Date: Sat, 1 Sep 2001 02:47:51 -0400
To: Matthew Gaylor <freematt@coil.com>
From: Matthew Gaylor <freematt@coil.com>
Subject: Canada: 'Run up the white flag': Fraser Institute blames
 prohibition for violent crime
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed"

Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2001 14:00:27 -0700
From: Chris Bearchell <seabee@island.net>
Subject: 'The war on drugs is lost'

[Yet more on Canada and the WoD. - cb]

August 23, 2001

'The war on drugs is lost': analysts

'Run up the white flag': Fraser Institute blames prohibition for violent crime

Michael Friscolanti
National Post

Not only is the war against drugs a complete waste of time and money, 
but it is to blame for most of the murders and robberies commonly 
associated with the drug trade, concludes a series of policy papers 
released yesterday by the Fraser Institute.

The nine articles criticize world governments -- including Canada, 
which spends $2-billion a year enforcing the county's drug laws -- 
for siphoning money into a "failed war" that breeds violent crime, 
destroys neighbourhoods and corrupts law enforcement officials.

"I'm not necessarily encouraging the use of drugs," said Eugene 
Oscapella, an Ottawa lawyer who wrote one of the papers. "We're just 
looking for a regime that doesn't import all these other harms that 
are currently associated with the criminal prohibition of drugs."

Those harms, he said, include people prostituting themselves for 
drugs and dealers killing each other to gain control over a piece of 
the lucrative trade.

Instead of using resources to arrest and prosecute these people, the 
papers suggest a series of other approaches, ranging from more 
addiction treatment centres to increased education to complete 
legalization.

"The war on drugs is lost," said Fred McMahon, director of the Fraser 
Institute's Social Affairs Centre. "It is completely lost. It is 
unambiguously lost. It is time to run up the white flag and start 
looking for more sensible solutions."

Of the more than 64,000 drug-related crimes documented in Canada each 
year, the authors suggest most are people stealing to pay for their 
expensive addictions. If the drugs were legal, they argue, they would 
also be less costly, in turn saving people from resorting to crime in 
order to afford them.

"That type of crime would largely disappear," Mr. Oscapella said.

In his paper, titled Witch Hunts and Chemical McCarthyism: The 
Criminal Law and Twentieth-Century Canadian Drug Policy, Mr. 
Oscapella also argues prohibition breeds corrupt police officers 
looking to cash in on the illegal drug trade.

Canadians need look no further than Toronto, he said, where the RCMP 
is investigating allegations of perjury involving some drug squad 
investigations.

"If you're in Toronto," he asked, "do you trust your cops?"

The collection of papers also highlights how the war on drugs works 
to destroy the poor nations of Latin America, Asia and the Middle 
East, where innocent people are caught in the crossfire between 
terrorists, militias and government forces. (Unrelated to the release 
of the papers, more than 100 celebrities, including actors Harry 
Belafonte and Danny Glover, sent a letter to the United Nations 
asking for an end to the war on drugs because it targets minorities.)

Patrick Basham, a senior fellow at The Cato Institute in Washington, 
D.C., said the Canadian government has historically focused its 
attention on fighting "the latest crisis" rather than evaluating the 
effectiveness of the country's entire policy.

"The politicians, like most of the general public, have never really 
been presented with an alternative take on the drug war," said Mr. 
Basham, who wrote the introduction to the papers. "Nobody's really 
sat down and really analyzed what we are doing now and how it is 
working. Because of that, all the solutions tend to be 
counterproductive."

The papers are just the latest reports to criticize the worldwide war 
on drugs. The July 28 issue of The Economist, which was largely 
devoted to the legalization question, concluded "prohibition has 
failed" and "the laws on drugs are doing more harm than good."

In May, an editorial in the Canadian Medical Association Journal said 
"there are no reported cases of fatal marijuana overdoses" and the 
"real harm marijuana users experience takes the form of lost 
educational, employment and travel opportunities due to the criminal 
record they acquire."

And a recent three-part series in the National Post outlined the 
lucrative marijuana trade -- in the range of $30-billion a year -- 
that goes unnoticed by Canadian authorities.

The federal government has a Senate committee looking into the pros 
and cons of decriminalizing cannabis, but Anne McLellan, the Minister 
of Justice, has said she has no intention of making any drug legal.

"The Minister has said that she realizes there are differences of 
opinion on this, and indeed that's one of the reasons why the 
government does not intend to legalize drugs," said Alexander Swann, 
a spokesman for Ms. McLellan.

However, these latest papers could force politicians to rethink their 
stances on the issue.

"The papers are very sensible," said Diane Riley, a University of 
Toronto public health sciences professor who specializes in social 
policy related to drugs. "They alert us to problems which we're all 
too aware of -- that current drug policies in most countries are a 
failure."

      Chris Bearchell
        mailto:seabee@island.net
     General Delivery, Lasqueti Island, British Columbia V0R 2J0
  (250) 333-8747



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