Pubdate: Sat, 02 May 2009
Source: Telegraph-Journal (Saint John, CN NK)
Page: A13
Copyright: 2009 Brunswick News Inc.
Contact: http://telegraphjournal.canadaeast.com/onsite.php?page=contact
Website: http://telegraphjournal.canadaeast.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2878
Author: Max Wolfe
Note: Max Wolfe is a freelance writer who resides at St. Andrews.
Cited: LeDain Commission Report: 
http://www.druglibrary.org/Schaffer/LIBRARY/studies/ledain/ldctoc.html

CALL OFF THE WAR ON DRUGS

Does anyone remember Gerald LeDain?

He created more stir in this country in his time than most would ever 
do. He was a Supreme Court of Canada justice and the author of what 
became known popularly as the LeDain Commission Report on the 
non-medical use of drugs in Canada, In simple terms, it stated there 
was no evidence that the moderate use of moderate amounts of 
marijuana harmed anyone's health, was addictive, led to crime or to 
the use of more potent drugs. On the other hand, apart from the 
obvious and significant financial cost, the prohibition of the use of 
marijuana entailed extraordinary means of enforcement that has the 
potential of leading to corruption and brutality.

It suggested that enforcement costs might be better spent elsewhere. 
It urged the feds to repeal possession laws and let people grow their 
own supply for personal use. And guess what came of the report.... 
Nothing. I am sure no one is surprised.

At about the time the report was published (1972) the Mounties, in 
their eagerness to protect us from evil, used to sit in rented 
second-floor rooms at busy downtown intersections. They would spy on 
kids on the street corners peddling pot to each other.

They caught dozens, if not hundreds, in this way and charged them 
under the Narcotic Control Act. When you went down to headquarters to 
speak to the police they showed you all the caught-dead-to-rights 
photos of kids exchanging drugs, for money. The poor kids didn't 
stand a chance. The best that hapless defence counsel could do was 
stumble, mumble and throw him/herself on the mercy of the court.

It was an exercise in bullying, if not persecution. The Mounties had 
their operation down pat and the youngsters were out-gunned from the 
get go. Lambs to the slaughter. And we in the (mostly unpaid) defence 
bar became effectively part of the system. We knew the kids were 
being singled out. We knew that no one older than 30 was ever 
prosecuted and we knew that no one from the Union Club in Saint John 
or its equivalents elsewhere was ever going to be charged. It was 
class war right under our very noses, and there wasn't a thing we 
could do about it. I suppose the defence bar was making a living out 
of it, too. Unwittingly, we were part of the system.

Besides, it played perfectly to the self-righteous middle class 
prejudices of the time. The judges didn't think twice about it - at 
least, not until their own kids and their friends' kids started to be 
picked up. Then the logic of the self-righteous came home to roost. 
The more successful the police operations, the more "nice kids" were 
caught in the dragnet.

If the Mounties thought this was going to solve the problem (however 
they might define it), they were wrong. It went from bad to worse for 
them. No judge in the land was going to imprison a nice middle class 
youngster for having a joint in his possession; penalties went down 
and use went up. The police actions produced exactly the opposite of 
what they wanted. And the pattern, in roughly those terms, continues.

The historical record of prohibition has been abysmal. Think alcohol. 
It simply doesn't work, yet we persist in using it as our model. The 
definition of madness is when you repeat the same behaviour over and 
over again and expect a different outcome each time. That is 
precisely what we have been doing in our war on drugs.

The arguments against prohibition are old and oft repeated, but we 
keep forgetting - or at least the prohibition people do. Do we try to 
regulate mountaineering, scuba diving and rock-climbing... to say 
nothing of rugby or hockey? They are more dangerous than many illegal 
drugs. We discourage smoking and obesity, but we don't make them illegal.

The Late Chief Judge Hazen Strange of the N.B. provincial court used 
to complain that alcohol-related offences made up about 40 per cent 
of his case load. You would think people could be educated off 
alcohol, but we make little or no attempt to do so. And we set an 
atrocious example. Our idea of a good time is to get drunk out of our minds.

But there have been improvements for all that. It's not a straight 
line graph any longer. Drug epidemics come and go, as, for example, 
with heroin and crack. And statistics for drug use have become fairly 
stable. It will be a long time before we can overcome the urge to 
tell people what's good for them. But surely it is time to recognize 
that the costs of enforcing drug prohibition are too high, no matter 
what we choose to include as a cost.

We have a particular problem here in Canada. The States would 
probably send in the Marines if we tried to legalize drugs. But even 
they are coming to the realization that the whole idea of a war on 
drugs simply isn't working and probably never has.

There is a comparatively progressive incumbent in the White House. 
It's an opening and we should take it. It's time for a re-think.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom