Pubdate: Wed, 21 Nov 2012
Source: Nanaimo Daily News (CN BC)
Copyright: 2012 Nanaimo Daily News
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/nanaimodailynews/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1608
Author: Darrell Bellaart

DRUG POLICY MAKES NO SENSE

Don't look too hard for the reason in the federal government's policy 
on drugs. Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq rejected a plea from her 
provincial counterparts this week to ban oxycodone.

It raises questions about where, exactly, this government stands on 
substance abuse, when it involves big corporate interests.

Oxycodone is a powerful narcotic, usually sold as a pill that addicts 
can grind up and inject, for a high similar to heroin. And it's 
equally addictive.

Last year the manufacturer replaced it with a version that is more 
difficult to inject, easing at least some of the concerns about its misuse.

But the patent runs out Nov. 25, and generic drug manufacturers are 
ready to make a knock-off version of the drug pulled off the market last year.

Doctors know such powerful painkillers have their medical value, as 
well as the risk of addiction and death. They also know they are 
partly responsible for the availability of such drugs.

In the federal government's case, it has given plenty of clear 
signals it is morally against the use of anything that can be used as 
a recreational drug that is currently deemed illegal.

Yet it has a different approach if the drug generates billions of 
dollars in profits for respectable drug manufacturers.

It's difficult to look at that approach without detecting a hint of 
hypocrisy, as government locks people up for possession of cannabis, 
a drug that is not physically addictive, and which has never been 
associated with a single death. Unless you count the violent crime 
caused by its illegal status.

Some 80 years after prohibition ended in Canada, our government still 
hasn't learned the obvious lessons that failed experiment provided.

Aglukkaq told the provinces government can't ban a drug simply on its 
potential for misuse. Yet plenty of substances are illegal, including 
cannabis, a drug the government sells to patients with a licence to use it.

Pot's illegal status creates a thriving underground economy in B.C. 
An illicit drug dealer told a Vancouver Sun reporter this week he 
makes "in the neighbourhood of $25,000" a month selling pot. That's 
just one dealer, in a province with reportedly the most growers in Canada.

Nanaimo doctors recently met to discuss ways to ensure fewer 
prescriptions are written for addicts, in an attempt to stem the use 
of opiates.

"It's a huge problem that affects your and my pocketbook, in 
emergency rooms, for police, courts, jails," said Dr. Patricia Mark, 
a Nanaimo physician who has been treating drug addiction for 25 years.

The Coroners Service says opiates killed 28 Vancouver Islanders, by 
overdose or suicide in 2008, 16 in 2009 and 17 in 2010.

Yet Aglukkaq does nothing. Where is the common sense in Canada's drug policy?

As the federal government allows drug manufactures to resume 
production of a highly addictive drug, it writes laws with minimum 
jail sentences for possession of as few as six cannabis plants.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom