Decriminalize more than just pot, experts urge

OTTAWA — The personal use of illegal drugs, including heroin and crack cocaine, should be decriminalized as part of a federal- provincial strategy to tackle drug abuse, a B. C.based national coalition of drug policy experts argue.

In a report to be released today, the coalition denounces the Harper government’s aggressive war on drugs, which puts the emphasis on law enforcement while steering money away from harmreduction initiatives like Vancouver’s supervised injection site.

“While countries all around the world are adopting forward- thinking, evidence- based drug policies, Canada is taking a step backwards and strengthening punitive policies that have been proven to fail,” states a summary of the 112- page report from the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition, which is based at Simon Fraser University’s Centre for Applied Research in Mental Health and Addiction.

The “stunning display of unimaginative thinking” has failed to decrease the flow of drugs into Canada while hampering efforts to deal with drugrelated health problems.

“Despite Canada’s significant investment in drug control efforts, drugs are cheaper and more available than ever,” the report notes.

Among the recommendations is a call to legalize, regulate and tax the sale of marijuana to adults, taking advantage of an underground business that generates an estimated $ 357 million in annual sales in B. C. alone, according to the authors.

By far the most controversial recommendation calls for the end to prohibition of not only “soft” drugs like marijuana, but products like heroin, cocaine and methamphetamines.

The report notes that at least 25 jurisdictions in the world have moved to decriminalize at least some drugs, with Portugal ( in 2001) and the Czech Republic ( in 2010) ending criminal bans for all drugs. Its report is harshly

critical of the federal government’s anti- drug and tough- on- crime policies introduced since Stephen Harper became prime minister in 2006, including minimum mandatory sentences for certain drug offences.

Among the targets is the five- year National Anti- Drug Strategy, which was renewed for another five years in 2012 at a cost of $ 528 million. The program devotes most of its money ( roughly 70 per cent) to law enforcement, according to the report.

It also goes after the Canadian Forces’ substantial investment in counter- narcotics missions in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific.

It complains about the lack of support of, and in the case of Vancouver’s supervised injection site, aggressive opposition to “harm- reduction” programs like needle exchanges that “save lives and protect everyone’s health,” according to the Newfoundland AIDS Committee.