war on drugs
Drug war isn't working - Burger
By Auren Ruvinsky - Parksville Qualicum Beach News
“The war on drugs isn’t effective,” said Parksville mayor Chris Burger in light of Vancouver Island municipal politician’s support for decriminalizing marijuana.
“We had quite a debate and a fair majority voted to decriminalize it,” he reported after the Association of Vancouver Island and Coastal Communities (AVICC) conference April 13 to 15 in Uclulet. Read more »
The demilitarized drug-war zone
Editorial, The Globe and Mail
As debate about the failure of the drug war gains momentum, nobody is expecting a sudden ceasefire between cartels and police. It is far too complex and diffuse a problem. Instead, small battles will be won city by city, neighbourhood by neighbourhood. One striking success is Vancouver’s InSite program, North America’s only supervised-injection site.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper tried to close the clinic, and would have if the Supreme Court of Canada hadn’t intervened. The court approved the clinic because of the specific conditions that gave rise to it, including the concentration of drug addicts in the impoverished Downtown Eastside neighbourhood and the high rates of disease and overdose. Read more »
War on drugs has been lost, Alberta judge says
By: DAWN WALTON, Globe and Mail
An Alberta judge, who presided over a fatality inquiry concerning an imprisoned aboriginal man who ingested a toxic mix of morphine, ecstasy and marijuana, has provocatively concluded that the war on drugs has been lost.
Provincial Court Judge Les Grieve’s analysis of the “unenviable” life and “tragic” death of 40-year-old Kory Stewart Mountain at the federal Drumheller Institution comes as deadly drug and gang-related violence has erupted on an Alberta reserve. His conclusions also appear to take aim at the federal Conservative government’s tough-on-crime agenda as well as provincial cuts to restorative justice programs that bring offenders and victims face-to-face, which experts say can steer wayward people straight. Read more »
Editorial: Drug laws fuel gangs' growth
TIMES COLONIST Editorial
Jonathan Bacon surely knew the risks that came with his chosen profession. He knew his life would end violently; it had been threatened many times. The only question was when he would be gunned down.
Bacon's death on Sunday - in a flurry of bullets from automatic weapons outside a casino in Kelowna - should not have surprised anyone familiar with the gangster life.
His younger brothers, Jarrod and Jamie, must understand their days are numbered as well. Their friends and associates and family cannot ignore the cold reality that gang activity usually ends with prison or death.
Yet, despite the inescapable danger, more British Columbians are choosing to join gangs. They put family members at risk while accepting - whether they admit it or not - the odds of an early demise. And even more people choose to associate with gang members. Read more »
Global war on drugs a dismal failure
BY DAN GARDNER, EDMONTONJOURNAL.COM
On Thursday, a panel of eminent persons released a report calling on the world's governments to dramatically change how they deal with illicit drugs. "The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world," concluded the Global Commission on Drug Policy.
The 19 members of the commission include former presidents of Colombia, Mexico and Brazil, as well legendary former United States Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, former Canadian Supreme Court justice Louise Arbour, and former secretary of state under Ronald Reagan, George Shultz. But for those who know the history of the war on drugs, and the central role played by the United Nations, the most striking name on the list is that of Kofi Annan. Read more »
Tougher policy on crime leads to more victims
The StarPhoenixAccording to federal Justice Minister Vic Toews, the Conservative party is the only one in Ottawa that's bent on protecting the rights of the victims of crime.
But reading through the annual report by Howard Sapers, the correctional investigator of Canada, it's clear that the Conservatives' "get tough on crime" strategy is tailor-made to create more victims rather than protect victims' rights.
Even before the Tories took office nearly five years ago, Canada locked up more people for longer periods, and for a greater variety of crimes, than did almost any other democracy except the United States.
No reason for pot prohibition
By ALAN SHANOFF, QMI Agency / Published London Free PressDrug cartels, criminals, police chiefs, alcohol manufacturers and retailers, prison employees and big pharma, can now sleep easier.
California's Proposition 19 was defeated this week 54% to 46%. Marijuana prohibition remains in force in California. Recreational possession and use of pot remains illegal in North America.
But don't let your guard down. Keep lobbying against lifting pot prohibition because sooner or later people are going to come to their senses and accept that prohibition has been an abject failure.
It's only a matter of time until changes come to marijuana laws
Now that the smoke has cleared from the marijuana legalization vote in California, it's obvious the real issue in the drug war, as in Afghanistan, is an exit strategy.
For the first time since the cannabis prohibition was imposed nearly a century ago, a rational, evidence-based debate is occurring and change is coming.
The Proposition 19 fight in the media began as a Cheech-and-Chong joke. But by the time it ended, the question was no longer whether to legalize but how to legalize -- the proposition failed because many who are anti-prohibition thought it was a bad model.
Report tracks ‘clear failure’ of cannabis prohibition
By: Benedikt Fischer, SFU NewsThe International Centre for Science in Drug Policy (ICSDP) last month released a research report co-authored by SFU health scientist Benedikt Fischer demonstrating “the clear failure of U.S. marijuana prohibition” and supporting evidence-based models for cannabis legalization and regulation.
Entitled Tools for Debate: U.S. federal government data on cannabis prohibition, the report uses 20 years of data collected by surveillance systems funded by the U.S. government to highlight the failure of cannabis prohibition in America.
The report finds that while increased funding for cannabis prohibition has increased cannabis seizures and arrests, the U.S. government’s own surveillance data shows that it has not led to reduced cannabis potency, increased prices or meaningfully reduced availability.
Jail drug trade must be probed
By: Susan Clairmont, The SpectatorThe province is refusing to tell the public if it is doing anything about allegations that a guard sold drugs in the Hamilton-Wentworth Detention Centre.
The Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services will not say if it is launching an internal investigation into a corrections officer arrested at work last Thursday.
“It’s our HR policy that prevents us from releasing personal information about our employees,” says Stuart McGetrick, spokesperson for the ministry.
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