Pubdate: Fri, 24 May 2013
Source: National Post (Canada)
Copyright: 2013 Canwest Publishing Inc.
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/wEtbT4yU
Website: http://www.nationalpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/286
Author: Jesse Kline

EVEN IF FORD'S ON CRACK, WHO CARES?

Who says Canadian politics are uninteresting? In the past week, we've 
witnessed two Tory senators resign from caucus over allegations of 
improper expense claims, the Prime Minister's chief of staff 
resigning as part of the same scandal and - juiciest of all - 
allegations that Toronto Mayor Rob Ford was caught on video smoking crack.

But from my perspective as a (Toronto) taxpayer, the only real 
scandals are the ones that involve politicians misspending my money. 
What Rob Ford does on his own time certainly makes for titillating 
reading, but it doesn't affect his constituents.

Ford is not the first politician to be accused of insobriety. Many of 
Canada's Founding Fathers likely were drunk out of their minds when 
producing this nation's legislative architecture. As historian Mark 
Bourrie wrote in the Post recently, "Confederation itself had floated 
through on waves of free booze." In the U.K., Winston Churchill won 
the Second World War starting every day with a glass of white wine, 
instead of tea - and then going downhill from there.

In 1990, the former mayor of Washington, D.C., Marion Barry, was 
caught smoking crack on video by an FBI sting operation. He spent six 
months in jail, before being re-elected as mayor. He currently has a 
seat on city council. Bill Clinton famously admitted to smoking pot, 
but claimed he never inhaled. Barack Obama also admitted to doing 
drugs during his college days, something he has never apologized for.

Former U.S. president George W. Bush and current British Prime 
Minister David Cameron both faced allegations of using cocaine in the 
past, but went on to have successful careers as conservative 
politicians. Of course, neither Bush nor Cameron was accused of doing 
a line while in office, and there certainly wasn't any smoking gun 
video evidence to support the allegations. But that was the age 
before cellphone cameras.

The point is that doing drugs does not automatically disqualify 
someone from holding public office. Were there evidence that Ford was 
showing up for work high as a kite, that would be a different matter. 
But right now, we don't even know for sure that the allegations 
against him are true.

People are mad at Ford not just because they think he did hard drugs: 
It's also because he was purportedly doing crack in the ghetto with 
some sketchy drug dealers. That's racist: I highly doubt we'd see the 
same level of outrage if he was caught doing cocaine with some white 
bankers on Bay Street.

Crack has a reputation for being a drug used by minorities in poor 
neighbourhoods, while coke is seen as the substance of choice for 
rich white people who make a living behind desks. But despite their 
different reputations, the two drugs are essentially the same thing - 
although crack is often cut with other substances that potentially 
make it more dangerous.

Fears about crack use began in the mid-1980s, when the drug began 
appearing in impoverished neighbourhoods of large American cities. It 
was commonly thought that crack was more dangerous than cocaine 
because it led to violent behaviour, was more addictive and caused 
serious birth defects. The truth is that it's less harmful than 
originally suspected (though it's certainly addictive and potentially 
life-destroying, and obviously I wouldn't recommend trying it).

A 2007 report by the U.S. Sentencing Commission looking into the 
discrepancy between mandatory minimums for cocaine and crack use 
found that crack users are more prone to binges, but that it is not 
more addictive. It also found that "there does not appear to be a 
neurological difference between cocaine exposed babies and study 
controls," and that "almost all crack cocaine-related violence ... 
occurs within the drug distribution process" (my emphasis).

Torontonians knew Ford had been arrested for drunk driving and 
marijuana possession in 1999, but elected him to office anyway 
Cocaine is dangerous in any form, and it is a controlled substance, 
but does that mean that Ford "should surrender his chain of office," 
as the Toronto Star's editorial board suggests?

Toronto city councillor Ana Bailao plead guilty to drunk-driving 
charges in January - which is arguably more reprehensible than 
smoking crack, because she put other people's lives at risk. She 
could have hit a mini-van and killed a family of six, yet still 
retains her seat on council. Montreal MP Pablo Rodriguez also 
admitted to drinking before getting into a car accident in 2010, but 
was not kicked out of office until voters gave him the boot in the 
2011 election. Torontonians knew Ford had been arrested for drunk 
driving and marijuana possession in 1999, but elected him to office anyway.

My colleague Jonathan Kay argues that the scandal will affect the 
Mayor's ability to get his agenda through council, and that he will 
be shunned by parents and business people, making him unable to do 
his job as a civic leader. But as any astute observer of Toronto 
politics knows, council is already so divided that it makes the U.S. 
Congress look like a model of efficiency.

And while it's true that parents may not want the Mayor "leading the 
2013 Santa Claus parade," they shouldn't be holding politicians up as 
role models in the first place. These people are in the business of 
telling half-truths and deceiving the public - hardly a life that 
little Johnny should be aspiring to.

Ford comes from a long line of politicians who like to get inebriated 
once in awhile, because politics, like many jobs, is tough. People 
will always be looking to unwind after a hard day's work - sometimes 
breaking the law, with a glass of Scotch during prohibition, and a 
crack pipe in 2013 - and politicians are no different.

By focusing on salacious scandals such as possible drug use, we lose 
sight of what really matters: public policy. There are plenty of ways 
to attack Mayor Ford based on what he has, and hasn't, done in 
office. What he does on his own time is not one of them.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom