Pubdate: Sat, 23 May 2009 Source: Review, The (CN MB) Copyright: 2009 The Review Contact: http://www.beausejourreview.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2957 Author: Ryan Crocker LEARNING FROM OUR NEIGHBOURS We've all been told we live in a global village, a world brought closer together through technology and its far-reaching effects. But, for all that talk, our so-called global village is, in many ways, a place where each of us struggles in isolation to reinvent the wheel. Governments often seem reluctant to cite the experiences of other countries in promoting policies and we citizens often tend to unfairly dismiss those experiences as irrelevant. What works in one country won't work in ours, we insist, circumstances are different. This is, of course, true some of the time - prostitution laws in the Netherlands, for example, probably wouldn't work in Saudi Arabia - but, more often than that, our refusal to look to other countries for inspiration and guidance is counter-productive. Let's take illegal drugs as an example. North America, from prosperous and pretentious suburbs of Canada to bustling and bloody border towns of Mexico, has been entrenched in a so-called war on drugs for years. The United States, in many ways, has led the charge - one many of us support. We believe illegal drugs are dangerous and should be illegal to ensure our safety and security. Period, the end - leaving no room for compromise and certainly no room for considering the experiences of other countries. Illegal drugs, of course, can be dangerous - some more than others. Phencyclidine, commonly known as PCP, and methamphetamine, commonly known as meth, are notoriously dangerous drugs that clearly pose a threat to our safety and security. Police forces around the world have noted crime rates increase as meth use increases and, just this week, a man in the United States literally ate his four-year-old son's eyes while under the influence of PCP. In reality, though, many illegal drugs are no more dangerous than others we already allow, such as alcohol. In fact, in some cases, the war on drugs is more of a threat to safety and security than the illegal drugs themselves. Take marijuana for example. It's comparable to alcohol in terms of the threat it poses to our safety and security yet, unlike alcohol, it is illegal. For this reason, marijuana is one of the drugs Canadians, Americans, and Mexicans are fighting. Marijuana is one of the reasons Mexican cartels have grown so powerful and so determined to protect their smuggling business. The amount of blood that has been shed by these cartels is heart-wrenching and we've paid little attention to it because much of that blood has been shed in Mexico's border towns. Men, women, and children have been slaughtered by these cartels, often in the most torturous and gruesome ways. If marijuana was legal, no matter how tightly regulated or how heavily taxed, the cartels would become obsolete. Most of the money that fuels their bloody reign would go into government coffers instead. In addition, the amount of money we - in Canada, the United States, and Mexico - spend on enforcing drug laws is astronomical. If marijuana was legal, we could spend all of that money in other ways. Even the prison system would benefit from the legalization of marijuana, especially in the United States, where prisons are literally swelling not with dangerous criminals but with people convicted of drug-related offenses so minor they would be laughed off in other countries. If marijuana was legal, prisons could be reserved for the criminals for which they were intended. Those are the arguments some of us now believe in, while many of us still hold tightly to the belief that these drugs must be illegal. What's interesting about the debate we're engaged in is how little we turn to other countries for inspiration and guidance. Every country can teach us something, no matter how quickly we dismiss their contributions based on the differences we perceive between them and us. We have to get over ourselves and stop looking a gift horse in the mouth. Portugal is a country that shares much in common with Canada, the United States, and Mexico. Like Canada, Portugal embraces many socialist practices and offers its citizens numerous social programs and other privileges; like the United States, Portugal has a deeply conservative streak and religious views tend to determine its citizens' opinions on issues such as abortion and marriage; like Mexico, Portugal is a country where citizens enjoy a great time and tourists flock to join in. And, like all three, Portugal was faced with a drug problem. Instead of bringing the hammer of justice down, Portugal decided to throw the hammer away and, in 2001, decriminalized the possession of all drugs. Seriously, all drugs - everything from marijuana to heroin. While the drugs that were illegal before in Portugal remain so - and trafficking in them is still very much a crime - citizens caught with these drugs in their possession aren't guilty of anything. Can you guess what happened? Portugal has become the destination of choice for drug users. Rates of drug use have more than doubled every year since 2001 and, consequently, rates of new HIV infections due to the related use of needles have skyrocketed. Drug-fuelled violence, both between traffickers and by users, has turned many Portuguese resorts into something more akin to war zones. Just kidding. Actually, it worked. Since Portugal threw the hammer away, rates of drug use have declined significantly, rates of new HIV infections have likewise dropped, and the number of drug users seeking treatment has more than doubled. Furthermore, Portugal has been able to invest much of the money it saved in other areas. Why shouldn't we consider that country's experience when deciding what we want our own country to do? If it works, it works - insisting it doesn't or won't is counterproductive. We live in a global village. Lets start acting like it and spend a little more time sitting at the kitchen table, watching the neighbours, and sticking our nose in their business. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake