Pubdate: Fri, 02 May 2003
Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC)
Copyright: 2003 The Vancouver Sun
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/vancouver/vancouversun/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477
Author: Frances Bula

CANADA'S DRUG POLICY DRAWS U.S. WARNING

Easing Laws Will Mean Tighter Border Controls, Official Says

Canada and Vancouver are heading for major trouble with their drug 
policies, a U.S. drug office representative warned Thursday.

Ottawa's plan to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana and 
Vancouver's move to open North America's first injection site for drug 
users likely will force the U.S. to tighten border controls to prevent 
increased drug trafficking, said David Murray, special assistant in the 
Office of National Drug Control Policy.

The two initiatives have caused dismay among U.S. officials fighting the 
war on drugs, as American media like the Wall Street Journal, the Los 
Angeles Times, and 60 Minutes have recently started to focus on the 
Vancouver initiative, as well as on Canada's plans for a new drug policy.

"This is a critical juncture for Canada," said Murray, who flew to 
Vancouver for a day of meetings with local police, health groups, municipal 
politicians, and media to talk about U.S. and Canadian drug policy.

He said the decriminalization initiative "is a matter we look upon with 
some concern and some regret."

Murray emphasized it's up to Canadians to make their own decisions, but he 
warned that if Canada decriminalizes marijuana, as Prime Minister Jean 
Chretien said publicly for the first time this week that his government 
will do, the existing harmony between the two countries will be ruptured.

"I think the loss of the mutual cooperative partnership we've had with 
Canadians regarding our borders, regarding the integrity of the hemisphere, 
regarding our commerce, regarding the implications of trade and value to 
ourselves, the loss of that would be something truly to be regretted," said 
Murray, who repeatedly referred to the "unintended consequences" the new 
drug policies would bring.

"We would have no choice but to respond. My impression is the first concern 
is what is coming in to our country. How do we examine, how do we 
understand and how do we try to prevent the flood of illicit substances 
that we currently cooperatively try to manage with Canadian contribution?

"Clearly, there would be a concern on our part that we must respond to that 
development."

Murray said that if Canada moves to decriminalize,more young people will 
use marijuana, police resources will be strapped, and the most vulnerable 
minority communities will be the most negatively affected by the increased 
accessibility.

Murray was also critical of Vancouver's four-pillars drug policy, saying it 
was modelled after the Swiss four-pillars policy, which has its problems.

"I think there are far more serious difficulties with the Swiss model than 
has been fully acknowledged," he said. "My impression is that there will be 
unintended consequences and that the presumed benefits will turn out to be 
illusory. [It] is something that is less likely to be satisfying because it 
will not deliver on the promises on which it was sold."

Health advocates have argued for years that injection sites help prevent 
overdose deaths and infections, keeping addicts alive so they can 
eventually make it to treatment. They also say the evidence from existing 
injection sites in Europe shows that injection sites, because they're "low 
threshold" and non-judgmental, attract addicts to treatment in a way that 
abstinence-based approaches don't.

Mayor Larry Campbell, who was in Ottawa Thursday meeting with cabinet 
ministers and health officials to get support for Vancouver's drug strategy 
and its plan to open the injection site within the next three months, 
dismissed Murray's criticisms and said that "in the coming years, the U.S. 
will probably want to emulate us."

But Murray said addicts just aren't capable of getting themselves into 
treatment and they need incentives, sometimes harsh ones, to push them there.

"We learned in places that had legalization and/or harm-reduction 
initiatives go forward, for the drug user there's a removal of the 
incentive to get into treatment and to change their behaviour," he said.

"In the absence of sanctions of law enforcement or in the absence of a 
sense of outreach and connection with these people that does not involve 
handing them acceptable means of maintaining themselves around that drug, 
that people do not have the motive and the capacity to make the changes 
that are necessary for recovery."

Although Murray's talk was billed as one that would be focused on treatment 
research, rather than politics, many of his points echoed those made by the 
head of the drug office, John Walters, when he spoke to the Vancouver Board 
of Trade last November.

Like Walters, Murray cited Baltimore and its "harm-reduction advocate 
mayor" as an example of the disastrous effects of a liberal approach to 
drugs. He said Baltimore, which introduced a needle exchange under Mayor 
Karl Schmoke, ended up with more drug use, more trafficking, middle-class 
flight from the city, and job losses that no other American city experienced.

He also emphasized the dangers of marijuana, saying it is much more potent 
than it was 30 years ago, that it is tied into the marketing of other drugs 
and that it acts as the first step on the ladder to those drugs.

"This isn't Woodstock," he said, referring to drug use as a "contagion" 
that moves from young person to young person.

Murray, a social anthropologist by training, also said that drug marketing 
and use in the 20th and 21st centuries is vastly different from any kind of 
drug use seen in previous cultures because it has been so intensely marketed.

Asked for evidence that the U.S. approach to drugs is effective or better 
than other approaches, Murray said it's difficult to compare countries 
because they have different demographic make-ups and cultures that affect 
drug use.

He admitted that statistics show drug use in Holland, which has 
decriminalized marijuana, is about the same as in the U.S., which 
aggressively tries to eliminate its use, but said the more telling 
statistic is how low the drug-use rate was in Holland before it liberalized 
its drug laws.

A study in the British Medical Journal in September 2000 indicated that 
marijuana use among Dutch youth has fallen in recent years. Statistics from 
the late 1990s show 33 per cent of people in the U.S. over 12 have used 
marijuana, compared to 16 per cent in Holland. The percentage of heroin 
addicts in the United States is about triple that of the Netherlands.

Several city councillors from the region were invited to hear Murray's talk 
and to meet with him privately, including Surrey Councillor Dianne Watts 
and Vancouver councillors Jim Green and Raymond Louie.

Police, including Vancouver Inspector Bob Rich, were also invited to a 
separate private session.

Green said he was disappointed by the superficiality of Murray's speech.

"I don't believe I learned anything. It was ideological," said Green, 
adding Murray was more critical of Vancouver's plans for an injection site 
in the private session with councillors than he was in the media session. 
But Green said Murray didn't present any real evidence about what the 
problems would be.

"I just really was unimpressed with the lack of depth and the lack of 
analysis."

The U.S. national drug policy office has made a point of combatting 
political initiatives to decriminalize drugs or emphasize a harm-reduction 
approach. In the recent congressional elections, where several states had 
ballot initiatives related to decriminalizing drugs, office representatives 
made a point of going to those states to campaign against the initiatives.

All were defeated.
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