Pubdate: Tue, 21 Aug 2012
Source: Province, The (CN BC)
Copyright: 2012 Postmedia Network Inc.
Contact: http://www2.canada.com/theprovince/letters.html
Website: http://www.theprovince.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/476
Author: Scott Hadland
Note: Dr. Scott Hadland, chief resident in pediatrics at Boston 
Children's Hospital, is lead author of the aforementioned study.
Cited: B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS: http://www.cfenet.ubc.ca/

WAR ON DRUGS WORSENS OUR HEALTH AND SAFETY

More than 40 years after U.S. President Richard Nixon launched the 
global "war on drugs" -- with a bill to U.S. taxpayers of more than 
$1 trillion spent on the criminalization of drug producers, 
traffickers and consumers -- illegal drugs remain freely available 
worldwide to those who seek them. Here in Canada, matters are no better.

A report published last week in The American Journal on Addictions 
reveals that illicit drugs are readily available on the streets of 
Vancouver. In the study, which was conducted by the B.C. Centre for 
Excellence in HIV/AIDS, more than 80 per cent of adult drug-users 
reported that they could access heroin, crack and cocaine within just 
10 minutes. Particularly concerning was that more than half of 
adolescent and young adult drug-users said they were able to access 
heroin, crack, cocaine, crystal methamphetamine or marijuana just as quickly.

These results should raise alarms and call for an urgent impact 
assessment of the war on drugs. Youth are among the most vulnerable 
to the consequences of drug use, which interferes with normal 
development, education, employment and integration into society, 
further placing them at risk of homelessness, poverty and 
prostitution. Intravenous injection of drugs, including many of those 
considered in the study, also places young people at risk of fatally 
overdosing or acquiring HIV.

As a British Columbian and pediatrician, I have seen firsthand the 
tolls -- medical, psychological and economic -- that drugs have on 
young people. Yet despite this persistent threat to public health and 
safety in Canada, our national approach to drug control remains 
oblivious to its own failure, with vast funding allotted to expensive 
and ineffective drug law-enforcement efforts to the detriment of 
evidence-based prevention and treatment services. When the Office of 
the Auditor General of Canada last examined the national drug 
strategy, it found that 93 per cent of federal funding was dedicated 
to law enforcement and noted: "Of particular concern is the almost 
complete absence of basic management information on spending of 
resources, on expectations and on results of an activity that 
accounts for almost $500 million each year."

Canada is not unique in pursuing misdirected drug law-enforcement 
policies. Last year, the blue-ribbon Global Commission on Drug 
Policy, which included the likes of former UN secretary-general Kofi 
Annan and former Canadian Supreme Court justice Louise Arbour, 
highlighted that worldwide drug enforcement has failed to curtail 
global drug supply.

In Canada and elsewhere, successes in arresting drug producers and 
traffickers create power vacuums and turf wars, with new drug 
suppliers emerging almost immediately. Incarcerating drug-users 
results in enormous costs by clogging the court system, fuelling 
organized crime and violence and locking away society's youth in 
prisons where existing gangs recruit and train youth -- all without 
success in reducing drug supply or consumption.

Conversely, decriminalization of drugs does not result in increased 
use. In 2001, Portugal abolished criminal penalties for personal 
possession of drugs and, since then, has seen declines in teenage 
drug use and in injection-related HIV infections, while referrals to 
addiction treatment have more than doubled. Similarly, in The 
Netherlands, where adult cannabis sales are legally regulated and 
taxed, marijuana use among youth is much lower than in North America. 
The potential to raise tax revenue while subverting income sources 
for organized crime has not been lost on voters in Washington state, 
where an upcoming ballot measure calls for the regulation and 
taxation of marijuana for adult use, with an expected half-billion 
dollars of annual new revenue to be generated.

Here in Canada, the most effective way forward is to implement 
evidence-based policies that expand drug prevention and treatment 
services, particularly for youth, rather than relying on ineffective 
and costly law-enforcement schemes. This is not a matter of opinion, 
but of science. High-quality studies have identified a wide range of 
addiction treatment services with proven benefit, while showing that 
incarceration drives users underground and away from preventive 
services, thereby jeopardizing public health.

We have the opportunity to shatter old misperceptions about drug 
addiction, to treat young users with respect and dignity and to 
deliver effective addiction treatment programs that can sustainably 
decrease the demand for drugs. We must renew debate on our current 
criminal justice approach to drug control and reconsider whether, in 
the face of growing organized crime and the widespread availability 
of drugs on our streets, taxpayers are not actually funding a system 
that worsens community health and safety.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom