Pubdate: Sat, 11 Jun 2005
Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC)
Copyright: 2005 The Vancouver Sun
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/vancouver/vancouversun/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477
Author: Pete McMartin
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)

CITY HALL CANDOUR ON DRUGS REVOLUTIONARY

Headlining Report On Substance Use, Rather Than Abuse, Major Shift In 
Perspective

The bravest and, I'd argue, most revolutionary report to come out of 
Vancouver city hall may also be the most dryly entitled: Preventing Harm 
from Psychoactive Substance Use.

It was co-authored by the city's drug policy coordinator Donald MacPherson 
and social planner Zarina Mulla. When their report was made public last 
week (before going to council this coming Tuesday), the resulting press 
coverage concentrated on the recommendation to legalize and regulate the 
sale of marijuana. (One exception to that coverage was The Vancouver Sun's 
city hall reporter Frances Bula, who recognized that the report's 
comprehensive nature went beyond pot.)

That emphasis on marijuana was a shame, since the report wasn't about 
legalization. It was about the nature of governance. For that, the report 
deserved a much closer reading than it got, starting with its title.

Notice, it doesn't use the accepted phrase "Substance Abuse" -- which has 
always had a scolding connotation, suggesting the traditional paternalistic 
government view that drugs are bad for you, and government is going to 
protect you against them whether you like it or not. Instead, it uses the 
less judgmental and open-ended phrase, "Substance Use."

That shift, which may seem like a small thing, is actually at the core of 
the report's importance. It finds expression over and over in its pages. 
Some examples:

"It is acknowledged that the use of psychoactive substances is part of 
human behaviour."

And:

"The plan acknowledges that substance use is pervasive in contemporary 
society and prevention initiatives should clearly focus on the prevention 
of harm from substance use."

And:

"Social norms promote safety and safer substance use."

Got that? Hear the breathtaking candour and honesty in that?

It admits what we all know: We like drugs.

Here is a bureaucracy speaking to us candidly, stating the obvious rather 
than keep up the usual schoolmarmish pretense of moral rigour. It is 
admitting that we, for better and worse, are a drug-saturated society, and 
that government, rather than act as an agent of censure and punishment, 
would be better to take a more active role in education, treatment and 
moral suasion.

It implicitly recognizes the hypocrisy of those who, regarding legalized 
pot as the end of civilization as we know it, daily calm their nerves with 
two bottles of wine and a half a pack of Export As. It would desist from 
telling its citizens what substances they should or shouldn't put in their 
bodies, but instead counsel them on the wise use of those substances.

"Prohibition," its states in a thematic paragraph, "ironically allows 
unregulated access to those substances that are prohibited and hampers 
efforts to develop quality educational approaches that address issues of 
harm ...

"The rationale for moving towards a legal, regulated market in psychoactive 
substances is the potential for increased prevention of harm ... Moving 
towards a regulated market is an effort to gain more control over these 
substances, not an attempt to liberalize our approach or encourage more use 
of potentially harmful substances."

For himself, MacPherson said in an interview Friday, his move toward 
legalization and regulation was evolutionary, one borne out of inertia. The 
war against drugs was going nowhere.

"It was a never-ending problem, one where we were banging our heads against 
a wall. The responses to the problem would be the same old responses over 
and over and over again. More jail time! Stiffer sentences! You knew what 
people were going to say before they said them."

And nothing, as we know, was working. So MacPherson turned to those 
campaigns where public sentiment, and not government punishment, lead the 
fight against our two most damaging, and most regulated and legalized drugs 
- -- alcohol and tobacco.

Recognizing the futility of prohibition of either drug, the public 
nonetheless demanded tougher regulation of them, and got it. It was also 
the public, and not government, that led to the stigmatizing of their 
abuse, namely -- you don't drink and drive, you don't smoke in enclosed 
areas, you're an idiot to smoke, period. It was the "Nader-ization" of 
these issues that compelled government to get involved, and not the other 
way around.

That stigmatizing has had an effect. Tobacco use has been reduced by half 
in the last 50 years, and drinking-driving charges have dropped by almost 
half in the last 20 years. (Still, the report notes, tobacco and alcohol do 
by far the most damage in the province, accounting for a breathtaking 90 
per cent "of all deaths, illnesses and disabilities related to substance 
abuse in B.C." But what gets the press? Pot, speed and meth.)

Mayor Larry Campbell, a politician, and therefore a pragmatist, thinks 
highly of the report, backs legalization of pot, but knows, at this point, 
anyway, it is still a talking point.

"Eventually, one day, there will be legalized pot, but I think regulation 
is the way to go. But I'm also a realist. I don't think in my lifetime I 
will be able to go into a 7-Eleven and buy a doobie."

As for the regulation of harder drugs -- amphetamines, heroin, cocaine, 
etc., which the report suggests might be approached incrementally and down 
the line, Campbell is less sure.

"If you go too fast, if you go too hard, you run the possibility of losing 
all your support."

But this is a start, at any rate, of a new honesty.

Vancouverites should be proud that that start found its start here.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom