficient to constitute a social problem." The Council will then make recommendations to parliament. In the U.S., marijuana, along with heroin and LSD, is classified as a “Schedule I” drug, despite substantial evidence that it is less harmful than tobacco or alcohol.

“We hope that U.S. politicians will learn from their British counterparts,” said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance. “As our closest allies start to recover from the failure of cannabis prohibition, we look more and more like a friend in serious denial.”