Pubdate: Wed, 28 Mar 2012
Source: Globe and Mail (Canada)
Copyright: 2012 The Globe and Mail Company
Contact:  http://www.theglobeandmail.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/168
Author: Carly Weeks
Cited: B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS: http://www.cfenet.ubc.ca/

SCRAP MINIMUM TERMS FOR DRUG CRIMES, TWO MEDICAL OFFICERS URGE

The senior medical officers of two provinces are urging the federal 
government to scrap controversial mandatory minimum sentences and use 
scientific evidence to create drug policies that work.

Provincial Health Officer Perry Kendall of British Columbia and Chief 
Public Health Officer Robert Strang of Nova Scotia were the 
co-authors of an analysis published on Wednesday in the journal Open 
Medicine questioning Canada's aggressive regulation of illicit drugs, 
an expensive pursuit that they say has been a dismal failure.

In short, it is time to stop treating illicit drug use as solely an 
issue of crime and look at it more as a serious health issue.

The two health officers say the central problem is that nearly all 
resources aimed at drug control are spent on policing, despite a lack 
of evidence that law enforcement and jail time have any effect on 
lowering the prevalence of illicit drug use. Rather than rethinking 
this approach, the federal government is encouraging the role of the 
legal system by introducing mandatory minimum sentences for minor 
drug offences, according to their article.

Mandatory minimums, which were included in the federal government's 
omnibus crime bill passed this year, have become a lightning rod in 
Canada. The government and its supporters say the new measure will 
help crack down on crime, but critics say it will clog the jails and 
require massive spending on new incarceration facilities. Many 
law-enforcement experts in the United States, where mandatory 
minimums are being abandoned, say putting non-violent drug offenders 
in jail only exposes them to gang violence, criminal behaviour and 
other serious problems.

The government's approach flies in the face of mounting evidence that 
focusing on social programs, such as opioid substitution therapies, 
improved access to mental-health and addiction counselling, and 
expanded treatment and withdrawal programs, can reduce the serious 
problems linked to drug use, the article states. There is also 
evidence that other moves, such as the regulation of the sale of 
marijuana, could reduce violence and other problems linked to use of the drug.

"I'm not soft on crime, I'm not pro-drug and I don't want to legalize 
drugs," Dr. Kendall said in an interview. "I just want to find a way 
that will better reduce the availability, access and use of these 
psychoactive substances with fewer unintended side effects."

The side effects he is referring to include the spread of infectious 
diseases, such as HIV (by addicts sharing needles), overdoses, the 
spread of organized crime and other criminal behaviour.

The simple truth is that decades of battling the availability and use 
of illicit drugs have done little to address the problem, with ample 
evidence indicating that access to substances such as marijuana is 
easier than ever, the paper says.

There is an urgent need to look at new measures to reduce the harm 
associated with drug use, the authors argue. They say that when it 
comes to marijuana, Canada should consider the model used to control 
and tax the sale of tobacco and alcohol as a way to crack down on 
organized crime, control the availability of the drug and potentially 
"positively influence cultural norms related to drug use."

For instance, research has shown that marijuana use is higher in the 
U.S., where it is illegal, than in the Netherlands, where the 
government allows the drug to be sold to adults in coffee shops.

Evan Wood, another one of the paper's authors and co-director of the 
Urban Health Research Initiative at the B.C. Centre for Excellence in 
HIV/AIDS, said it's time to have a national discussion about 
revamping the country's approach to drug control.

"The discordance between evidence and policy is just a frustrating 
quagmire when we know we could dramatically improve community health 
and safety if we took a more evidence-based approach," Dr. Wood said.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom