Pubdate: 30 Jul 2001
Source: Canadian Press (Canada Wire)
Copyright: 2001 The Canadian Press (CP)
Section: Canadian Business and Current Affairs

CANADA BEHIND SOME EUROPEAN COUNTRIES WHEN IT COMES TO REFORMING DRUG LAWS

Despite Ottawa's recent decision to allow the use of marijuana for 
medicinal purposes, Canada is still well behind several European countries 
when it comes to reforming its drug laws.

The Canadian law, which came into effect Monday, allows severely ill 
patients with a doctor's approval to apply to Health Canada to grow and use 
marijuana.

Compared to the United States, which has taken a hard line in its war 
against drugs, the move by the federal government looks almost radical.

But compared to Portugal, which has decriminalized the use of previously 
banned drugs _ from cannabis to crack cocaine _ Canada's move doesn't seem 
so revolutionary.

"America has spent billions on enforcement but it has got nowhere," 
Vitalino Canas, Portugal's top official for drug policy, was quoted as 
saying earlier this month by the Guardian newspaper in Britain. "We view 
drug users as people who need help and care."

The new Portuguese law, which came into effect July 1, does not mean drugs 
are legal. However, drug users in Portugal no longer have to fear prison if 
they get caught.

In Switzerland, officials announced in March that they would take steps to 
remove penalties for all consumption of hashish and marijuana.

The move came after a Swiss government survey in February found that as 
many as one in four people in the country of seven million have tried pot.

Advocates of drug reform were quick to praise the Swiss.

"Switzerland is at the forefront," Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of 
the U.S.-based Lindesmith Center-Drug Policy Foundation, said Monday. 
"First with their heroin trials ... and second with setting up marijuana 
regulation."

The Swiss have long given heroin to addicts for health reasons, such as 
reducing the risk of using shared needles and HIV infection.

With its experimentation with medical use of cannabis, Canada is moving 
closer to the Swiss approach, said Nadelmann.

"The bottom line is that Canada is pulling away from the U.S. and moving 
towards the European model," he said in a phone interview.

Not everyone in Europe is getting on the drug reform bandwagon. In Sweden, 
for instance, consumption or possession of cannabis is punishable by up to 
six months in jail.

But for the most part, Sweden is the exception rather than the rule in 
European attitudes toward drugs. And that is why drug reform advocates in 
Canada are looking across the Atlantic with keen interest.

"We are not as repressive as Sweden," said Eugene Oscapella, a lawyer and 
founding member of the Canadian Foundation for Drug Policy.

"But we are far behind countries like Portugal, Spain, Italy and Belgium."

The Ottawa-based foundation, which advocates reforming Canada's drug laws, 
points out that Canada was not the first country to introduce regulations 
for the medical use of marijuana.

"Belgium beat us to the punch," Oscapella said in a phone interview.

On July 19, the Belgian government announced it had approved the use of 
cannabis for medical purposes on a trial basis.

Under the new law, cannabis can only be administered in Belgian hospitals 
as part of research that has been approved by an ethics committee.

The announcement followed the Belgian government's pledge in January that 
it would decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana.

European leaders are not the only ones calling for drug legislation reform.

Last year, Uruguayan President Jorge Batlle Ibanez raised eyebrows when he 
became the first head of state in the Americas to call for drug legalization.

In March, Mexican President Vicente Fox also made headlines when he 
suggested that drugs could eventually be legalized.

"Humanity some day will see that (legalization) is best," Fox told Mexican 
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