Pubdate: Fri, 29 Oct 2010
Source: Edmonton Sun (CN AB)
Copyright: 2010 Canoe Limited Partnership.
Contact:  http://www.edmontonsun.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/135
Author: Mindelle Jacobs

AGAIN, IDEOLOGY TOPS SCIENCE

Politicians often go through the motions of soliciting the advice of 
public health specialists when developing drug policy. Then they 
routinely ignore those experts.

Such is life in politics. Spend untold amounts of public money on 
hearings, consultations, studies and royal commissions and then pile 
all the evidence on a dusty shelf somewhere.

Fiscal conservatives are supposed to be fervently committed to the 
wise use of taxpayers' dollars and rabidly opposed to wasting money 
on lost causes.

It's all the more curious, then, that the Harper Conservatives are 
hell-bent on mandatory minimum sentences for various drug-related 
crimes and building more prisons.

Guess who's going to pay for all this, folks? You are, with higher 
taxes. So much for a fiscally responsible government.

If only people knew that we could save enormous amounts of money, cut 
crime and reduce health-care waiting lists with one simple shift in 
policy. Decriminalize the possession of drugs.

Consider that almost all hepatitis C transmission is now through 
injection drug use. And, according to local infectious disease 
specialist Dr. Stan Houston, hepatitis C is the most common reason 
for liver transplants at University hospital. Such transplants, 
including follow-up care, likely cost more than $100,000 each.

The criminalization of drugs is fuelling the spread of injection 
drug-related disease, especially in federal prisons where about 5% of 
inmates have HIV and one-third have hepatitis C. That's a lot of sick 
people using up a staggering amount of health-care dollars because 
our government is too pig-headed to listen to advice.

Some of that advice came from a UN official, who recommended this 
week that illegal drugs be decriminalized. "Drug use may have harmful 
health consequences but . the current drug control approach creates 
more harm that the harms it seeks to prevent," writes Anand Grover, 
the UN's special rapporteur on physical and mental health.

"Criminalization of drug use, designed to deter drug use, possession 
and trafficking, has failed," he explains. "Instead, it has 
perpetuated risky forms of drug use, while disproportionately 
punishing people who use drugs."

This makes perfect sense to Houston, who treats people with HIV - 
many of whom have contracted the disease through injection drug use.

Decriminalizing drugs would result in more responsible drug use 
because people wouldn't be injecting in unsafe conditions and they 
wouldn't be afraid to seek help, says Houston, director of the 
northern Alberta HIV program.

"It's common sense if you have to scrounge a needle and do it in a 
back alley looking over your shoulder, those are not optimal 
conditions for safety," he says.

"I am absolutely certain that if we (decriminalized drugs), we would 
rapidly start reducing many of the broad negative impacts of criminalization."

That kind of harm-reduction approach would save scads of money 
because we could steer addicts into treatment instead of the 
expensive revolving-door justice system. Politicians like happy 
citizens who, in turn, expect fiscal responsibility.

Portugal, Mexico and Argentina have decriminalized the personal use 
of drugs, the UN report notes.

Drug use, drug-related deaths and new cases of HIV among young drug 
addicts have dropped in Portugal, it adds. And thousands of more 
people there have entered drug rehab.

Ottawa is stubbornly rejecting science, laments Houston. "It appears 
to be the most clear-cut, imaginable case of a triumph of ideology 
over experience and common sense."
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MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart