Pubdate: Fri, 06 Jan 2012
Source: Coast Reporter (CN BC)
Copyright: 2012 Coast Reporter
Contact:  http://www.coastreporter.net/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/580
Author: Paul Martiquet
Note: Dr. Paul Martiquet is the medical health officer for Rural 
Vancouver Coastal Health including Powell River, the Sunshine Coast, 
Sea-to-Sky, Bella Bella and Bella Coola.
Cited: Stop the Violence BC: http://stoptheviolencebc.org/

Health Matters

MAKING CANNABIS POLICY WORK

Over the past 20 years, governments have financed successive law 
enforcement efforts aiming to address the proliferation of cannabis 
use and distribution. Those strategies have rarely been properly 
evaluated and have made the situation worse in many ways.

Stop the Violence BC (STVBC) brings together law enforcement 
officials, legal experts, public health officials and academics from 
BC's largest universities (www.stoptheviolencebc.org).

In its second report, STVBC shows that data from governments 
themselves proves anti-cannabis policies are not working. Entitled 
How not to protect community health and safety, the report 
demonstrates how ineffective prohibition has been as a policy. It 
focuses on the impact of drug law enforcement on cannabis 
availability and the expansion of organized crime in BC.

We have seen dramatic increases in funding for law enforcement and 
increased mandatory minimum sentences for cannabis offences, but 
there has been no apparent effect on the availability and 
accessibility of cannabis. Massive law enforcement funding has led to 
large increases in arrests and seizures, but little effect has been 
felt on drug use by teens and young adults in British Columbia. 
Indeed, if the policies were effective, rates of use would not have 
gone up, and prices would not have dropped (58 per cent over the 
20-year period from 1981).

As was the case with the prohibition of alcohol in the 1920s and 30s, 
the prohibition of cannabis has not eliminated easy availability of 
the drug. Simply put, prohibition has never worked. This was 
especially well described by Noble Prize-winning economist Milton 
Friedman who observed in a 1991 interview: "If you look at the drug 
war from a purely economic point of view, the role of the government 
is to protect the drug cartel."

Not only has prohibition not achieved its objectives, but it has 
created a lucrative opportunity for organized crime that in turn 
fuels other criminal activity and gang violence.

Stop the Violence BC wants to engage all British Columbians in a 
discussion aimed at developing and implementing cannabis-related 
policies that improve public health while reducing social harms, 
including violent crime and gang activity. Specifically, STVBC is 
calling for cannabis to be governed by a strict regulatory framework 
aimed at limiting use while also starving organized crime of the 
profits they currently reap as a result of cannabis prohibition.

Supporting the STVBC approach is the Health Officers' Council of BC 
(HOC). The organization bring together public health physicians who 
advise and advocate for public policies and programs directed to 
improving the health of populations. On Dec. 22, the HOC unanimously 
passed a resolution to support Stop the Violence BC.

The HOC position is clearly summarized by Dr. John Carsley, a medical 
health officer in Vancouver: "From a scientific and public health 
perspective, we urgently need to pursue alternatives to the blanket 
prohibition of marijuana which are based on evidence. Strict 
regulation, guided by a public health framework, is clearly the 
logical way forward."

We discuss policy alternatives in our next issue.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom