The Globe and Mail says Canada and the U.S. "are the reason for the existence" of drug cartels in Mexico, calling them "essentially a service industry for Canadian and American users" (As Much Our Problem - editorial, March 6). It's true that if there were no users, the cartels could not profit from the trade. However, rather than blaming users, look to the governments that have enacted prohibitionist drug laws and scarred nations around the world as a result. Prohibition has hugely inflated the value of outlawed drugs for producer and transit countries - and for the cartels that exploit the black market that we in our prohibitionist folly have created. [continues 70 words]
Re: Grow-op arrests cropping up less, April 5. Your article quotes Det. Rob Muscat of the Peel Region police morality bureau as saying, "We're the No. 1 source of marijuana into the U.S." This is utter nonsense. The available evidence, including reports from the Auditor-General of Canada, the RCMP, the U.S. and the United Nations, have all found just the opposite -- that Canada is, in fact, only a minor supplier of cannabis to the U.S. The most recent report produced by Canadian and American government agencies concluded that Canadian-produced marijuana accounts for only about 2 per cent of overall U.S. marijuana seizures at its borders. As a November 2002 RCMP report noted , "The United States is basically its own main source of marijuana." Eugene Oscapella Lecturer in Drug Policy, Department of Criminology, University of Ottawa Co-founder, Canadian Foundation for Drug Policy [end]
RE "KHAT'S out of the bag in Ottawa" (April 7): Canada first criminalized khat in 1997. It is still legal in many other countries, including the UK. What has been the consequence of criminalizing khat? Its price rises because of the black market created by its prohibition, making it more profitable to sell -- and more expensive to buy. Hence, buyers in Ottawa must now pay exorbitant prices for it, causing economic distress in the community. Police resources are wasted going after the now illegal drug, and criminals will eventually move in to take their share of the black market profits that our legislators so wisely ensured by prohibiting khat. [continues 66 words]
The Province cites a "top Customs official" as saying that Canada is now the largest single supplier of marijuana to the United States. This is utter nonsense. U.S. government officials, and now apparently Canadian government officials, have often made claims that Canada is a major supplier of cannabis to the U.S. However, the available evidence, including reports from the auditor general of Canada, the RCMP and the United Nations, shows just the opposite -- that Canada is, in fact, only a minor supplier of cannabis to the U.S. The most recent report was produced jointly by Canadian- and U.S. government agencies. The report concluded that Canadian-produced marijuana accounts for only two per cent of overall U.S. marijuana seizures at its borders. Eugene Oscapella, Canadian Foundation for Drug Policy, Ottawa [end]
In Canada tops sales to U.S. in pot, speed (Canadian Press, Jan. 26), you cite a "top customs official" as saying that Canada is now the largest single supplier of pot to the United States. This is utter nonsense. U.S. government officials, and now apparently Canadian government officials, have often made claims that Canada is a major supplier of cannabis to the U.S. However, the available evidence, including reports from the auditor general of Canada, the RCMP, the U.S. and the United Nations, shows just the opposite -- that Canada is in fact only a minor supplier of cannabis to the U.S. The most recent report, produced jointly by Canadian and U.S. government agencies, concluded that Canadian-produced marijuana accounts for only approximately 2% of overall U.S. marijuana seizures at its borders. Eugene Oscapella Canadian Foundation for Drug Policy Ottawa (More at www.cfdp.ca/export.htm) [end]
Re: Canada net exporter of drugs, official says, Jan. 26 The article cites "top customs official" George Webb as saying that Canada is now the largest single supplier of pot to the United States. This is utter nonsense. U.S. government officials, and now apparently Canadian, have often made claims that Canada is a major supplier of cannabis to the U.S. However, the available evidence, including reports from the auditor general of Canada, the RCMP, the U.S. and the United Nations, shows just the opposite -- that Canada is in fact only a minor supplier of cannabis to the U.S. [continues 72 words]
Re: "Drugs blamed in holdups of Lethbridge cabbies," Oct. 5. Your headline should have read: "Drug prohibition blamed in holdups." Prohibition hugely inflates the price of drugs that would otherwise cost relatively little. End prohibition, and you will end the need to commit robberies for money to buy drugs. Not only will cab drivers be safer, but we could use the criminal justice funds we save to treat drug problems as they should be treated, as a health and social issue. Eugene Oscapella Ottawa [end]
Editor: You say that date-rape drugs should be considered weapons. If that is your position with respect to GHB and Rohypnol, that should also be your position with respect to alcohol. Alcohol is far and away the greatest date-rape drug in our society. We should focus on the misuse of alcohol in this context, not get caught up in the hysteria over the much less frequent use of GHB and Rohypnol. [continues 109 words]
As you prepare to log your 100,000th news clipping, may I take the opportunity to congratulate you and to thank you profoundly for what you have done to promote intelligent, informed discussion on drug policy issues in Canada and around the world. I can think of no other web site on which I rely so heavily and consistently to determine the pulse of drug policy. Equally important, I regularly rely on the MAP archives to pull out stories from the distant and not-so-distant past. These archives are worth their weight in gold. [continues 89 words]
Ottawa -- It is more than a little disingenuous to boast that Canada is the first country in the world to allow access to marijuana for medical purposes (Marijuana Regulation Draws Fire -- July 31). Innovators we are not. Several U.S. states, with a collective population much larger than Canada's, have either passed laws permitting medical access, or have seen voter referendums compel medical access. Several countries in Europe have decriminalized or legalized cannabis possession -- for any purpose. The Netherlands was the first to do so, in 1976. This was 25 years before our timid Canadian step of giving access to those who survive long enough to cross the sea of red tape that the new medical marijuana regulations impose. [end]
Re: One Step Closer to a Police State, June 15. The war on drugs has served as a justification for numerous, often excessive, intrusions into the private lives of Canadians -- the latest being the federal money-laundering provisions described by Terence Corcoran. Nothing more closely resembles the actions of an authoritarian society than the intrusions we are forced to endure in this futile and destructive war. First, we engender a lucrative black market by prohibiting drugs. Then, to attack the profits flowing from the black market we create, police and governments assert the right to diminish the fundamental rights of all Canadians. Eventually, those "exceptional" powers of intrusion introduced to deal with drugs will evolve into the norm in many areas of state-citizen interaction. Sic transit liberty. Eugene Oscapella Canadian Foundation for Drug Policy Ottawa [end]
MP Paul Szabo alleges that the "health and social experts" who appeared in 1994-95 before his health subcommittee on the bill that became our drug laws were "in total concensus" that drug "legalization" would be a "terrible direction to go in". I beg to differ.("Day seeks free vote on drug legalization", Sept. 20) Neither the Canadian Foundation for Drug Policy that I represented at those hearings in 1994, nor the Canadian Bar Association, nor several other respected groups of "health and social experts," ever took the position he recalls. [continues 162 words]
Neither the Canadian Foundation for Drug Policy that I represented at those hearings in 1994, nor the Canadian Bar Association, nor several other respected groups of "health and social experts," ever took the position he recalls. His characterization of the debate on the issue is all the more troubling, since in 1996 I restated our position before a Health of Commons health committee examining drug policy. Mr Szabo was a member of that committee as well. Looks like selective amnesia to me. [continues 132 words]
Unfortunately, Charles Gordon's column ("Second thoughts on the war on the war on drugs," June 25) typifies much of the rather muddled thinking on this issue. It is also very much out of step with the more rational analysis of drug policy that has appeared in the Citizen in recent times. Mr. Gordon makes the assumption that the alternative to the current system of criminal prohibition of drugs is complete legalization, with no controls. This greatly distorts the position of most drug policy reformers, who call for health-based regulatory alternatives to the use of the criminal law. [continues 402 words]
This week's United Nations summit on drug policy in New York is an appropriate occasion to reflect on the global war on drugs and on Canada's part in that war. Every decade, the UN adopts new international drug-control conventions, focused largely on criminalization and punishment, that prevent individual nations from devising local solutions to local drug problems. Every year, governments enact more punative and costly drug-control conventions and politicians endorse harsher drug-war strategies. The result? UN agencies estimate the annual revenue generated by the illegal drug industry at $400-billion (U.S.), roughly the equivalent of 8 per cent of total international trade. This industry has empowered organized criminals, corrupted governments, eroded internal security, stimulated violence and distorted economic markets. These are the consequences not of drug use as such, but of decades of futile prohibitionist policies. [continues 432 words]
HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN Respondent and CHRISTOPHER CLAY Applicant Affidavit Of Eugene Oscapella I, EUGENE OSCAPELLA, of the City of Ottawa in the Province of Ontario, MAKE OATH AND SAY AS FOLLOWS: 1. I am a barrister and solicitor in the Province of Ontario having been called to the Bar in 1980. I have worked as a researcher and consultant for many government agencies including the Law Reform Commission of Canada, the Department of Justice, the Ontario Law Reform Commission and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. In addition, I served as the first Chair of the Drug Policy Group of the Law Reform Commission of Canada and also now serve as a member of the policy committee of the Canadian Criminal Justice Association. I am a founding member of the Canadian Foundation for Drug Policy and, among my other professional duties, I currently serve as one of the Directors for this foundation. The Canadian Foundation for Drug Policy is a non-profit organization founded in 1993 by several of Canada's leading specialists in drug policy. The Foundation is designed to act as a forum for the exchange of views of the reform of Canada's drug policy and, where necessary, to recommend law reform alternatives that will make Canada's drug law and policies more effective and humane. Attached hereto to this affidavit and marked as Exhibit "A" is a copy of my curriculum vitae. [continues 1392 words]
