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Senator Nolin Comes to Washington
Pubdate: Fri, 2 May 2003
Source: The Week Online with DRCNet (US Web)
Contact: http://www.drcnet.org/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2514
Author: Phillip S. Smith, Editor
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Nolin (Senator Nolin)
SENATOR NOLIN COMES TO WASHINGTON
As part of an ongoing effort to raise the profile of drug legalization as a
sensible policy response to drug prohibition and its attendant "war on
drugs" within the drug reform movement and among the public at large, the
International Antiprohibitionist League
(http://www.antiprohibitionist.org), an affiliate of the Transnational
Radical Party, hosted a Washington, DC, press conference last Tuesday
(4/29) featuring Sen. Pierre Claude Nolin, chairman of the Canadian Senate
committee that recently called for marijuana legalization. The event,
organized by IAL president and professor emeritus of American University
Arnold Trebach, also featured Member of the European Parliament Marco
Cappato, the founder and coordinator of Parliamentarians for
Antiprohibitionist Action, and was held under the banner of the ongoing
global campaign, "Out from the Shadows: Ending Drug Prohibition in the 21st
Century" (http://www.stopthedrugwar.org/shadows/).
Coming within the context of a movement for drug legalization that has
in recent months begun to step out from the shadows -- with a pair of
eponymously-named conferences in Brussels and Merida so far and more
to come -- the opposition to more drug war politics as usual evidenced
last month at the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs meeting in Vienna,
and Canadian moves to decriminalize or depenalize marijuana, the
Wednesday press conference provided an opportunity for
anti-prohibitionist voices to take their case to the US press and public.
Years of work in the trenches have convinced Trebach, founder of the
Drug Policy Foundation and the grand old man of US drug reform, that
half-way measures to end the drug war are not enough, he told the
press conference. "I am apparently addicted to supporting seemingly
hopeless causes" -- Trebach discussed his work as a civil rights
attorney and official working in Mississippi for racial integration at
a time when segregationist sentiment ran deep -- "and I will confess
to supporting yet another one: repeal of the United Nations drug
prohibition treaties so as to allow for the full legalization of drugs
along the alcohol and tobacco models," he said. "When I started out, I
supported and worked for gradual change, or improvements at the edges
of repression, so as to make the current rigid prohibition regime more
humane," including drugs by prescription for addicts, medical
marijuana, and decriminalization. "This bundle of mid-range reforms
has become known as harm reduction, and it is indeed harm reduction
that characterizes the main thrust of the drug policy reform movement
in the United States and in many other civilized nations.
As one of the early supporters and advocates of harm reduction, I
remain steadfast in that position today."
But harm reduction, while necessary, was not sufficient, Trebach said.
"Harm reduction was not enough.
Not enough, in many ways. Not enough because it left in place one of
the worst inventions of the human mind -- those provisions of the
criminal law in every known national code of laws that make criminals
of people who possess substances for ingestion into their own bodies.
Not enough because by providing humane aspects to a destructive
system, it tends to help preserve and perpetuate that system. For
these and many other reasons I am now working for full legalization of
drugs. Only in this way can the system of prohibition be replaced by a
new and more rational legal drug-control system.
As I have said many times, this amounts to replacing the law of the
jungle with the rule of law," Trebach continued.
And despite heartbreakingly slow progress so far, Trebach predicted
that the drug war's days are numbered. "Drug prohibition will not be
forever. You can take that statement to the bank. In time, drug
prohibition will only be a bad memory."
But that day has not yet arrived, and US political leaders are
determined to see it never does, Trebach said, slamming drug czar John
Walters for threats aimed at Canada over its pending marginal drug
reforms. "Recently Canada has strayed from rigid prohibition theology
and is considering decriminalizing or even legalizing marijuana,"
Trebach said, and as a result has faced "harsh and irrational" attacks
from Walters. "I submit, however, that if the United States can
declare that it believes in the freedom of the Iraqi people to choose
a whole new government, then it should damn well declare that it
believes in the freedom of the people of Canada to choose their own
form of drug control."
That was an attitude shared by Canada's Sen. Nolin, who told the
audience that, "Canadians and presumably Americans deserve national
drugs policies that are global, effective and respectful of human
rights." It is increasingly clear that neither has that now, he said.
"Today, politicians, researchers, lawyers, police officers and medical
physicians around the world are no longer afraid to say that the
prohibition of so called illegal drugs which led to the war against
drugs has been a manifest failure.
I firmly believe that for the preservation of life, public health,
personal safety, freedom and democracy, this insidious policy, which
has not had any beneficial long-term effects, needs to be
dismantled."
The UN's manifest faith in prohibition is unwarranted, said Nolin.
"The many international conventions and national statutes advocating
prohibition over the past century -- as well as the attendant
introduction of criminal sanctions and the erosion of individual
rights as miracle solutions to the problem of illegal drugs) -- have
clearly been ineffective in eliminating the supply of and demand for
cannabis, cocaine and heroin," Nolin asserted, citing the reams of
research his committee had reviewed in examining Canada's drug laws.
But perhaps prohibition isn't really -- or merely -- about reducing
drug use, the senator suggested.
Prohibition protects conservative moral values, said Nolin, "and
beyond the declared official rationale for these laws, other factors
such as racism, prejudice and myths, the development of the
pharmaceuticals industry, and the machinery of an enormous nationwide
government bureaucracy to enforce restrictive criminal laws for
illegal substances, are what underpin prohibition."
There is a better way, Nolin said. "In a free and democratic society
like Canada's, citizens ought to have the right to make informed
decisions about their behavior, on condition that they do not cause
undue harm to others, and the state must favor such autonomous
responsibility." His committee's review found that marijuana use does
not cause undue harm to others and should be regulated -- not
prohibited, he said.
But reflecting Canadian sensibilities, Nolin called for marijuana
legalization within "an integrated national strategy on the use of all
psychoactive substances, based on objective guiding principles on
ethics, governance, criminal law and science." That means regulation,
Nolin continued. "For the committee, legalization of cannabis does not
mean establishing a free market environment for drugs, like some are
arguing."
But if a free market in marijuana is not appropriate, said Nolin,
decriminalization is not enough. "Our proposals are more serious and
show more respect for human rights than those that would involve the
depenalization or decriminalization of cannabis.
They would allow states to more effectively combat and tackle the
growing influence of organized crime or terrorism over the long term,
and to provide better public health protection."
Still, said Nolin, Canadian marijuana legalization is unlikely to
happen until the US is also ready to move in that direction. "Even
though Canada is a sovereign country that is free to pass any
legislation it deems appropriate for the welfare of its citizens, the
legalization of cannabis could only be considered while the United
States is also doing so." But he professed confidence that that day
will come. "Why? Because Canadians and Americans want rigorous and
objective information not only about cannabis and other legal and
illegal psychoactive substances, but also about the harmful effects of
the war on drugs.
They know that not all use is abuse. They are becoming increasingly
aware that the actual policy is a costly failure, and are therefore
desperately searching for answers to their legitimate questions.
They want transparency in an informed, comprehensive and democratic
public debate on these substances," he concluded.
Nolin was followed by Cappato, a member of the Transnational Radical
Party and the youngest Italian Member of the European Parliament, but
also coordinator of Parliamentarians for Anti-Prohibitionist Action, a
group aimed at reforming or repealing the UN drug conventions. Over
one-fifth of European Parliament members have signed onto a resolution
calling for such changes, in large part thanks to Cappato's efforts.
After reiterating the arguments against prohibition made by Trebach
and Nolin, Cappato agreed that prohibition must and will end, but
added, "We cannot wait for prohibition to implode by itself.
We can't, because in the meantime terrorists and organized crime
profits are on the rise, official corruption, violence and public
health problems grow with them."
Cappato then detailed the efforts undertaken through the IAL, the Out
from the Shadows conference series, and the TRP to push the cause forward.
A resolution calling on the European Parliament to support "the
antiprohibitionist reform of UN drug conventions," came within one
vote of passage in Brussels last month, he noted.
The measure drew special interest from Central and South America,
where the US-imposed drug war has wreaked havoc, said Cappato. "We
found the support of Colombian and Peruvian legislators from those
areas devastated by forced crop eradication and narco-destabilization,"
he said. "I firmly believe that the antiprohibitionist alternative is
the only one that could convert campesino upheavals into nonviolent
political proposals, while the current situation is playing into the
hands of terrorists and organized criminals."
Instead of seeing reformers attacked as "soft on drugs" or "pro-drug,"
said Cappato, it is time to turn the tables. "After almost a century
of prohibition, the burden of proof is on the prohibitionists. Because
of their destructive and repeated failure, we see the need to take
illicit drugs from the hands of criminals and place them in the hands
of the law, a whole new set of laws. We want to eliminate criminal
profits and treat drugs users and abusers as citizens, not as criminals."
And that will take creative political action, Cappato said. "The more
the people are directly involved, the more the reform camp gets strong.
The anti-war-on-drugs movement is for sure stronger among the people
than it is among elected representatives; and it is stronger among
elected representatives than it is among government officials in
international fora. Faced with continuing irrational prohibition, we
are also aware that institutional tools cannot be enough.
Mahatma Gandhi used to say that you have the duty to disobey unjust
laws. To put at stake our freedom is just another tool to place out in
the open and in the sunlight the consequences of prohibition where
those consequences are covered under ideological clouds." But change
must come in the United States, Cappato said. "We all must face the
fact that until the leaders of the United States have an epiphany
regarding the horrible costs of prohibition, the UN treaties and the
war on drugs will persist on their destructive course.
That is why this press conference in such close proximity to the White
House carries so much symbolic significance, and it is also why we in
the International Antiprohibitionist League intend to intensify our
efforts in North America."
For further information: Video footage of the press conference:
http://www.stopthedrugwar.org/shadows/video/ial-04-29-03.html
IAL web site and global antiprohibitionist petition:
http://www.antiprohibitionist.org
Interview with Marco Cappato: http://www.drcnet.org/wol/281.html#marcocappato
Canadian Foundation for Drug Policy: http://www.cfdp.ca
Canadian Senate Special Committee on Illegal Drugs, including full
text of report: http://www.parl.gc.ca/illegal-drugs.asp
Out from the Shadows campaign: http://www.stopthedrugwar.org/shadows/
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake