Pubdate: Fri, 17 Aug 2012
Source: Province, The (CN BC)
Copyright: 2012 Postmedia Network Inc.
Contact: http://www2.canada.com/theprovince/letters.html
Website: http://www.theprovince.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/476
Author: Jon Ferry

'NEVER BEEN A WAR ON DRUGS, NOT EVEN CLOSE'

Vancouver may be the world's third-most-livable city, according to the
latest Economist magazine survey, but it sure has one helluva drug
problem.

That's not news to those who've come to know the seedy underbelly of
our spaced-out port city. It's been like that for years.

So the finding by the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS that
buying illegal drugs in downtown Vancouver is as easy as going to the
nearest supermarket is no surprise either.

Most younger and older drug users surveyed in the centre's latest,
taxpayer-funded study said they could obtain everything from heroin
and crack cocaine to crystal meth and pot within minutes - 10 minutes,
to be precise.

"Perhaps most concerning is the ready availability of drugs that are
injected," noted the researchers, who hail from Vancouver and Boston.

Talk about stating the obvious. The open market for drugs in downtown
Vancouver, and the horrific social problems it causes, has been a
public concern for years.

The question is what to do about it. And the inference in this study -
published in the American Journal on Addictions and based on user
responses from 2007 - is that the American-style war on drugs, with
its emphasis on drug-law enforcement, has been an abject failure.

Indeed, it's clear the drug policy advocated instead by the B.C.
Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS itself is "harm reduction," focusing
on everything from safe-injection sites to drug legalization.

This is, in fact, the politically correct approach that's been in
vogue in Vancouver's drug-riddled downtown for years - without
apparent effect. And study co-author Dr. Evan Wood, a Vancouver
physician, is an eloquent champion of it.

"Despite enormous taxpayer investments in enforcing laws aimed at
reducing the supply of illegal drugs, Canada's streets remain awash in
heroin and cocaine," he stated recently in the National Post.

"Meanwhile, designer drugs such as ecstasy are becoming more readily
available to young people than alcohol and tobacco. The war on drugs,
like all expensive government programs, should be subject to scrutiny
and a value-for-money audit. However, so far, it has been remarkably
exempt from accountability."

It could equally well be argued, however, that the main reason why the
illegal drug trade continues to flourish in the Lower Mainland like a
foul-smelling weed is not because of too much law enforcement, but too
little.

The B.C. justice system is notoriously soft on drugs and drug
offenders, as at least one sentencing study has shown.

Just ask former Lower Mainland RCMP officer Chuck Doucette, president of 
the Drug Prevention Network of Canada: "There's never been a war on 
drugs in Canada, not even close."

It could also be argued that the laissez-faire attitude of our civic
leaders toward the government-funded Downtown Eastside drug ghetto has
done as least as much to turn troubled/homeless teens into hard-core
addicts as have any overzealous police drug crackdowns.

Besides, as former Downtown Eastside beat cop Al Arsenault pointed out
Thursday, Vancouver should not be setting drug policy: "Whatever we're
doing here is not working."

Maybe Wood and his research team should be studying those cities
around the world where it is.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Matt