Pubdate: Fri, 28 Nov 2003
Source: Kelowna Capital News (CN BC)
Copyright: 2003, West Partners Publishing Ltd.
Contact:  http://www.kelownacapnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1294
Author: John McDonald

OUR LAWS ARE STILL BASED ON ANTIQUATED ATTITUDE TO DRUGS

Anyone attending the Mayor's Forum on Community Safety and Harm
Reduction on Wednesday would have heard a familiar message: Drugs are
bad and the people who sell drugs are evil.

It's a claim that many have made over the years, especially law
enforcement officials.

They will blithely attribute society's most serious crimes-murder,
assault, robbery-to drugs.

There's no doubt that drugs have been related to many serious
crimes.

But to say that drugs cause murder is a serious simplification.

I don't often find myself agreeing with the gun lobby but I'm going to
borrow one of their slogans and modify it:

Drugs don't murder people, people murder people.

The human race has been getting high and drunk since well before
Biblical times.

That people want to feel different is a given, albeit one that we've
struggled with on a moral level almost as long as we've been doing
it.

It's only in the last 200 years that alcohol and drug use has been
criminalized.

And it's no coincidence that criminal enterprises built on their
supply sprung up soon after.

Getting in the way of people and their drugs-be it booze, cigarettes,
pot or heroin-simply gives rise to a black market and that means
money. And if nothing else, man has shown he will do anything for money.

One has to look no further than the American experiment with
Prohibition in the early part of the 20th century to see the
consequences of the economic opportunities black markets give rise
to.

Some of the world's largest organized crime rings got their shot at
the big time supplying booze to ordinary Americans.

Prohibition has long gone but those same criminal organizations have
moved on to the black market for drugs.

They know a lucrative economic opportunity when they see one and
they're willing to kill, steal and rob to maintain control of it.

During the forum, former Vancouver mayor Philip Owen made a telling
statement while giving his rationale for the Four Pillar approach of
dealing with drug use. "There are four choices and only one works. You
can't incarcerate your way out of it. The jails are already full. You
can't legalize your way out of it. The world isn't ready for that yet.
You can't ignore it so you must manage it."

He may be right, the world isn't ready for legalizing all drugs yet
but it really is the only way to eliminate the huge profits and crime
that keeping drugs illegal produces.

But until we can get over the antiquated notion that getting high is a
moral lapse, we will continue to spin our wheels and people will die
because of it.
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MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin