Pubdate: Mon, 25 Jul 2005
Source: National Post (Canada)
Copyright: 2005 Southam Inc.
Contact:  http://www.nationalpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/286
Author: Joel Connelly, Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mjcn.htm (Cannabis - Canada)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/hr.htm (Harm Reduction)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?143 (Hepatitis)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/walters.htm (Walters, John)

HIGH HAVENS: SEATTLE, VANCOUVER RESIST MARIJUANA CLAMPDOWN

SEATTLE - Hyperbole is addictive when you direct the U.S. Office of 
National Drug Control Policy, where John Walters has ratcheted up 
claims that marijuana smoking is a gateway to hard drug use and 
criminal behaviour.

Crusading against the weed is, for Mr. Walters, a cross-country and 
even cross-border cause.

Two cities, however, have heard him out but headed off in a new 
direction. One is a somewhat laid-back Seattle. The other, Vancouver, 
has a hard-core drug problem as serious as any place in North America.

On the weekend of Aug. 20-21, 75,000 people will gather each day at 
the waterfront for Seattle Hempfest -- annually the largest, best 
organized marijuana event in the United States.

In September, 2003, by a solid 58%, Seattle voters adopted Initiative 
75, making marijuana possession the city's lowest law-enforcement priority.

Mr. Walters made a pre-election appearance in Seattle, visiting a 
detox centre with City Attorney Tom Carr.

A year earlier, Mr. Walters had travelled to the Great White North, 
delivering his message to the Vancouver Board of Trade just before a 
municipal election in which voters endorsed a radical redirection of 
drug policy.

In Seattle, the public voice for I-75 and marijuana legalization has 
been a media-savvy young man named Dominic Holden, long-time Seattle 
Hempfest organizer -- he is taking a break this year -- and board 
member of the National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML).

"Our law enforcement saves money from I-75," Mr. Holden said. "Our 
jails save money. Our kids are not using marijuana more. We have 
tested, and succeeded in, a more humane policy."

Just 232 kilometres north, at Vancouver city hall, a guy of very 
different background is an even more emphatic voice for change.

"Drug czars are the most ill-informed people in government," 
Vancouver Mayor Larry Campbell said in an interview.

"John Walters is pushing against good science. He's pushing an agenda 
that doesn't fit in the real world. He's in denial."

Mr. Campbell is a former Royal Canadian Mounted Police constable, and 
veteran of the drug squad, who became the first Vancouver district 
coroner. He was named British Columbia's chief coroner in 1996, at a 
time when drug-overdose deaths were skyrocketing to as many as 400 a year.

The Mayor decries the timidity of Canada's federal government, which 
has aroused Mr. Walters' wrath by proposing to decriminalize 
possession of small amounts of marijuana.

Mr. Campbell would go a long step further.

"I'd legalize marijuana," he said. "I'd control it, tax the hell out 
of it and put the money into health care.

"The growing of marijuana in this province is a $3-billion to 
$7-billion business. Who is making money off it? Organized crime, 
that's who. No taxes are being paid. No social benefits are realized."

The Mayor even gets personal. Mr. Campbell noted his sister is 
undergoing chemotherapy.

"I've told her -- she is a non-smoker -- 'If you get nauseous, I'll 
get you some B.C. Bud,'" said Mr. Campbell, referring to the informal 
name of British Columbia's leading agricultural export.

"Why? To relieve her pain," he added. "Is that not what we are about 
as humans?"

During ratings-driven "sweeps months," Seattle TV stations often make 
a beeline for Vancouver's drug-ridden Downtown Eastside 
neighbourhood. They have filmed addicts shooting up and breaking into 
cars to support their habit, and they trekked to the much-publicized 
Cannabis Cafe -- until the police shut it down.

The TV cameras just show the surface of suffering. Recently, I went 
to Alliance Francaise, a local cultural centre, to see a harrowing 
exhibit by French photographer Marc Josse.

Mr. Josse spent a year in the neighbourhood. "We have drug problems, 
but nothing like this," he is reported as saying. The exhibit, 
Eastside Stories, details the lives of people, in Mr. Josse's words, 
"suffering and dying of indifference."

The Downtown Eastside proved to be an epiphany for Mr. Campbell.

What changed the RCMP drug squad veteran? "I became a coroner," Mr. 
Campbell said. "My goal was not enforcement. It became saving peoples' lives."

Vancouver has moved to remedy its indifference.

Mr. Campbell champions what is called the Four Pillars approach to 
Vancouver's drug crisis -- harm reduction, treatment, prevention and 
enforcement.

A centrepiece is the city's supervised injection centre, where 
addicts can shoot up -- "We have almost 600 injections a day," Mr. 
Campbell said -- while also receiving health care and counseling on 
how to kick their habit.

In the opinion of the Mayor, the radical measure has broken up the 
street drug trade, and saved lives by providing emergency response to 
drug overdoses and curbing needle-spread HIV-AIDS and hepatitis C.

In comparison, Mr. Campbell said that with its focus on interdiction 
and enforcement, official U.S. drug policy seems caught in a time warp.

"They're still in Reefer Madness," he said, referring to an anti-drug 
movie of the 1930s.

Seattle and Vancouver have chosen a different path.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Beth